How to Use Your Stress to Live a Happier Life
You can’t avoid stress, but you can use it to your advantage
Life is stressful, no doubt about that — money problems, health problems and relationship problems…
But constantly living in a stressful state will lead to sickness, sadness and a significantly lower life expectancy.
If you want to live a long and pleasant life with your loved ones, you must escape the stressful state and become more at peace.
The key?
Use that stress to your advantage.
Stress is slowly destroying you
Feeling stressed is constantly balancing on a tightrope with sharks in the water beneath you.
You can’t relax or take a deep breath.
It’s tough to make good, sound and smart decisions in a stressful state.
When you’re on that tightrope with vicious predators beneath you, you can’t stop and think rationally about your problems. You can’t be a good brother, sister, mother or father.
When you’re stressed, even your body is slowly decaying.
“‘Prolonged stress, for instance, increases the risk of heart disease, addiction, mood disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder,’ said Sinha, who is also director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Stress Center.
It can influence metabolism, accelerating obesity-related disorders such as diabetes. Stress also saps our ability to regulate emotions and to think clearly.”
— Billy Hathaway, Yale News (Dec 2021)
You need to take yourself off that tightrope and onto a sturdy bridge.
But to understand how to avoid stress, we have to understand what stress really is.
The REAL definition of stress
“Stress begins when your worry list is longer than your gratitude list.
Happiness begins when your gratitude list is longer than your worry list.” — John Geiger
When you’re feeling stressed, you’re focusing on what’s wrong, what needs to be done, and things that put pressure on you.
You’re worrying about what might happen tomorrow and everything you don’t have today.
Your worry list begins to spiral out of control:
- What if I never find my dream job?
- What if I never find someone who loves me?
- What if I never have enough money to buy my dream house?
We all have these thoughts — they’re completely natural.
But they put you on that tightrope.
And that’s something you need to change if you want to operate efficiently, if you want to be good to your loved ones and excel in life.
Now, nobody can delete stress from their life.
Stress is like the rain.
- Sometimes it rains hard for days and floods your home.
- Sometimes it lightly sprinkles.
- Sometimes it’s sunny.
You can’t stop the rain from pouring, but you can collect it to for watering your plants, washing your car and for general household use.
Transforming stress into peace and gratitude
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” — William Arthur Ward
Remember, happiness begins when your gratitude list is longer than your worry list.
Use that stressful feeling as a cue to think of all the good things in your life.
- What if I never find my dream job?
I’m lucky to have a stable career that allows me to pay my bills and fund my lifestyle — I might not have my dream job now, but this security that I’m blessed with will help me discover it. - What if I never find someone who loves me?
I have family/friends that love me already. I love myself. I am blessed, I’ve already won. Someone will come along in due time. - What if I never have enough money to buy my dream house?
Even if I never have money to buy my dream house, I have a roof over my head and food on the table. I’m in the top 5–10% of humanity from this alone. My dream house will be a luxury if I keep working hard, but for now, I’m already lucky.
Will you eliminate all stress forever?
Of course not.
But anything you can do to relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw and clear your brain up is an exercise worth doing.
Putt yourself onto that secure bridge and allow yourself to think clearly.
And when you can think clearly, you’ll never have unnecessary stress ruining your mood, decisions and ultimately your life.
Thank you for reading another instalment of ‘Change Your Mind, Change Your Life’, where we discuss how to cultivate a better life without changing a thing in the physical world — by only changing your thoughts.
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Thanks again,
eren
