How Workplace Stress Can Be Good for You

Believe it or not, the workplace can be one of the biggest sources of stress in our lives. It’s important to arm yourself with the knowledge of how to survive in a culture of workplace stress. That’s why our resident human resource expert Tony Deblauwe is investigation both sides of the coin for us here at StopStressingNow.com. It doesn’t all have to be bad. You can learn to use that stress to your own advantage. Here’s Tony:

How Workplace Stress Can Be Good for You

Can Stress Lead To Addiction: Five (5) Warning Signs

Do you have a glass of wine each evening to unwind??

Don’t worry not everybody who uses alcohol or even drugs becomes an addict or an alcoholic.

Many addiction experts agree: you have to have a specific genetic predisposition to become an addict.

However, stress can lead people to try substances that they otherwise wouldn?t. Many times people (with and without genetic predispositions for addiction), first pick up a drink or try a drug in response to a stressor. However, some people can drink frequently or even use some drugs and stop whenever they want! That’s because an addiction, including alcoholism, is not acquired according to most medical evidence you simply can’t catch alcoholism or addiction unless you have that genetic code.

According to current official descriptions, substance abuse is indicated by daily or weekly abuse (or other episodic abuse), without signs of changing tolerance or marked withdrawal symptoms. Addiction is indicated by having signs including increasing or decreasing tolerance to the substance as well as marked withdrawal symptoms.*

So how can you tell if stress might be leading you to abuse chemical substances and placing you on the path towards becoming addicted to alcohol or drugs? If you find yourself frequently or regularly:

The Journey

Yogi Berra said, “You gotta be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.” Despite his famously lopsided logic, I’m sure you get the drift. If you want to get somewhere, it helps if you know where somewhere is.

I’d like to take that one step further. If you want to get somewhere, knowing the starting point is just as critical (if not more) than knowing the end point. With your somewhere in mind, let’s take a look at where you actually are right now so you can create the shortest possible path from here to there.

What Makes Change So Difficult?

You know when it comes to change, people become stuck and rightfully so! You have been doing something for quite some time now and had been successful. You may feel as an expert but more often than not our eyes are not open to just what we have gotten ourselves into. When I work with families, the difficulty arises in change by first in taking a step back and surveying what is happening. What ruts have developed in your family patterns? When you are living life – minute by minute – you do not give yourself the ability to do a self check. Frustrated parents say, “I just thought it could work again this time.” When I point out to families the brick wall they keep running into I ask, I plead –

STOP HURTING YOURSELF & YOUR FAMILY!

Dr. John M. Kennedy – 15 Minute Heart Cure Episode #19

John M. Kennedy, M.D., is the medical director of preventative cardiology and wellness at Marina del Rey Hospital, and author of the new book, The 15 Minute Heart Cure: The Natural Way to Release Stress and Heal Your Heart in Just Minutes a Day.

He has also incorporated the BREATHE™ technique into a company wellness program, BREATHE™ For Company Wellness, which will enable companies to provide a healthy and safe alternative for employee stress release; the program features a private social media component.

Dr. Kennedy is our newest guest blogger here at StopStressingNow.Com and we couldn’t be any more excited to have him on board. I’ve read his amazing book and asked him right away to contribute his life saving knowledge with all of you for 2010.

The Science Of Laughter

The folk wisdom is that “laughter is the best medicine.” Medical science is increasingly able to demonstrate the truth of that saying, and it is not restricted to individual health. Laughter is great medicine for our social relationships too.

In fact, this human urge to connect through laughter is so strong that the number one thing people say they want in a romantic partner is “somebody that makes me laugh.” That’s right: when it comes to our most fundamental and important intimate relationship—the one we hope will last until we die–above all we want somebody we can share laughter with.

Here’s a perspective on laughter that will probably be new to you: laughter and humor are two different things. Laughter, humor, comedy, jokes—they all kind of seem like the same thing, don’t they? But they’re not. Laughter is just a physical act. It’s pushing the air out from our lungs and making that familiar ha-ha-ha sound. You can think of it as a form of exercise, something you can voluntarily do anytime you want, like going for a walk or touching your toes.

Comedy or humor, on the other hand, is mental. We’ve all had the experience of somebody telling us a joke they thought was just great. But when we hear it we don’t think it’s funny, so we don’t laugh. Drawing a distinction between laughter and humor actually gives us a very powerful tool, because it puts laughter under our voluntary control. We’re not dependant on anything from the outside to “make” us laugh. We don’t have to “think” anything is funny. We can just laugh—yep, for no reason, just because it’s good to be alive.

The odd thing is, our body and our mind reacts to laughter the same way regardless of the cause.

One of life’s ‘missed connections’

“CONNECTIONS: Everyone Happens for a Reason” is a collection of real-life stories and eye-opening facts illustrating our biological need to connect with each other, from the bedroom to the boardroom, from our first breath to our last wish, from the womb to the tomb. Although our society has never been so seemingly connected – through email, text message, instant message, cell phones, Blackberries, cyberspace chat rooms, etc. – we’re not very connected, leading to the trademarked “Laws of Connection,” and featuring dozens of people’s key connections, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, of “Oprah” fame.

I Am A World Trade Center Survivor

StopStressingNow.Com – Facing death almost always forces an individual to assess what is really important in life. My story is no different. Hello, my name is Nicole Simpson and I am a World Trade Center survivor. My life was totally fulfilled and I was achieving the American dream on September 10, 2001. But the next day changed everything. I represent the typical family – a wife and mother of two children. We were a two income household living in a nice community attempting to increase our quality of life. Then disaster hit us all. Scared and uncertain of what the future was going to hold, I faced many obstacles after the tragic events.

Shawn Anderson – Going The Extra Mile – Episode #18

Shawn Anderson is a writer and national speaker on the topic of “possibility thinking and creating opportunity.” Referred to by media outlets across the country as the “Extra Mile Man,” Shawn has a life mission of empowering 1,000,000 people to lead a more positive and purposeful existence. Shawn’s first three books have sold 65,000 copies.

In 2009, Shawn finished the Extra Mile America Tour…a solo 4,000 mile bike ride from San Francisco to Boston. On the 90 day trip, he visited 21 cities and interviewed 200+ people who had overcome significant challenges in order to do something great. Endorsed by leaders across the country, Shawn established “November 1″ as “Extra Mile Day” in 22 cities and states across the country.

“Ouches!”

As adults, we get plenty of ouches, too.

We lose jobs, experience failing businesses, deal with relationship break-ups, struggle through money issues…there is an endless list of mental, physical and emotional ouches that sting us regularly.

Very much like when we were kids.

But the problem with ouches now…as adults…is that we seem to have forgotten all the steps that got us through the falls in our early years. Sure, we have the “fall down” thing mastered (often a little too well for our own liking). Most of us have even developed professional status in “crying” (it’s called “whining” as an adult). And when it comes to “telling someone about the hurt,” it seems we have become quite adept at sharing with anybody who will listen.

However, it seems, that we have totally forgotten step four in the success guide:

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