Living In Gratitude: 19 Ways To Minimize Stress

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It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it. ~ Hans Selye

Stress is a part of daily life. This state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from the demands and pressures of life and work can result in headaches, fatigue, problems sleeping, difficulty making decisions and a host of other symptoms.

Below are 19 tips on how to manage and minimize stress.

  1. Chocolate meditation

  • Choose a chocolate that is indulgent or that you’ve never eaten. Dark chocolate is especially ideal for this exercise.
  • Open the packet. Inhale the aroma. Let it sweep over you.
  • Break off a piece and look at it. Really let your eyes drink in what it looks like, examining every nook and cranny.
  • Pop it in your mouth. See if it’s possible to hold it on your tongue and let it melt. Chocolate has over 300 different flavours. See if you can sense some of them.
  • If you notice your mind wandering, simply notice where it went and gently escort it back to the present moment.
  • After the chocolate has completely melted, swallow it very slowly and deliberately. Let it trickle down your throat.
  • Repeat this with one other piece.

2. Write down worries in a journal

The physical act of writing things down helps minimize stress by moving them from inside ourselves to an outside space.

3. Peel an orange

Studies show the smell of citrus is a tension tamer.

91 Savor each moment

4. Experience nature

Getting outside and enjoying nature is a great way to minimize stress. Focus on the sights, smells and sounds around you. Breathe deeply. Feel the movement of your body. Read more

Living In Gratitude: 10 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships

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Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you. ~Anonymous

Social media has enabled us to stay in touch with friends near and far but it doesn’t necessarily equate to meaningful relationships.

Close friendships require time and energy. They need to be nurtured and attended to. Below are 10 ways to cultivate successful relationships with family, friends and even coworkers.

1.  BE HAPPY WITH OURSELVES

Liking ourselves is the foundation for others to connect with us. After all, if we fundamentally don’t like who we are, why would anyone else?

2. LEARN TO LISTEN AND UNDERSTAND

Be the person who listens, hearing others without interrupting. Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give another person. Allowing someone to speak, be heard and understood is an invaluable part of every meaningful relationship. Read more

Living In Gratitude: Stop Autopilot Apologies

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You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop and what you reinforce. ~Tony Gaskins

We all know people who apologize for everything, even if they’ve done nothing wrong. Maybe we’re actually one of those people.

There are times when an apology is warranted, but when we say we’re sorry for anything that makes us remotely ill at ease, this can quickly become a harmful habit, lowering our self-esteem, justifying other people’s poor behavior or actions, and turning us into a pushover.

Have you ever apologized when someone bumped into you in a crowded restaurant or store? Or when a peer critiqued your work? How about when someone did a chore or task that you were supposed to do but didn’t? Or maybe when you wanted someone to explain something in more detail?

This automatic apologetic reaction many of us have is used to diffuse confrontation, placate others and avoid making things awkward. That unwarranted apology automatically lets others know we believe we are at fault, even if we’re not.

And the more we make this autopilot apologizing a routine, the more we’ll use it in situations that DO matter. They also communicate that we’d rather be agreeable than honest. Over time, people will begin to see us as pushovers, someone who will take the blame, be the fall guy or girl and can (and will) be taken advantage of.

Pushover logo

So, how do we stop this pushover behavior?

Have An Apology Recap

When we find ourselves issuing an apology, we should ask ourselves two key questions.

  1. “Did I actually do something wrong?”
  2. And if not, “Did I want to communicate that I think I did something wrong?”

Read more

Living In Gratitude: 7 Questions To Ask Yourself At The End of Every Day

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Our days are filled with asking questions of others: coworkers, managers, teachers, partners, children, customer service personnel but there is one person we rarely ask anything.

Ourselves.

By asking these seven key questions, we frame our mindset with an optimistic outlook. This allows us to reflect on the day that just ended as well as set ourselves up for success tomorrow.

7 Questions To Ask Yourself At The End of Every Day

1. WHAT DID I LEARN TODAY?

Even if we don’t realize it, we learn something new every day. By taking time to acknowledge what we’ve learned gives us a sense of accomplishment. It contributes to our wellbeing, helping us grow and change. This recognition of learning opens us up to actively seeking more knowledge. Read more

Living In Gratitude: 6 Steps to Living in the Moment

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We live in an age of constant distraction. Every day, we are bombarded with a myriad of interruptions, which have only gotten more frequent thanks to ever-evolving technology. We can be consumed by self-consciousness, anxiety and stress. These disturbances often have us fretting about the future or contemplating past mistakes. They take us away from living in the present moment.

We’re living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence. ~ Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace

Our thoughts often control us, “coursing through our mind like a deafening waterfall”. Buddists refer to it as the Monkey Mind, because our consciousness vaults from thought to thought like a monkey swinging from one tree to another. This inhibits our ability to live in and enjoy the present.

Mindfulness is when we learn to quiet our monkey mind and live in the moment in a state of “active, open, intentional attention on the present.” Being mindful allows us to observe our thoughts without judgment. Rather than letting our thoughts control us, being mindful awakens us to experience life in the here and now.  Read more

Living In Gratitude: Science Says Do These 11 Things Daily To Be Happier & More Productive

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It’s a safe assumption to say that all of us want to be happy. But did you know that in addition to feeling lighthearted and content, happiness also boosts our personal productivity?

Science has proven that happy people accomplish more.

And, there are simple, scientifically proven things we can do daily to increase our happiness quotient.

1. Smile more

A genuine smile make us feel good. Smiling enhances our mood, increasing our attention and focus while reducing stress, especially during challenging times. A true smile involves our entire face, reaching and including our eyes.

Science shows smiling is beneficial:

“A new study led by a Michigan State University business scholar suggests customer-service workers who fake smile throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts–such as a tropical vacation or a child’s recital–improve their mood and withdraw less.”

2. Exercise for 7 minutes

Exercise has an overwhelming impact on our happiness and well-being. Even a small, daily dose can dramatically enhance happiness. We can all find time to squeeze in 7 minutes to take a brisk walk, bust out some jumping jacks or dance to our favorite song.

Exercise can help you relax, increase your brainpower, and even improve your body image, even if you don’t lose any weight. A study in the Journal of Health Psychology found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies even when they saw no physical changes. Read more

Living In Gratitude: 5 Myths About Being Grateful

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Does gratitude make us lazy? Naive?

Robert Emmons, the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, debunks five of the most common myths and misconceptions about being grateful.

1. Gratitude leads to complacency

If we are grateful, will we be motivated to challenge the status quo or improve our lot in life?

In reality, studies suggest that the opposite is true: Gratitude drives a sense of purpose and a desire to do more.

People are actually more successful at reaching their goals when they consciously practice gratitude. Among a group of study participants, the grateful group tasked to keep a gratitude journal made 20 percent more progress toward their goals than the non-grateful group and they continue to strive harder toward their goals. Read more

Living In Gratitude: Resilience

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I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. ~Carl Gustav Jung

Resilience is our capacity for stress-related growth, to recover quickly from difficulties.

There are two distinct aspects to resilience:

  • Durability or hardiness, which is 0ur ability to manage daily stressors and hassles successfully
  • Bouncing Back, our capacity to effectively recover and grow from major life adversities like death or divorce

We can build and reinforce our resilience muscles by focusing on three key things.

  1. THINK DIFFERENTLY

By recognizing and understanding how we think about adversity, stress and challenging scenarios, we can alter how we think about them and as such, how we react to them. Our thinking runs along a sliding scale from optimism to pessimism.

People who have a more pessimistic way of thinking tend to impart personalization, permanence and pervasiveness on stressful situations. They tell themselves:

“This problem will be around forever. It will affect my entire life and its all my fault.”

Consistent pessimistic thinking increases our likelihood of depression, anxiety, hopelessness and helplessness. Read more

Living In Gratitude: 20 Things You Will Be Glad You Did In Life

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I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ~Diane Ackerman

1. Traveling 

Traveling broadens our horizons. It exposes us to new cultures, food, languages and ways of thinking as well as the awe-inspiring beauty of the world.

2. Learning another language

Being able to communicate in languages other than your native tongue is a wonderful gift.

3. Being brave enough to do new things

Not letting fear hold you back enables you to experience new adventures and learn new things. After all, you had to do everything for the first time…

4. Making physical fitness a priority

Your body is amazing. Take good care of it so it will carry you through life, to new places, up hills and into valleys. Read more

Living In Gratitude: Diversity

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No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. ~Nelson Mandela

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all accepted ourselves and others exactly as we are?

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we lived from a place of love and acceptance, grateful for the wondrous diversity the world has to offer?

It’s okay that we are all different, that we have unique opinions and distinct beliefs.

Consider how bland life would be if everything was the same. If there was only one kind of tree, one type of flower, one landscape, one food, one aroma, one song, one book. Read more