Effective Stress Management for Business Owners
Albert Einstein 1879-1955
From discord, make harmony,
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Stress management is probably best described as a combination of various strategies for:
1. Bolstering one’s overall health through proper diet, rest and relaxation, moderate exercise, and other healthy lifestyle practices.
2. Minimizing all sources of stress.
3. Altering one’s beliefs and perceptions of one’s job and life in general.
Your personal style for managing stress is actually important for preventing stress and improving health. This book is based on the assumption that your personality which is made up of your beliefs, values, personal habits, and conventions governs the way you manage your stress and health. Your personality and style is articulated through the principles you value. These principles are like your natural laws and are as fundamental as laws in the universe. If you want to be effective in changing the way you manage stress and health, you must work within your unique style or paradigm.
“Burnout,” or overstimulation, is caused by the long-lasting effects of prolonged stress and feeling overloaded and unable to cope. The person cannot carry out his or her activities and feels exhausted and without energy. In cases of prolonged overstimulation, the effects may be fragmentation of thought, loss of integrating ability, and what is called tunnel vision, meaning that we perceive only small parts of the processes going on around us and miss essential information.
Rustout and burnout have rather negative implications. Negative stress is associated with overload and underload and is characterized by anxiety, frustration, worry, tension, and frustration, as well as inability to handle conflict, change, or challenges.
Stress Management Principles
Principle 1: Recognizing the Dragon Within You.
- In other words, know yourself and how your personality may affect the way you deal with stress.
Principle 2: Control Your Organization: Don’t Let It Control You.
Your desire to fulfill yourself in your organization and career can provoke stress. This principle illustrates the importance of managing a stress-promoting organization.
Principle 3: Establish Winning Relationships.
Relationships, either at work or outside work, can cause the most stress. Conflictive relationships are an ever-increasing cause of stress. Healthy relationships can invigorate you and help you deal with other types of stress.
Principle 4: Enrich Your Job.
- Jobs can be stressful because they are overloading or under-stimulating. Finding the balance is the key.
Principle 5: Control Life’s Trials and Tribulations.
- One of the keys to stress management is to develop a better understanding of your values. The goal is to focus your work and life on the values which are most important to you and your career.
Principle 6: Reduce Stress-Promoting Foods.
- Certain foods can help you respond to stress. They can give you energy. In the same way, certain foods are more stressful for your body to handle. A nutritional plan allows you to understand how your diet can affect your ability to handle stress.
Principle 7: Kill Anxiety with Exercise.
Exercise is one of the most effective strategies for reducing stress. However, certain exercise programs can be counterproductive. An effective exercise program helps you deal with some of your anxiety
Principle 8: Use the Power Within You.
- Meditation gives your mind a rest. It also helps you utilize your subconscious, and focus your mind in being proactive in handling stress.
These principles are not laws. They are rules of thumb that are based on scientific practice as well as commonsense experience. Principles go beyond science in that they encourage you to recognize your own style, body type, and genetic background.
