Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Top three protecting shields

James Thomas (http://christian-life-coaching.blogspot.com/) delivers the top three protecting shields as determined by me.

These protecting shields guard us against stress, and are very Biblical as well. James brings in scripture to support these as Christian principles.

very nice video

please follow the link

http://christian-life-coaching.blogspot.com/2008/12/three-protecting-shields.html

or

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=rOQ14Nttk6k

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Becoming Survival of the fittest

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." -Albert Einstein

Wish you happy New Year 2009

400 year old tree is near by  Puducherry, India. Learn from this tree, better equipped yourself, learn,  share, grow. Develop your support systems and skills.

Happy New year and Happy bloging!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Self-Help book

An excellent self-help book by Dr. Clayton E. Tucker-Ladd

resource including,

Introduction
CHAPTER 1 Understandings about Self-Help
CHAPTER 2 Steps in Self-Help

Understanding the Solution and the Problem
CHAPTER 3 Values and Morals: Guidelines for Living
CHAPTER 4 Behavior, Motivation, and Self-Control
CHAPTER 5 Stress, Anxiety, Fears,
and Psychosomatic Disorders
CHAPTER 6 Happiness, Depression and Self-Concept
CHAPTER 7 Anger and Aggression
CHAPTER 8 Dependency and Conformity
CHAPTER 9 Understanding Ourselves and Our Relationships
CHAPTER 10 Dating, Love, Marriage, and Sex

How to Apply Self-Help Methods
CHAPTER 11 Methods for Changing Behavior
CHAPTER 12 Methods of Changing Emotions
CHAPTER 13 Methods for Developing Skills
CHAPTER 14 Methods for Changing Our Thoughts,
Attitudes, Self-concept, Motivation,
Values, and Expectations
CHAPTER 15 Methods for Gaining Insight into Ourselves

I just love to read this books it is a excellent self-help encyclopedia not a book. my sincere thanks to the Dr. Clayton E. Tucker-Ladd 

Link

http://psychologicalselfhelp.org/

Students and stress

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, nor to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. "            -Buddha

 Pressures facing college students have been a cause of concern because of their impact both on mental health and academic performance. In recent years, homesickness and worries associated with meeting course requirements are good examples, although non academic worries are often included. Individuals in colleges and universities experience a wide array of stressful events. Many students move away from home for the first time. This can necessitate leaving all previously learned support systems such as parents, siblings and high school friends. Students may need to develop entirely new social contacts. They might be responsible for their own needs for the first time. They may have difficulty adjusting to more rigorous academic expectations and the need to learn to deal with individuals of differing cultures and beliefs.  The term has also been used to refer to life events and difficulties such as bereavement or financial hardship that may be considered universally threatening without the proviso in assessment that the event caused stress, upset, or worry. If students successfully cope with changes and challenges, it can also provide the opportunity to learn new competencies and to develop new and rewarding social relationships. To reduce the academic stress and increase your performance,

check your ABCD...

  • Avoidance - you avoid something even it is very important
  • Believe - self- created limitations
  • Comparison- that demotivates you
  • Distraction - obstacles, findout what bulling you back
  • Effort - how / where you spend most of your time, energy
  • Feel it then Fix it

 

Friday, December 26, 2008

stress coping resource

Coping.org, home of the Tools for Coping Series - onsite manuals for coping with a variety of life's stressors. excellent resources
Tools for Handling Loss
Tools for Personal Growth
Tools for Relationships
Tools for Communication
Tools for Anger Work-OutTools for Handling Control Issues

link

http://www.coping.org/


Emotion and stress

"Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself" - James Allen

Mostly not the event itself but our distressing emotions such as anger, fear, worry or shame/guilt make us feel worst and cause ineffective handling of the situations. Primarily stress coping attempt to coping with our own distressing emotions. There is an inverse relationship between our rational thinking and distressing emotions. When we are stressful our thinking will be very narrow. 
 
For example
Feel about “love” - passionately 
Think about “love” – rationally 
You can feel the difference between the two

Our appraisal plays a major role that determines our emotional experiences. Reappraisal decreases negative emotions. Under stress there is a overlap between positive and negative emotion which in turn we confused about our feelings and problems. We can see in our every day lives, If someone under stress, is confused the other person help him/her to take decision but the other person have such type of problem he also turn others to help to take decision. This is because present and absents of distressing emotions.
Person who are emotionally intelligent will perceive and appraise their emotional states and know how and when to express their feelings. These competencies help him to cope up successfully with his stress.

Emotional intelligence/ competence/ maturity is nothing but
Understand, manage and control our own emotions
Understand, manage and control others emotion

The good news is we can learn to control our emotions. The bad news is our innate fighting urge and unconscious impulsive reactions prevent us from controlling our emotions.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Web resources

An excellent video presentation found in http://christian-life-coaching.blogspot.com/

Please follow the link

http://christian-life-coaching.blogspot.com/2008/12/top-3-methods-of-coping-with-stress.html

Attitude and stress


To change your circumstances, first start thinking differently.
—Norman Vincent Peale


Attitudes are important because they shape our perceptions of the beliefs about events, situations, and people which influence our behaviors. Attitude is our mental filter through which we experience the world. They are formed gradually though experiences and learning. Attitude can increase stress and negatively impact your physical and emotional well-being. Some of our attitude creates stress such as,

"1 must always please people and live up to everyone's expectations." 
"I am basically defective and inferior to other people." 
"I must always be perfect." 
“Others must accept me”
“No one understand me”
“No one respect me”
“I must do it myself”
“My life is running me”
“I must not fail”
“I cannot say no to someone or something”
“Other people exploit me”

By changing our attitude, perception and reactions to stress we can reduce stress this will positively impact your health and well-being. Be flexible with our rigid attitudes. We need to check our attitudes very often because we may not aware of it. The good news is if we aware, it is very easy to change. Negative thoughts drain you. Positive thoughts energize you. And you have a choice. Only you are responsible for your experiences of life.

Friday, December 19, 2008

3.Stress, Proactive coping and General perceived self-efficacy

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?- Buddha
My research work- 3


General self-efficacy is the belief in ones own competence to deal effectively with stressful demands. Proactive coping emphasizes the individual’s effort to takes initiative rather than reacting to it. Study findings revealed that beliefs about one’s own competence help the person to take initiative (proactive) to stressors instead of reacting to it and also perceive less stress. 

Now, I have been developing a training manual to enhancing proactive coping skills. This will help the person to develop and use their personal and social resources more effectively which will help the person to learn to use their every day stress for their personal growth. 

All my research works submitted to various journals. However you can get by sending mail to me if you want to learn more about it. My sincere thanks to the authors, who are all, contributed the theories and tools for my research. 

Further reading and Web resources

1.Zweig & Webster: What are we measuring? An examination of the relationships between the big-five personality traits, goal orientation, and performance intentions, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 36, Issue 7, Pages 1693-1708, May 2004.
2.Schwarzer, R. (1998). General Perceived Self-Efficacy in 14 Cultures.{On-line}. Available:
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~health/lingua5.htm.

3. Greenglass, E. R., Schwarzer, R., & Taubert, S. (1999). The Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI): A multidimensional research instrument. [On-line publication. Available at: http://www.psych.yorku.ca/greenglass/].

The Personal Style Inventory (PSI) Learning Kit encourages you to achieve greater flexibility and integration in your use of the rational versus intuitive ways of being in the world. 

http://www.the-intuitive-self.org/scripts/frameit/intro.cgi?/website/introduction/assess/psi_learning_kit.html

2.Stress coping and cognitive styles

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. -Buddha


My research work- 2

People differ in their relative preferences for ‘logical’ and ‘intuitive’ ways of dealing with situation, they have widely use four types of coping viz, approach, avoidance, emotional regulation and reappraisal. I have found that the cognitive styles have significantly influence on their ability to cope up with stress.
Logical describes an individual who makes judgments based on reason and focuses on specific details.
Intuitive describe an individual who makes judgments based on feelings and adopts a global approach (big picture-holistic).

Findings revealed that intuitive thinking leads to positive approach oriented coping whereas logical thinking leads to avoidance and emotional focused coping. Integration of both logical and intuitive thinking leads to reappraisal coping. According to transactional approach and meaning making cognitive reappraisal are central in determining whether a situation is potential threatening, harmful or challenging and cognition determine both the perception of stress and the individual’s reaction to it. Much of our thinking left to itself biased, distorted, partial and prejudiced. When we encounter uncertain or uncontrollable events only our logical thinking may not be helpful and leads to emotional reaction and avoidance coping. We need to develop integration of both logical and intuitive thinking to promote cognitive reappraisal (big picture – holistic) and to deal with stressful situation more effectively.

1.Stress coping skills and goal orientation

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself" - Jim Rohn


My research work- 1

My personal interest is to find out why people differ so greatly in their response to stress, and how can I help them to develop appropriate coping skills. Here I am presenting some of my research works. To avoid technical jargon I have simply presents the important conclusions.

Stress coping play a major role which determines how students approach and engage learning activities.

Stress coping skills that makes the students to seek to develop their skills,
1.Resourcefulness
2.Ability to relax
3.Ability to access situation
4.Self-reliance
5.Adaptability and flexibility

Students who focuses in their ‘process of learning’ wants to learn something from their complex task but they don’t focus on their end result.

Stress coping skills that makes the students to approach their task
to demonstrate their ability and competence,
1.Resourcefulness
2.Ability to relax
3.Ability to Access situation

4.Proactive attitude
If missing the above skills, students may simply
avoid the learning task. Learning coupled with approach orientation will be helpful to the students to achieve something.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Top three coping method

1. Proactive coping

You can do something before the stressful events occur!
One can cope before stressful events take place, while it is happening or afterwards.
We can anticipate, prevent, or seek challenges. We can increase or invest our
personal, social resources effectively. We can not wait for the things happened, we
can make the things happen by our active effort.
Example for proactive coping
-preparing for an exam or an interview well in advance
-managing our time or relationship
-working out our plan or goal with commitment

Changing our attitude focusing the present or future events

2. Meaning making

You can do something even after the stressful events
Sometime changing the way we think, feel and act will help us to deal with our
stress. Reorganizing, reinterpreting, reframing, restructuring and looking for the
positive of stressful events are the ways to make meaning. many of the
psychotherapy aims at nothing but changing the way of thinking, feeling and
acting. Changing our self to fit into the unchangeable external reality is essential to
cope with it.
Example for the meaning making
We can take a new look make new meaning
Failure as a feedback
Change as a challenge
Obstacle as an opportunity

Changing our response to the past or present event

3. Religious coping

You can do something even in extreme stress
All religions offer a framework for understanding, interpreting and accepting our
stressful life events. When we encounter uncontrollable circumstances the only thing
we can do to comfort ourselves is to surrender to God, the almighty. This will give at
least the illusion of control over the situation. Positive religious coping is the only
way if all the coping methods failed. this method can give us a sense of relief and
peace in extremely uncontrollable stressful circumstances.
Example
Think how one can cope with these following situations!
Death of loved one
Life threatening, incurable illness such as cancer
Violence, terrorism
Transforming oneself beyond their own limits,To gain strength and acceptance

Top three protecting shield, that helps us to deal with our stress.

1. Personal development

How we relate with ourselves
Personal attributes such as self-esteem, self-worth, self-determinism, optimism,
hope and self-efficacy directly related to our stress. Personal development is the first
protecting shield from stress. We need to feel good about ourselves.

Take personal responsibility

2. Social development

How we relate with others
Our communication, relationships, giving receiving help and managing conflict
all requires honesty, genuineness, and mutual trust. We need other persons help and
support to cope with stress. This will be the second protecting shield that protects us from
stress.

Take social responsibility

3. Work or task

How we relate with our task or work
Only through our meaningful contribution or achievement we can believe
our ability, meaningful contribution and our achievements make us feel worthy,
boost our esteem. We may gain new friends others may appreciate accept and
respect us. We need to achieve, learn or contribute something. This is the third
protecting shield that helps us from stress.

Contribute something meaningfully

These three domains in our life serve as protecting shields which make a
difference in our life. If we learn to respond instead of reacting to our life events
we can gain something which will help us to transform our life greatly.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Three step coping process

     "Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule"-Buddha

          Our personal experiences can influence our perception, appraisal of the situation and coping strategies. Under stress we do not have much thoughtful to processing information as when our lives are calm. Changing the relational meaning of what is happening is a very powerful and widely employed device for regulating stress and feelings. Self-regulation consists of learning to delay action, being aware of both what one is feeling and thinking as well as how one is presenting oneself. Our responses to stressful events are the key to successful adaptation and personal growth. The first step to coping with our life events is to aware of our own habitual reaction to the situation. The second step is to assume responsibility to engage our thinking in helpful ways. Third step will be to choose our action in appropriate manner so that we can cope with it more constructively.

3 'A'-Aware, Assume responsibility, Act

constructive action will be, check it

What is lacking in you? Each area is important to handle life events
1. Knowledge- gathers relevant information 
2. Skills – acquire needed skills
3. Objectives- take a new look, make new meaning, have clear goal and plan
4. Practice – do the daily routine such as regular exercise diet, relaxation and carryout action towards the goal/plan  
5. Social support – give receive help from others, talk to someone you trust


stress software

  • blog I have found very useful related to stress coping.

    this blog contains nice informational videos, relationship advice, communication articles and stress management guidance.

        http://christian-life-coaching.blogspot.com/ 

  • This interactive software program provides information and self-assessments regarding stress and stress management. Written particularly for college and university audiences, and is also suitable the general public and for junior high and high schools. This program is free;

Download link:

http://www.ualberta.ca/afs/ualberta.ca/dept/health/public_ftp/windows/stress.zip 

  • Another intractive software shows how stress affects our body

please follow the link

http://www.apahelpcenter.org/anatomy/ 

Resource on the web

critical thinking website

http://www.criticalthinking.org/ 

Dr. Stephen Palmer

http://www.managingstress.com/

Dr. Ralf Schwarzer

http://web.fu-berlin.de/gesund/publicat/ehps_cd/health/author.htm

Dr.Smith, relaxation and other tools

http://drsmith.deltalprinting.com/

Dr.P.T.Wong, Meaning making

http://www.meaning.ca/

Psychometric Scales health psychology

http://www.healthpsych.de/

proactive coping scale

http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~health/poland.htm

Download my presentation, ebooks

coping skill ebook-1 pdf

http://www.4shared.com/file/68029155/af6db382/Develop_coping_skills_ebook_1.html

inspiration ppt

http://www.4shared.com/file/64538593/ff034475/coping_with_life_challenges.html

coping skills ppt

http://www.4shared.com/file/63704074/7c36645e/developing_coping_skills.html

top three coping methods pdf

http://www.4shared.com/file/74669663/40bf7cc6/top_three_coping_methods.html

top three coping method ppt

http://www.4shared.com/file/74669306/6044ed24/top_three_coping_methods.html

strategies to improve your learning and performance

http://www.4shared.com/file/78433020/946230a1 strategies_to_improve_your_learning_and_performance.html


http://www.4shared.com/file/78433068/fed57d97/strategies_to_improve_your_learning_and_performance.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/79549796/2b0cbebf/relationship_communication_and_stress.html

or 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/yedkywyz3wm/relationship, communication and stress.ppt

http://www.mediafire.com/file/a55raq4wzwm/top three coping methods.ppt


please follow the link

http://kumarmahi07.webs.com/download.htm


Sunday, December 7, 2008

stress-serenity prayer


“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change; courage to the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”- Serenity prayer


Understanding our own stress is very difficult but it is also very important. To know more about what is controllable and what is uncontrollable see the following table,
Think! What is your mild, moderate, and major stressor?



we have mild, moderate and major stressors in our life. some can be changeable some can not change. identify what is changeable and do it what is appropriate and necessary. identify what is unchangeable and learn to accept it. we can change our attitude and response to the event but we can not change our gender, parents etc..
think about it today
what is changeable?
what you are going to do
what is unchangeable?
learn to accept it

Monday, December 1, 2008

first step to manage stress

handle yourself, use your head, To handle others, use your heart."-anonymous
 
     Identifying your source of stress is the first step to prevent, control and manage stress. but it is very difiicult because stress in one area may reflect in the other area. for example your interpersonal conflict may affect your work performance, lack of sleep or illness cause poor concentation. the following worksheet may help you to identify your source of stress.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Do something to reduce or use stress

"Although the world is full of suffering...it is also full of overcoming it."-- Helen Keller

Stress is common to every one; however we differ in how we respond to our stressors. When we are under or over aroused we can not performing our task at our best. Peak performance is achieved when we are in a state of optimum arousal. In our every day situation, if we are in control of our thinking, feeling and action we can reduce the stress and increase our performance. We tend to think, feel and act in a consistent ways in accordance with our own beliefs and coping strategies. Most of us habitually react to our life events without much awareness. If we learn to think, feel and act in a helpful, flexible and realistic way we are not only reduce but also can gain something out of our stressful life events.

fig 1. Events, our appraisal and its outcome

fig 2. The link between thinking, feeling, action and its outcome

When a stress event occurs, first we have aware of our thoughts, feeling and actions. Next check it is it helpful to deal with the situation, and then we make a change if necessary. We are all differing in how we perceive, express and manage emotions. We need to understand and regulate our emotions so that they are most appropriate to the task or situation at hand. Different emotions create different information processing vice versa. Coping with our own thoughts and emotions help us to cope better.
chech your thinking, is it
Flexible or Rigid
Realistic or Unrealistic
Helpful or Unhelpful

Monday, November 17, 2008

Stress Hardiness

“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.”

- Tao Tzu


Hardiness, or resistance to stress
three qualities that make you hardi. check it whether you have it.cultivate the following ingredients,


Commitment: People who are high in commitment are fully involved in what they are doing and they give it their best effort--best shot. They have a curiosity about whatever is happening to them versus feelings of alienation from people or the environment.

Control: People who feel that they can influence events and surroundings, who feel that they can make things happen. They a strong sense of self-efficacy and an internal locus of control versus feelings of powerlessness or feeling like a victim of circumstances.

Challenge: People who take on life as a challenge welcome new situations for the opportunities to learn, to grow, to develop on a personal level, rather than looking at everything new as a possible threat.

path to hardiness

ability to

understand
monitor
change
sustain

your thinking, feeling and acting to reach your desired, realistic goal.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Buddhist and modern perspective of stress

Buddhist perspective - stressful life

Four noble truth
I. Life is suffering
II. Suffering has a cause, the cause can be known
III. Suffering can be brought to an end
IV. The path to end suffering has eight parts

    1. right understanding
    2. right mindfulness which together are wisdom
    3. right speech
    4. right action
    5. right living which together are morality
    6. right effort
    7. right attentiveness
    8. right concentration which together are concentration

Stress coping - modern perspective
I. Stress is inevitable
II. Stress has a cause, the cause can be known
III. We can prevent, control and cope up with stress
IV. The way to cope up with stress

   1. knowledge –Wisdom, Self – awareness- know about one’s strength and weakness,                Knowledge about one’s own stress and coping  
   2. skills
           i. Critical thinking – clear thinking (minimum error and bias)
           ii. Problem solving & decision making
           iii. Communication – right speech
          iv. Interpersonal  
           v. Self – regulation
  3. objectives – values, plan, goal, purpose and meaning of your life
  4. practice – right living, practicing meditation, relaxation, exercise and diet etc
  5. social support – interdependence, giving receiving help
   
we are going to learn these five areas one by one in the following posts.
   

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Be proactive: Increase your personal resource

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." - James Allen
To become a survival of the fittest, we need to develop the following five skills. Lack of these skills may create stress.
1. Critical thinking skill
 Most of our day to day thinking is far from logical; we quite often jump to conclusions based on irrational ideas. Believes and attitudes shapes our perception, which will affect how we approach and cope with our life events. Critical thinking skills help us to reduce the errors in our thinking.
2. Problem solving & decision making skill
 Ineffective problem solving and hasty decision making are more likely leads to emotional distress and stressful consequences. Systematic approach to complex problems will help us to improve our quality of life.
3. Communication skill
 Most of our communication are partial we are poor listener. Appropriate communication prevents us from much stress. For example aggressive people dominate others; non assertive people avoid the issue.
4. Interpersonal skill
  Family and friends are important in helping us to cope with stress. Developing and maintaining satisfying relationship may be necessary during a period of stressful life situation.
5. Self-regulation
 We need to regulate our thinking, feeling and acting so that they are most appropriate to the situation which prevent from stress.

These five skills are complementary to each other and are essential for us to become preventive and proactive to our stressful life events.
 

Monday, October 6, 2008

know more about your stress

" half of the problems in life are because, we act without thinking and the rest half is because we keep thinking without acting"


Ask 4 questions

1. When? 
Source: Thinking makes it so
Life events: How you take it, 
Something happens to you and you think it is,
• Unwanted
• Undesirable
• Unacceptable
• Unpredictable
• Uncontrollable
• Unexpected
• Uncertain

2. How?  
Distress: how do you feel? 
Your thinking generate feelings
Primary emotions
• Anger
• Fear
• Worry
Secondary emotions
• Guilt
• Shame
• Envy etc..

3. Why?
Cause: what you make it 
Our personal resources is very important to handle our thinking and feelings
What is lacking in you? Each one is important to handle life events

1. Knowledge
2. Skills
3. Objectives- purpose, meaning
4. Practice
5. Social support 


4. What?
 Effects: what happen to you if you do not handle properly of your life events?
 
It will affect the three important domains,
• Personal – how you feel about yourself in other words how you relate with yourself, your confidence, motivation, self esteem etc..
• Inter personal – how you relate with others, withdraw, aggressive, abusive etc..
• Work/ task – how you relate meaningfully with your task  

Ask four questions
1. What you think when you upset of something?
2. How you feel when you think like that?
3. What you can do to reduce distress?
4. If not what will happen to you?



Saturday, September 27, 2008

Stress, Use it otherwise you will loose it!

No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again. – Buddha

What we are doing with our life situation. Where you are now and where you want to go. Either you are using or loosing our life energy. You can check it now. See the four squares yellow, green, red, and blue. 

And characteristics which one you belong. 

The colour yellow, green, and red represent the traffic signal

You can stay temporarily if you are in yellow,
You can go if you are in green because you have learn to use your stress
You must stop if you are in red. You have to check your goal, value, believes, attitude… it is necessary to correct yourself before you proceed.
If you are in blue you may need assistance, help, advice from others 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Nature of thinking, feeling and acting

“You can not always control circumstances. But you can control your thoughts”.- Charles Poplestone

Thinking, feeling and acting are reciprocal in nature. Each one influences and influenced by other two.

1. Our usual thinking will be;
• Inference about the event
• Imagination
• Fantasy thinking
• Solution about the problem etc…
• Slow in nature

This in turn will produce situation specific emotions
Consider this example
You are ideally sitting in your room. No one is around you.
 What will be of your thinking and feeling?
Feel boring, imagine something 

2. When we encounter stressful situation, if the situation is uncertain, 
Speed up our thought
Negative in nature
Thought will produce mixture of emotions.

Consider this example
You are waiting in the interview room. Your heart bounce, you feel uncomfortable, etc
You think about the result or consequences
You feel anxious, worry 

If you waiting for a long time and heard some one was already selected by the interviewer 
Probably you feel anger 

In our day today routine if you practice relaxation, meditation, exercise and dietary habits, it will help you to think and feel better. But if you have unfinished business in your mind or under extreme stress, it will not allow you to relax, meditate or follow daily routine. It is necessary handling of our thinking and feeling before it disturb you, otherwise it will disturb you! 

Monday, September 22, 2008

Threat or challenge

“People are not disturbed by things but by the views which they take of them” (Epictetus).

Thinking and feeling process occurs always in our mind in the background. Most of the time it is habitual and automatic, and we are not aware of it. Our actions (behaviour) are only output. Particular set of believes, purpose and meaning create particular perspective to our thinking, feeling, and action, which in turn it will give its own outcome or result.

If you change your purpose, meaning or perspective, your thinking, feeling and action will change. You will get different outcome.

You can get what you want by change your perspective, purpose or meaning of the stressful situation.
You need little training and discipline. But you can do it!




Saturday, September 20, 2008

Thinking, feeling, and acting

When I interact with people during my awareness programme, workshops, I have found many people are not ready to invest time to think about the way they think. Most of them are not aware of their own feelings and actions. Without knowing where we are going, what we are doing, we will not get what we want.
We think erroneously - lack of thinking skills
We feel out of control - poor emotional regulation
We act impulsively - poor self-regulated behaviour

Consider this analogy, our behaviour is like a triggering a gun, our thinking is a bullet, our feeling is loading a gun with bullet. We ourselves or others may trigger the gun either intentionally or unintentionally, can we control after that? There will be no harm if we remove the bullet from the gun before it trigger. 
Most of the counseling techniques especially cognitive behaviour therapy focuses on how one think, feel and act. Through proper training we can learn to think constructively, learn to control our unwanted, distressing emotion and we can control impulsive, maladaptive behaviours.

Friday, September 19, 2008

concept of stress coping

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." - William James


  Life today is becoming increasingly complex; stress is an inevitable part of life. It is thought that young people today are under more and different types of stress, compared with people from previous generations such as; increased pressure, competition, decreased resources for family support, increased access to means of self-harm, violence in the media and increased use of alcohol, drugs. When coping resources are inadequate stressful events may give rise to unhealthy outcomes. Stress or lack of coping resources may be one factor of many that contribute to suicide.
To succesfuly coping with life challenges the following are more important;
● Become more knowledgeable about stress
● Understand the process and effects of stress
● Identify your major sources of stress – situations, people, etc.
● Anticipate stressful periods and plan for them
● Develop successful stress management techniques and practice them
Think about...
● What you think?
● How you feel?
● What you do?
In stressful situation
Model I
Usually we act first then we feel and think about it 
1.Acting
2.Feeling
3.Thinking 
In this model, we react to situation
Reflexively
Impulsively
Mostly out of our control
Model II
When we think about it first then we feel the importance and finally we act 
1.Thinking
2.Feeling
3.Acting
In this model we respond to the situation
Thoughtful
Deliberate
In control

If you trained in such a way you can find a benefit out of your adverse life event

Hi, friends

This site always under construction.

This blog devote to enhancing stress coping skills ideas.

Instruction to the reader. each post is interrelated and connected. please read from the first one. please feel free to contact me.