Combat Stress by Creating Your Own Oasis

Help your body and mind relax, and increase your sense of well-being, by creating a personalized comfort zone. Whether at home, work or when traveling, you can create your own oasis with these eight easy steps.

Stress and anxiety can prematurely age our mind and body. If not dealt with effectively, chronic stress and worrying can place undue strain upon our cardiovascular and immune systems. It can also make us prone to mood disorders and negatively affect our cognitive functions. Having a safe and comfortable place where we can relax and unwind can help improve our well-being and produce feelings of peace and tranquility.

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College Stress

Probably the least appreciated form of stress is college stress. This is mostly due to the fact that adults simply see a lot of college students sitting on their rear ends playing video games and drinking, instead of seeing students who are under pressure to succeed all the time. In addition to classes, homework, research, reading, paper writing and problem solving, there are now the problems of how the heck to pay for college and whether there will be any jobs waiting after graduation. Thus, with all these forms of college stress weighing students down, it is no wonder that things tend to get ugly when they “blow off steam”.Of course, there are better ways to deal with stress than to drink an entire case of beer in one day. In fact, abusing your body with any number of chemicals does not really help that much, aside from the fact that people generally relax when they do such things. However, they are usually relaxed before partaking of the latest work of ancient and modern chemistry, so the substances themselves really do not make much of a difference.

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Chronic Stress

There are some people who only get stress from time to time and there are others who suffer from chronic stress. Obviously, it is easier to deal with stress that only arises occasionally, while it is almost impossible to get away from chronic stress.Chronic stress is a condition in which stress arrives routinely and can often stay for days, weeks, and even months at a time, leaving people almost unable to think about anything other than everything that there is to worry about . Unfortunately, the mere sense of worry is not the worst the worst of it. It also leaves people fatigued and unable to concentrate and it can lead to problems with memory and even leave people unable to sleep right. Then, in its worst forms, it can even lead to a complete nervous breakdown, leaving the sufferer incapable of doing anything.

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Common Causes of Stress

In order to eliminate or at least control stress, it is vital to know and understand the causes of stress. Of course, there are many causes of stress and they are as varied as the people who suffer from stress, but there are a few places to look first. And by learning about these causes of stress, you can figure out where stress is entering your life.

One of the most common, and most complained about, causes of stress is work. However, it is not only the day-to-day tasks and routine pressures of work that can lead to stress. In fact, the mere concern about keeping a job can be a source of stress. Unfortunately, the combined stress of both work itself and the possibility of losing it creates a sort of double-stress in which people feel they have to work even harder in order to keep their jobs, making the stress that much worse.

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Beating Middle of the Night Stress

What do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep? Do you lie there tossing, stretch, panic, and feel your heart thumping? Do you notice your own shallow breathing? Do you try futilely to follow the random speeding thoughts that race through your mind?

Back in 1991 I met an elderly man in the grocery store. He must have been around 87. Approaching my cart, he leaned in and said “young lady would you like to know how to get to be my age?” To which I answered “sure”. He then went on to explain that since he had been my age and out on his own, never once did he ever spend a sleepless night in bed. If he should have trouble dosing off, or worse—wake in the middle of the night, he simply & promptly got up out of bed and got busy about living.

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Happy Trails for a Stress-Free Year

Finding happiness is easier than you might think. Happiness is all around us, and all we have to do is hop in the car and hit the road to find it. Actually, there is more to true happiness than just jumping in the car, but for many people, self-actualization does involve discovering new places, new cultures, beautiful nature and secret little hideaways. Kathleen Walls, publisher of American Roads Magazine, and David Leonhardt, publisher of Your Daily Dose of Happiness share a few of their favorite “Happy Trails,” hoping you, too, will find happiness there.
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