By Danea Horn, CPC

Stress
You get a diagnosis. Work becomes overwhelming. Finances are tight. Your family is pulling you in too many directions. Something hits the fan.

That night it is hard to fall asleep, and by the next morning, your neck is stiff and even though you grabbed a coffee on your way to work a headache lingers. Thoughts marathon through your mind:

• Why is this happening?
• What can I do to fix what’s going on?
• When will I ever just be finished?
• Why did she say that?
• This is so frustrating.
• What am I going to do?

You are stressed. Full-blown. All-out. You know it. Your body is shouting it loud and clear. Things have moved out of your control, and you desperately want to get control back.

You furiously work on trying to wrangle control back into your favor. You put in more effort and more thought, all with an underlying current of worry. Nothing changes.

What was out of your control is still out of your control and now you’re even more tired and wide awake at 3:00 a.m.

The Mistake
Here’s the secret. The thing that went awry in the first place was never in your control. The economy, a diagnosis, your car breaking down, the big project at work. Certain things in life just happen, for one reason or another.

It is a mistake to focus stress management efforts on something you have no control over. It’s like trying to move a thousand-pound boulder that’s not going anywhere. It is never going to happen.

What will happen is that pushing against the boulder and complaining about the boulder to everyone you know will make the cramp in your neck much worse.

Effective Stress Management
There is an effective way to tackle stress. It is simple, effortless and can be done in the span of fifteen minutes.

Get a pen, a piece of paper and ask yourself this one question: what is in my control?

Write down everything that comes to mind. Aim for at least ten things.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started. You can control:

• Diet
• Exercise
• How you communicate with others
• What you do in your spare time
• Your attitude
• Asking for help
• Networking
• The people you surround yourself with
• And the list goes on…

The physical action of writing, coupled with focus on smaller boulders that you can actually pick up and throw off the cliff, will return your sense of control.

From the list you create, you can put an action plan together to address the root cause of your stress. Even if the plan is to simply take a thirty-minute walk in the fresh air outside. Small actions can have a big impact on stress.

Stress management is about finding and acting on the power you have. No, you cannot control everything in life, but you can control how you react when a thousand- pound boulder blocks your path.

– Danea Horn is the author of Chronic Resilience: 10 Sanity-Saving Strategies for Women Coping with the Stress of Illness (Release Date: Summer 2013). To learn more stress management strategies visit www.ChronicResilience.com.

© Danea Horn 2013