Friday, July 30, 2010

Manage Your Health And Stress For A Better Life

We might not notice it but stress and your health are practically two sides of the same coin. One exists with the other and never without. Considering that we are living in a fast-paced generation, stress can be felt anywhere you go and whatever you do. And since health and stress are related, you might feel certain repercussion on your body that will slow you down.

Stress affects your bodies in different ways. While in throes of stress, you might feel that you’re emotionally, physically and mentally down. The three imbalances might prove harmful to your health – you could suffer from depression, migraines, high-blood pressure, heart problems, and so on.

Take care of your health

If stress is part of your everyday routine, then it is only crucial that you take care of your health to compensate for the pressure that you will feel when stress lands on you feet. Try to carefully observe how your body reacts to certain stimuli that produce stress so that you will know how to avoid negative effects on your body.

Some might think that they’re bodies will adapt to these stress and will improve their performance. Well, this is wrong. This is not like some online games that the more you get experience from fighting monster, the stronger you become. Our bodies have limits, and it is very important to understand and gauge our limits carefully before it’s too late.

Certain stress, certain remedies

Since problems will affect your mental, emotional and biological health; certain techniques can be applied to divert stress-related problems and give your body time to rejuvenate to cope with it.

If you think that you are mentally and emotionally bothered by your problems. You may use relaxation techniques to keep your balance. Meditation and music therapy may prove to be beneficial when suffering from mental and emotional stress. The rhythm the certain sounds like nature music or instrumental songs can normalize your bio-rhythm and put your body at peace during bouts of stress.

When you feel that your body is getting worn out due to the stress of your career or social routine, then you better take some much needed vacation and put your body on the road to recovery. Try to give your body a break by taking a much needed vacation – visit friends and families, take a nature trip or two, go to the beach and soak some much needed rays, or go socializing with friends. Changing your mental focus from work to rest can do wonders on your tired body.

You can also visit health spas and avail of body-pampering services that can get rid of stress. This method is usually for those who can’t leave their work and must cope with its pressure everyday. Take a well needed massage and get rid of those tight muscles, and various aches and pains.

Physical exercise improves your cardiovascular functions and improves the circulation of healthy chemicals and oxygen in your body. This will help your body fight the negative effects of stress and will strengthen your adaptability on your workload.

It is crucial to recognize the signs and symptoms that stress can do to your body. The secret to get rid of stress is to know what it can do to your body, and what you can do to avoid it.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Stress? Deal With It!

Considering that we are living in a fast-paced world, stress is as common as the air we breathe. We have to learn to manage our everyday routines and fight off these problems that will eventually stress us out. But before we can cope with it, we have to understand what stress really is and identify how it can appear in our life.

What in the world is stress?

Stress can be easily defined as the imbalance in our physiological, biological and social aspect in our life. There are many reasons why a person gets stressed – either family problems, financial difficulties, career obligations, or quarrel between friends. Though how minor it may seems, these problems all add up to turn into an inconvenience, and a big one at that.

Incidentally, stress can start from anywhere and can also end in yet another way. Some may start from your body due to overwork or, build up mentally which can affect that way you think which can practicallylead to negative results. The first way to deal with stress is find out the cause and determine ways to get rid of it.

Stress Management 101

When you already have an idea on how stress worked your way into your life, there are plenty of solutions to make it go away. Just keep in mind that the simplest solutions to your problems are always the best way in dealing with it.

When suffering from stress due to overwork then you can easily take some time off and let your body rejuvenate. Treat yourself to a massage, or visit your local spa and start pampering yourself. Another method in getting the stress out of your system is to take some time off from your daily routine and take a vacation. Visit friends and relative and have fun shopping or taking some leisure walks around the mall.

A vacation with nature can be a great relief to stress; the serenity and relaxing scenery can do wonders to your mental and emotional state. Camp out and leave your thoughts about work at home, give yourself a break from all those burdens.

Get in touch with your inner child

Indulging yourself with games and sports is a great way to dispel stress from your system. When indulging in sports, you have to concentrate on what you are doing in order to win. This is a great way to divert your mind from your mental burdens and concentrate on the task at hand.

If you don’t plan to go for sports then go for games. Visit your local game shop and buy some game CDs to your liking, install it on your computer and annihilate alien invaders as if it were your stress. If you have some financial troubles and can’t spare an extra buck on games CDs, then you can browse around the Internet and play Flash games if you wish.

Traditional Stress Reliever

The ancients practices do provide solutions to your stress problems. You can enroll for yoga classes and stretch those problems away, or go for meditation classes that will train you in freeing your mind from the problems at hand, and allowing you to focus on relaxation and peace of mind.

Other methods to help you relax and keep your mind at peace is through aromatherapy. Inquire around shops for various scents that can help you relax. You can go for scented candles or assorted incense that will help you in your stress management.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Advantages Of Time Management

Having a job can be a stressful activity. Most people lose a lot of time just trying to think about their job. Too often, your job consumes you that it becomes a part of your everyday life and you tend to lose priorities on other activities. However, all of these are due to improper management of time.

The problems

Without proper time management, you could be facing a lot of stress. You have to remember that productivity does not just mean doing several things. You need to create a balance in these activities and make sure each are properly done. When you have so many things to consider, you are very much likely going to fail in meeting your deadline or you can schedule more than one meeting at the same time. This could lead to lower efficiency and lots of time wasted. Although you might not lose your job in the process, you could easily forsake other aspects of your life.

The remedy

Time management can help prevent such events from happening. This is because you won’t have to worry about things when you schedule your events properly. You get a lot of stress relief and a lot of time to prioritize your life.

However, successful time management is quite tricky. You have to incorporate a little self-discipline in order to set up your events properly. You also have to be more flexible with your goals and priorities. These prerequisites are easy to attain. You just have to learn the basic concepts in order to set things in motion.

Proper time management creates a few of the most powerful advantages within and outside your job sphere. Since all these problems stem from stress, the main advantage of time management is the reduction of stress. You probably have experienced chasing deadlines or suddenly realizing that you set up two meetings on the same date. You can prevent such scenario from happening if you practice clear time management plan and a timetable for your activities.

By having a clear plan, you give yourself the chance to set up a great schedule that suits your planned activities both in and out of the job. Furthermore, you avoid compromising the most important aspect of all your activities: your health.

Another good thing about having a successful time management program is having a higher chance of completing everything on time. When you miss a deadline, you fall out of favor with your boss. This leads to additional pressure to complete other tasks and even to outdo your other officemates. This leads to a lot of unnecessary pressure that may cause you to extend your work outside the office just to keep up. It might even mean that you will bring your work to the dinner table.

And the worse that could happen, you get so stressed out that you pass on the stress to your family members. The sooner you complete your tasks, the more you free yourself of all the stress.

The best thing about time management is that you get the chance to live your life on a proper routine. Your working schedule is not swamped and so you can leave enough time for relaxing and having fun. And despite of your hectic schedule, never forget to take a break from time to time as it helps you become more productive.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Time Management Activities

Time management can be done by just about anyone. Most people would like to believe they have full control of their time. However, most of the time they are consumed by trying to fit in every priority into what little time they have. There will always be deadlines, whether it is imposed by events such as a flight schedule that would leave at a certain time, or by other people like your boss that asks you to do a project and he needs it by the end of the week.

How can you effectively manage your time when you only have control of a meager percentage of your time? There are techniques that you can do to provide solution to this daunting question.

1.) Note Where You Spend Your Time

Try to have a log book or a “To-do” list where you can note down what you are doing and what else needs to be done. This will better help you manage your time, so you don't end up repeating tasks. Sometimes it would take longer for you to do this but this exercise will help you start off in managing your own time by highlighting where you are spending most of your time. Hence, you will be able to evaluate what you do and decide whether or not you need to change your time emphasis.

2.) Applying The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule simply means that 80% of the results would come from the 20% of the time and effort that you use. Analyze and work on what you can do best that can guarantee the best results for your effort. Then, spend time doing that rather than doing some activities that are unproductive and can lead to delay on your work.

3.) Leaving Things Unfinished

This may sound like it’s the opposite of time management but there are lots of things that can come across our paths that can be safely ignored and undone. Therefore, you can postpone them some other time. An example would be checking your e-mails whether or not it will arrive at your recipient or not. If it is really urgent, then you can ask for someone’s help to take your place so you can make sure you still accomplish whatever needs to get done.

4.) Skipping The News

The daily news on the television will continue to happen whether you watch it for 30 minutes a day or not. You will find out that cutting out watching the news on the television has a good side effect of automatically cutting out lots of negativity in your life. This is like killing two birds with one stone as you also gain 30 more minutes to do your work.

5.) Learn To Say No

Perhaps one of the most effective time management techniques is practicing to say no to less important tasks and events. When you can say no, you gain an assertion technique that can and should be developed. When you can do this, you can finish the more important tasks earlier rather than putting them off at a later time. You will also avoid cramming just to get everything done on time.

6.) Hiring The Services Of Others

When you really need help to finish all the things you need to be done, you can always hire some help. For instance, you can hire cleaners for your home, or a gardener to look and keep your garden clean while you do your work. Entrust these less important tasks to the people you hired.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Improve Your Health With Stress Management

Stress can be a factor that can deteriorate your health faster than any disease. Many people have suffered physically when dealing with problems that plague their lives. Since stress can affect you physically, mentally and emotionally, we can say that you won't be safe until you get your problems under control with the proper stress management technique.

Learn to read the signs

In most cases, stress usually start mentally rather than physically. Since both are linked and work in tandem of your existence, we can say that the more affected you are with your problems, the more negative effect you will feel on your body.

To deal with this, you need to take extra care in observing your own body when being under stressed. Signs of heavy breathing, sweating, having trouble sleeping, or some aches and pains – they are all signs that your body is reaching its limit in coping with your stress.

There are plenty of techniques that you can take to help deal with stress and reduce the effect on your health. Breathing exercise can help regulate your oxygen intake and will help you relax. If you are having trouble sleeping, meditation can help you relax to the point of putting you to sleep.

You can also take in sleeping pills or anti-depressant medicines to help you along – these might be hard to come by since these are addictive if you keep taking it in. You might need to consult your doctor for prescriptions and if its safe to take these in.

Music therapy can also help you relax if you want to get a good night sleep after a stressful day at work. Since your mind is the problem when you are having problem sleeping, you need to make sure that you focus on keeping your thoughts in line and not get the better of you.

The adage "Music can soothe the savage beast" may very well work in your favor in this case. Go for nature rhythms or instrumental ones since these have a steady flow and can relax the mind and put you too sleep.


Eat well and eat right

Women tends to be more prone to eating than men when in the throes of stress. You need to keep an eye out on your diet and make sure you don't go way past the limits that your body can take. Dieting is part of stress management and is routinely observed to keep your health as normal as possible.

Since eating habits tend to be erratice when you are having problems, you need to be careful in what you take in. Stay abreast of your weight and girth to determine if your eating habits are getting out of hand. Also, you need to be more conscious on what foods you take, make sure that these are healthy ones and stay away from fast foods or junk foods.

Start taking in vegetable salads with a healthy dose of some extra virgin olive oil instead of burgers and fries. Fruits can be prepared in plenty of ways to satisfy your cravings which is a healthy alternative to junk foods.

The secret to keep a healthy lifestyle during a time of stress to be more sensitive to your body. Try to be aware of possible signs that will indicate that your body is falling apart. The more you manage your stress, the more healthy your body would be.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Personal Stress Management: Get Rid Of Stress In Your Own Way

It is always to recognize the signs the symptoms when you are in the throes of stress. Many people misunderstand the true definition of stress and would resort to medications and herbal remedies just to get rid of it without even trying to find out what started it in the first place. Being hasty will only lead to temporary results and will return once the effect of the medication has run its course.

Personal stress management involves making your own routines that will allow you to cope with problems and avoiding a possible occurrence of stress in your daily life. Here are some tips on how to get rid of stress in your own personal way.

Understanding is the key to enlightenment

The first step in personal stress management is to know what stress really is and how it can affect your life. For starters, stress is a scenario or events in your life that will affect your emotional, mental and physical faculties in a negative way. Most often, stress starts off with the mind, branches off and affects your emotions, and if left uncontrolled will then begins to take its toll on your body.

Try to take some time off to reflect on what problems in your life stresses you out. You can write a diary and state all your problems there then try to analyze it one-by-one. If you can narrow the cause of your stress then you can easily find ways in getting rid of it. Talking with a close friend or a family member about your problems is also a great way to deal with it. Since stress are bottled up emotions, you better find ways to release it before it blows up inside you – which is never a pretty sight.

Help yourself

Now that you found out how stress affects your life, all that need to do is to make it go away. Resorting to medications or tools will only lead to temporary results, you need to choose a more permanent approach, and that is your mind. Stress usually rears its ugly head when we start to think about it. If we let our problems control you then you will the effects of it almost immediately.

You need to relax and face stress head on. Identify that causes it and find a solution one at a time. You may use music therapy to help you relax, or meditation to clear your mind for a fresh start.

Aromatherapy can also help in relaxing your mind. Certain scents like lavender and jasmine are proven to have a calming effect and can help you keep a clear head. This is practically useful if you plan to sort through all your concerns and try to find a solution for each one.

Start small

Problems are usually a prelude to stress. The more the problems pile up, the more stressed you will eventually become. If a certain event enters your life, whether career or personal, try to take care of it as soon as possible. Don’t let your work pile up or they may become too much to handle later on.

The secret to success in personal stress management is to identify the causes of stress in your life. Find a self-made routine that can help you deal with it and cope with future problems that will surely give you a house call.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Importance Of Time Management

When a person learns time management skills, it will help them to spend more time on more difficult tasks. Because of everyday time constraints, we need to learn how to make the most of our time with our work by doing more important tasks.

Time Management Effectiveness

We handle many different fields depending on what we do. There are many time management techniques that would prove useful for several fields of life. For example, a student can learn and practice time management by applying time management techniques when doing their homework or projects. Using time management techniques and practices can and will help to ensure the quality use of your time and the efficiency of the results that they produce.

Rather than working harder, we can work smarter so that we may realize how much time we can save when we use time management practices. But the success of these techniques largely depends on how you appropriately follow your schedule. A person can tremendously reduce their stress levels when following some time management techniques.

Having A “To Do” List

A basic aspect for effective time management is creating a “To do” list. This can help you cope and deal with the problem of losing time frequently. It is not advisable, however, to have several “To-do” list at once since it might lead to confusion. It is important that you place your list on a location that is easily visible for you. Hence, you will be able to consult the list right away on what your next task is supposed to be.

Prioritize

Another good method of time management is to handle daily tasks by prioritizing the more important tasks first. By doing this, you can then be able to separate the tasks that you need to do in accordance with their relevancy and significance. Then, you can deal with each tasks one at a time.

Saying “No”

A very effective time management skill is the ability to say “no” when other less important tasks and affairs are brought up to you and you have more important pending tasks. By learning how to turn them down, it reflects your commitment to follow your schedule and accomplish the task at hand. Once you have mastered how to effectively do this, you will save a lot of time in the future. Not only were you able to finish your tasks in time, but you've also opened more opportunities to accomplish more.

Time Will No Longer Be Your Enemy

Managing your time is important for several reasons. The most apparent reason is merely completing the job within the time frame you have alloted for it. It saves you from eating up the rest of the time needed for other useful tasks. For some, time is considered an enemy.

But getting yourself familiar with these time management techniques will enable you to enjoy your tasks as you do them, and quit worrying about time as a factor. After all, you cannot stop time from running; you have to keep up with it.

There might no be dramatic changes that comes with proper time management. However, it allows you to become more effective and productive as you continue to plan your days ahead.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Workplace Stress Management Tips And Tricks

The source of all stress for a career person’s life is their workplace. The deadlines, paper works, irate clients and bosses, the details, and so on will all add up to give you the worst problems that you can possibly experience in your entire life. These problems will all add up and will affect the productivity of your work – your emotional, mental and physical factor will be put to the test.

Stress management in your workplace involves a lot of factors, particularly in dealing with these minute problems that tends to blow your mind off when put all together. Here are some tips that will help you out to keep your work from ruining your health, and your sanity.

Start small

The key to keeping a balanced career is not let anthill of a problem into a mountain. If you keep attention to details, you can solve these problems one-by-one before they pile up. Try to get rid of the habit of postponing your problems for later since you won’t know what will arrive on your desk tomorrow.

Irate and demanding clients can give you more problems than anything put together. Since your life and career revolves around them, you need to thread carefully on handling their problems. One tip in dealing with these people is to keep your cool while listening to their rants and raves. Don’t let their anger affect you.

Take a break once in a while

It is important to know your limits while working. Human aren’t built to work 24 hours a day so its best if you keep a close eye on your body before it gets out of hand. If you think that the work is starting to affect your thinking or when you start to get irritable, try to take some time off and listen to music or get a cup of coffee to help you relax.

If you have your own cubicle at work then it’s advisable to customize it to make your workplace as comfortable as possible. A cushion on your chair to prop your back, a foot stool to help your legs relax, or even some pictures that will remind you of fun times to take your mind off your problems for a short period of time.

Some techniques like breathing exercises will help you relax by keeping your body rhythm at normal. If you start to feel some aches and pains, then you better walk around or do a little stretching… loosen all those muscles first before proceeding with your workload.

Pamper, pamper, pamper

Sometimes work can be so demanding that it’s almost impossible to get a vacation; or if you do, you get turned down flat. You need to find ways to take some time off and pamper yourself before you continue with your work. If you have some free time, try to hook up with some health clinics around the area and get a massage.

Some massage techniques can help you relax and will leave you energize for work afterwards; while some can relieve you of your aches and pains so that you can proceed with your work without worries of annoying muscle cramps.

Stress management at your workplace will not only help your body cope with the problems at work, but will also help you in maintaining the productivity that your career needs.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Time Management Games

Before even attempting to play time management games, you have to bear in mind that it can be addicting. Hence, it is important to also learn how to manage your playing time. Also, when you download time management games, make sure they are from a website that you trust and are free of viruses. Therefore, you have to keep your anti-virus program updated.

There are many time management games online that can be played online or have a downloadable version of the game. There are many games from different categories but they would still fall on time management. You can try several of these time management games to find out which one you would like the most. Some of these games are listed here.

Diner Dash

This is a popular time management game that brings out the entrepreneur in all of us. In this game, you play as Flo who got tired of her desk job and was forced to start up her own restaurant business. Flo is now working on her own to get to the top.

The game is not as easy as it looks. Here, your time management skill will be put to the test as you have to wait on customers, deliver their orders, tell customers to sit down, and many others. As you progress from one level to the next, the game only gets harder.

Those who have previously played Diner Dash have noticed that it combines a fast paced puzzle action game with a “build your own restaurant” theme. For the first few levels of the game, you would start off as a greasy spoon run of the mill diner. And if you succeed, you can end up with Flo in her dream restaurant.

Diner Dash offers over 40 challenging levels to play that would progress you through 4 complete re-models of your restaurant. It also offers five different types of customers with each of them having specific behaviors. There is also a high score tracking and an automatic game save function so you can go back to the level where you left off.

Delicious 2 Deluxe

Another popular time management game is Delicious 2 Deluxe. This time, you take the role of Emily who needs to help her Uncle Antonio out of a financial fix. You need to help Emily by retrieving her family’s finances in over five all new restaurants. You can use the income that you have earned while playing through the game to purchase decorations for your restaurant in order to bring in more customers. There are Emily’s friends and family to help you get through with Emily’s problem; but it would still take most of your help in order to retrieve Uncle Antonio's finances.

Delicious 2 Deluxe offers two game modes with over 60 challenging levels, plus five all-new restaurants with new customers. Plus, you can customize the restaurant's decorations according to your own preference.

These are just a couple of time management games that can be found on the internet. Playing time management games can help you experience and learn more time management techniques. Always remember though that these games can be addictive, so take a break once in a while from playing and return to your everyday work schedules.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Time Management Courses

Time management is a useful tool any person can have and apply when leading a stressful lifestyle. With effective time management skills, you can have more time to finish your work on time, especially when you're trying to meet deadlines.

Time management courses can be found either online or offline. There are books that can be seen on your local book shop about effective time management techniques. Or you can read various helpful articles over the Internet about how to practice useful time management techniques.

When applying and taking these time management courses, you can achieve lots of benefits. Some of these benefits to learning and practicing these time management courses are:

• Do better with your work output and accomplish them with less effort and time

• Have enough time to focus on other equally valuable aspects of your life

• Leave you feeling fulfilled and satisfied with the effort you put in and the results you got

• Focus more time and energy on the things that are most important to you

• Plan and achieve your short and long-term goals

• Reduce idle time or wasted time so that you will have more productive output by the end of the day

• Get the job done while having reduced stress and anxiety

• Become excellent when it comes to time management in all aspects of your life

The following are tips and techniques that you can use if you want to establish more effective time management skills. Their success rate vary from one technique to the other but learning how to utilize these techniques to achieve desirable results would be worth the effort.

1.) How To Make A To-Do List

Most time management courses would teach you how to create an effective a to-do list that you can start using if you want to learn and practice effective time management. This is because when you have a to-do list, you do not have to rely on your own memory to remind you of what you need to do. You can consult on an actual list to keep track of tasks completed and those that you still have to finish.

2.) Learning How To Say No

Another time management course that you may come across is practicing how to say no. What this aims to teach you is better recognition of more important tasks. It teaches you how to effectively turn down or resist doing less important things when you are trying to beat a deadline. Aside from that, it also enhances your assertiveness.

3.) Thought Before Action

One of the skills that enhance your ability to manage your time well is learning how to think before acting on something. Hence, you will be able to avoid unnecessary actions that would slow your work down.

4.) Identifying Bad Habits

A good time management course is one that teaches you how to identify your undesirable habits. When we say bad habits, it means those activities that waste your time, sabotage your goals, and slow down (if not utterly block) your success. Thus, you need to break this bad habit by replacing them with healthy and time efficient ones.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Learn To Play Around When in Stress

A more direct way in dealing with stress is to indulge in activities that can take your mind off your problems. This stress management technique is practically the most popular since this method promises a whole lot of fun and a lot of positive results.

Engage in sports

One of the most recommended methods in reducing your stress is to engage in sports. There are plenty of ways to find the peace of mind you need to release yourself from problems that crop up during your daily routine.

Team sports is a great way to release your stress and improves your social skills as well. You can gather your friends around for a round of basketball or sweat it out in tennis or badmintion. These games helps you focus on your team in winning the game rather than putting all your energy in worrying about your problems.

Another sport is to go hiking out or do mountain climbing. This sport not only improves your health with a good dose of exercise, you can also enjoy the scenery by hiking out with nature. Fishing is also a good sport in relieving stress. If the fish aren't biting, you can enjoy the scenery and reflect on your life. Most people prefer this sport in dealing with their problems and most confirm that the presence of nature plays an integral role in helping them out.

Board games are well and good

An enjoyable way to relive stress without the need to sweat is a good bout of board games. There are plenty of games that can divert your mind from stress and leaves a lot of room to think on how to win.

Chess is a great way to relieve stress since you need to think of strategies on how to outwit your oponent and not much on your problems. Board games like scrabble and monopoly is a fun way to play especially when you're with your friends and families.

Internet games

The information superhighway or the Internet can be a good source of games that suites your taste. You can go for online crossword puzzle and sodoku if you crave for intellectual activities which involves a lot of thinking. If you prefer to release stress by blasting space alient then you look for Flash games that is being features in some websites.

Its not all about the game

Despite all the sports and games that you can practically play on your free time, you need to focus your mind on the game if you want a relief from your stress. These activities would mean useless if you still think about the problem. You might also go on a losing streak if you don't focus on teh game.

It might be quite possible to focus on the sport or the game if you have such heavy burden plaguing your every thought. You need to practice focus and divert your mind from the problems that results to stress.

One way to do this is to instruct your mind that you need to focus on the game and on your teammates. You might get on the wrong side of your partners your team keeps losing that match because your head isn't on the game. You need to realize that the game is useless if you don't put your mind into doing it.