Stress Management for Busy Women
How to get from ‘Stress Mess’ to ‘Stress Less’ for today’s Busy Woman
Amanda L. Mathers
Successful Life Publishing
www.successfullifepublishing.com
First Published 2011
Copyright © Amanda L. Mathers 2011
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you.
Un-attributed quotations are by Amanda Mathers.
All rights reserved
www.stressmanagementforbusywomen.com
For Love ...
CONTENTS
Foreword 11
Introduction 13
Stress Management for Busy Women – Part One 19
Knowing and Understanding Stress
Why Women suffer more Stress 21
The Demands of Life – Welcome to the 21st Century 33
Defining and Understanding Stress 39
The shocking Facts about stress 41
What stress really is – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly 43
The Stress Response Explained 57
Stressors 67
How Stress affects your Physical and Mental Health 73
Is stress making you fat? 78
Is your stress giving you wrinkles? - The aging effects of stress 79
Emotional Stress Common emotional disorders associated with prolonged stress 81
Stress Management for Busy Women – Part Two 87
How to get from ‘Stress Mess’ to ‘Stress Less’
Why knowing yourself is important for Stress Management 91
Getting into the Gap between Stressor and Response 93
The Role your Perception plays in your Stress 109
You and the Power of Your Mind 115
Getting a Grip on your Negative and Faulty Thinking Habits 125
Getting Clear on your Thinking 135
Finding your Core Beliefs 145
Living with the 3 most Common Everyday Stressors 147
Learn to be your own best friend to reduce the stress in your life 155
How to Turn on your Relaxation Response 163
Improve your Health and Reduce your Stress 173
Relaxation Therapies for Stress Reduction 179
Setting Yourself up for Stress Management Success 189
Emergency Anti Stress Kit 191
When
written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two
characters. One represents danger and the other represents
opportunity.
- John.
F. Kennedy.
Foreword
I wrote this book because I know what it is like to suffer from stress, anxiety and panic.
Like you, I am a busy woman - I am also a mother of two children, one of which is disabled.
I had my first child when I was rather young, and I had a point to prove - and a child with disabilities that I had to come to terms with. My ambition; to be a success in my work, to remain the vibrant youthful woman I had always been, and to be a wonderful and devoted mother to my child. It was hard work, but I had this crazy point to prove and eventually something had to give; I grew apart from my childhood sweetheart, and became a single parent. Yet, still determined, I managed to do it all, traveling a lot with my work, being there for my child and appearing to the outside world – just as I wanted to - as a woman who could balance a career with a home and a child, until one day, not long after the death of a close friend, my world fell apart.
A beast came upon me. The most terrifying thing I have ever experienced – my first panic attack. And for the next five years – stress, anxiety and panic became the rulers of my world.
They dictated my every move, at first, I suffered in silence, I felt trapped and I lived in a constant state of fear. When I finally plucked up the courage to get help, my doctor knew straight away what my problem was - I don’t really think he could miss it, as I hyperventilated and panicked right there in front of him. He gave me tablets, ‘this should take the edge off’ he said, and I walked away none the wiser about my condition.
I was too anxious to take the medication, I was already totally out of control - what would they do to me? I didn’t want to slip even deeper out of control with medication.
It wasn’t until I built up the courage to take that first tablet, that I got my first night’s restful sleep, something that I had hadn’t experienced in months. At last, I had a brief window of relief, a break in the cycle of stress, breaking out temporarily from the high states of anxiety and panic attacks I had been slipping between every hour of the day.
But the tablets didn’t make it all go away. When I went back to the doctor he changed my medication, I changed from a tranquilizer to a ‘less addictive’ treatment, and they made me feel worse, so I stopped taking them.
My stress soon got worse again as I attempted to live my everyday life – being in a state of constant fear only added to my anxiety as I vainly tried to appear ‘normal’ and in the end, I gave in, I surrendered to the panic and stress of life and gave up my career so I could lock myself away at home.
At least at home I felt safe, it helped me to reflect on what had happened to me – what was this demon that had taken hold of me, that decreased my world so much that it confined me to live within the four walls of my home? I had to know happened, where it came from, and how I could make it go away.
That was the very beginning of my new journey, the one that steered me to where I am today.
I learnt that I wasn’t alone, I researched stress, panic, anxiety, I talked to others and when I started to get better, I even became a therapist myself. I learnt massage, stress and relaxation therapies, yoga and I became a crisis counselor.
So you see, there is a way out – even if you are the type of woman that wants it all.
Stress is something that most women put up with, but in the end it catches up with you. Some women spend their life searching for answers, jumping from the latest solution to the next, or others get lost in a life of blaming everybody else but themselves, but you can only eliminate the discomfort of stress and anxiety in your life when you understand that the change has to come from deep within yourself – that’s when life becomes easier.
When you are no longer controlled by anyone else but yourself, when you live life on your terms, most of your stress disappears – it’s liberating and it makes you feel free – (although my parents still call it ‘stubborn bloody mindedness’) – call it what you want though – it works for me, and it will work for you too!
My goal is to assist you to be a woman who lives a happy and fulfilled life – it is possible to put yourself first and place yourself in charge of your own destiny, and still look after everybody else you love.
My goal is to assist you to reach this point too – so you can be the woman who lives a happy and fulfilled life – it is possible to put yourself first, and place yourself in charge of your own destiny. When you live like this everything around you becomes easier, your children will be happier and well balanced, your career will work for you, people will enjoy being around you, and life is much more enjoyable.
Life is all about balance – this book is about helping you achieve that balance and what is just right for you – not anybody else. Along the way, I give you the knowledge you need to start taking back control of your life by showing you easy and simple ways that will assist you in eliminating and reducing the stresses of your daily grind.
When you live like this everything around you becomes easier; your children will be happier and well balanced, your career will work for you, people will enjoy being around you, and life is much more enjoyable.
Introduction
There are plenty of stress therapists and stress management books that advise you to slow down and take it easy if you want to reduce the stress in your life – Yeah, okay. Since when have you had time to take it easy?
You are a busy lady; you have a job, responsibilities, a home, children, family, friends, pets, hobbies and hopefully time for a few interests and a bit of socializing. You are not the type of woman that has time to take a deep bath at six in the evening, switch off from the world and spend the remainder of the evening surrounded by candles and massage oils, I doubt you’ll be getting eight hours sleep a night, and chances are you have no spare time because you are too busy looking after everybody else! Stress is causing you a problem and you are suffering right? But, you want to get a life – not stop it completely.
You are a modern day woman – and you have it all – only having it all seems to be causing a lot of stress – Is it possible to have the full and active life that you desire and still be calm and relaxed? Yes, of course it is – It just takes a small change in your thinking and a degree of focus and self devotion on your part – and that’s what this book is all about.
The media and some researchers blame the current ‘stress epidemic’ on everything from the foods we eat to the cultures of our society, and none of them are wrong, it’s just that what affects one, doesn’t necessarily affect another.
We are living in a time of rapid technological, scientific, social, economic, and political change – and life is about change, only it seems to going so fast, we often don't know how to cope with the constant change around us.
Stress is caused by how we react to the people, events, and changes in our lives. Learning effective stress management skills may be one of the most important things you can do for your health and well being.
Everyone seems to be talking about stress, pick up a newspaper or magazine and you’ll usually find some reference to stress, literally thousands claim to be experts in stress and write about it or become stress therapists - yet only a handful of people know exactly what it is. Far be it from me to suggest that these ‘experts’ have nothing of value to offer, but in the absence of a clear concept of exactly what stress is, you are far less likely to find a balanced approach.
With so many ‘experts’ and stress management practices, where do you start? There are so many theories, recovery programs and books available; so much so that the message about stress becomes blurred by opinion and ideas – and in this case, I find it is beneficial to revert to the undisputed facts – facts that I attempt to stick to in this book.
This book is written for busy women like you – you won’t find stress management strategies that require a two week retreat in a monastery, nor will you find techniques for reducing stress that only add to your ‘to do list’.
What you will find in this book is a simple approach to managing stress, you’ll discover exactly what stress is and why it causes so much anxiety, you’ll learn that stress isn’t as frightening as you think it is, and I give you a whole new approach to stress relief and recovery from anxiety and panic.
Stress Management for Busy Women teaches you everything you need to know to get rid of your stress, anxiety and tension, so you can start living a calm, serene and happy life.
Clearly, it is not a good idea for people to be under stress, but we cannot hide from stress – it’s part of life and I want you to be able to embrace that thought - Imagine that you can get to a place where you actually know how to use your stress in a positive way?
Imagine that being sat in a traffic jam is no longer the distressing, tearing your hair out situation for you, imagine that whilst it’s a frustrating thing to happen, you can simply accept where you are and turn your attention elsewhere? Imagine that instead of reacting by screaming, complaining and letting your everyday annoyances make you feel trapped – that you can use the stress positively and actually change your life. When you realise that you have a choice, you are allowing your stress be a sign to take positive action; to let stress drive you to finally update your CV and apply for the job you should have gone for months ago - Wouldn’t that be great? No longer a victim of circumstance, you learn to take back control – No more unhappy situations for you – you know that you can take control of your life.
So if you are ready to go from ‘stress mess’ to ‘stress less’ – then read on.
This book may not be like anything you have ever read on stress – Yes, you’ll still hear me say that having a relaxing bath is good for you – but there is a difference in using the bath as a cure for your stress and knowing how to really deal with stress. When you really understand stress you can face any situation knowing that you can deal with it and create the wonderful life that you deserve.
You can sign up to our Stress Management For Busy Women newsletter and emails – it’s completely free and you will receive regular emails straight to you inbox packed full of helpful advice and calm inducing content, to help you on your journey to become stress free.
http://www.stressmanagementforbusywomen.com/bookecourse
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Anais Nin,
"Winter of
Artifice"
US
Author & Diarist (1903 - 1977)
Stress Management for Busy Women - Part One
Knowing and Understanding Stress
Why Women Suffer more Stress
Hey ladies, here’s a fact - Statistically, women are suffering from stress more than men – no really?!?
One can only assume that the researchers on that project were all men – had there been any women on the research team, we could have saved them the trouble.
Being the natural care givers that we are, our gender specific role as ‘a female’ has always, since time began, been to look after the children and the home, and nothing has really changed over the years has it? We’ve gone from generation to generation in this way. Is it good, bad?
I don’t know, I just know that despite the Emily Pankhursts of the world, The Women’s Lib movement and the reality that men can’t see dust, nothing has really changed the fact that it is still considered the social and behavioral ‘norm’ that women take the responsibility for the home, rearing the children - and all the shopping, cleaning, ironing, and cooking along the way.
Which brings us right up to date in the 21st Century, and how the role that women have carried out for thousands of years fits into what is still considered to be socially appropriate in most of civilization – that women have certain roles in life that mean you have numerous labels that describe ‘who you are’ to the people around you - and what you are expected to do for them in that role.
Around 80% of women are mothers, and there a lot of skills needed to carry out the role successfully, and being the life long job that it is, it brings a lot of pressures too - but even the other 20% of women still have the same pressures, just a few less people to look after!
I know I wear lots of different ‘hats’ and most days, I seem to change them quite often; one minute I’m sergeant major commanding the wake up and get out of bed routine, I then find myself orchestrating the family through from the bathroom to the breakfast table, next I’m loving mother, then life coach, the cook, the cleaner, it goes on .... And I’m sure you’ll relate to all this occurring in just the first two hours of your day!
Fulfilling so many roles successfully on a daily basis is not always easy; it takes up a great deal of your time for one. It also means that you are regularly focusing on the needs of others, and with so much of your attention on looking after everybody else - Have you ever felt like you’ve forgotten who you really are?
What ‘roles’ does your everyday life demand that you take on?
Wife / Partner:
Support and cherish husband - that’s the sulky one who now seems to have turned into one of your children! Put up with his annoying habits and generally try not to argue too much.
Mother:
Love, care for, and nurture the children – all of them. Put their needs before yours, spend money on them - not yourself, be a balanced role model for them, and attempt to train them to be good, be nice and grow up into responsible adults.
Lover:
Maintain the reason you fell in love in the first place – yeah - at one in the morning when you’ve just finished 3 hours of ironing, while he’s been snoring away in front of the TV!
Daughter:
Make your parents proud, create memories to cherish and look after them as they age – as well as wishing you were 6 again and under their care.
Sister:
Maintain the special relationship with your siblings – whilst you still carry all the resentments of childhood brotherly and sisterly love and hate.
Grandmother:
Act as child minder for the grandchildren, support the family unit, love them all.
Best friend:
BF is having a crisis - again! Means she phones you up 5 times a day to wail and cry into your ear hole.
House keeper and manager:
Pay window cleaner, get gutters fixed, organize pest control, clear out the junk in the garage, and fix any other disaster that you didn’t cause.
Child minder:
Entertain, feed and clean up after toddlers while everybody else seems to be working, also look after everybody else’s kids too!
Financial planner / accountant:
Pay bills – on time, visit bank, check statements, budget for the family holiday, and spend two infuriating hours on the phone chasing a missing deposit.
Errands service:
Pick up his dry cleaning, drop car off for service other side of town (arranged by him), and don’t forget to book the reservation at the restaurant, call at the library, take your new iron back to the store because it doesn’t work, and you promised to call in and see your friend - three weeks ago.
Cook:
Prepare at least 3 meals a day for the fussiest eaters in the world - plan a week’s menu and avoid the temptation of the nearest drive through – you know it’s not healthy.
Cleaner:
Mop, vacuum, dust, bleach, polish and disinfect every available surface in your home. Wait for ten minutes, and you can watch them all annihilate your gleaming clean home back to how it was two hours previously.
Personal shopper:
The kids need new school shirts, hubby wants a pair of trousers for work, and he wants you to choose them – typical. Need to buy a gift for daughter’s party tomorrow and don’t forget to call at the supermarket or you’ll all be on toast for dinner – again!
Personal counselor or coach:
Your teenager has been sulking for 5 days solid and won’t come out of their room, 7 year old needs encouraging to take part in more activities (according to class report), and you’re BF is still wailing down the phone about her latest man.
Chauffeur:
That’s just you – attempting to be in two places at once for getting kids to school on time, being there when the bell goes every afternoon, and then speeding off to dance class, football practice and seemingly every other activity going – oh, and hubby wants picking up from the train station in an hour!
Teacher:
Help children with homework, try and remember long multiplication, listen to their reading & answer every possible ‘why’ question on the planet!
Entertainer:
It’s weekend ... relax – NO. The kids want entertaining, they’re bored! You have to catch up with all your chores at home, Oh and your sister is calling round (more like invited herself for dinner) with her new fella, and hubby invited his friends round to watch the game, so can you organize some food and drinks? And don’t forget the argument with hubby because you want him to catch up with some DIY around the house.
Time keeping manager:
Getting every family member including yourself where they should be and on time!! Impossible!
Dog walker:
Nobody else seems to want to walk the dog anymore – or feed it, and the kids don’t even take your threat seriously that you’ll get rid of the dog if they don’t look after it.
Laundry service:
Wash, dry and iron a mountain of clothes – most of which are clothes you picked up off the floor – that also includes clothes that are clean, but your teenager (and husband), decided that the floor option is easier than hanging them up.
Gardener:
You have to at least get the lawn mowed; the neighbor is giving you funny looks it’s gotten that long.
General dog’s body? I’m sure you can come up with some more ... The list and the accompanying descriptions might sound a little extreme and yes, I did use it as an opportunity to have a bit of a dig, but I don’t actually think it’s too far off a typical week for most women – do you?
Oh, and we haven’t even started on your day job yet – but are you beginning to see a point here? On top of all those ‘hats’ you wear, you still have a job to go to or a business to run – and women always seem to have to work harder to prove themselves in the world of work and business don’t they? Somewhere in all of that chaos – there is a woman who is supposed to be enjoying and living life to the full.
Busy women all have one thing in common
Too much to do – and too little time.
There are 168 hours in a week, which seems a lot of hours so it makes you wonder where all your time goes. Just how much of your time is spent doing daily tasks that are ‘necessary’ duties - and mostly seem to be for the benefit of other people? How many hours do you spend during a week looking after your family and your home? And how many hours a week do you work? Don’t forget the 56 hours of sleep you are supposed to have in a week!
How many hours are you left with for relaxation and ‘me time’? I guess not many. And those ‘not many’ hours – are the hours where you are supposed to do something for yourself – if you have the energy!
Life often feels like you are performing a ‘plate spinning’ act in a circus; it’s actually most entertaining to watch the performer as he rushes back and forth, making sure the plates keep spinning on the poles.
He never takes his eyes off the long row of spinning plates, not knowing which one he has to run to next to keep each plate spinning to avoid disaster - yet if this plate spinning act seems to reflect your life, then it isn’t much fun to be the one that has to keep all those ‘plates spinning’.
Imagine that each plate represents a part of your life, the ‘work’ plate, your ‘relationship’ plate, your ‘finances’ plate - Everyday, you are working harder and faster to keep all your plates spinning, back and forth, never really taking your attention away just to avoid disaster.
If you think that you have too much to do and too little time, making a list of the tasks you do every day can often help you pinpoint where you could gain some control and make the best use of your time.
Head up a sheet of paper and make five columns as; the task you do, who you it for, how long it takes you, your feelings about doing the task, and in the fifth column, spend some time thinking how you could actually change the situation - could the kids help with more tasks at home, is there a mum nearby that you can share school runs with, would it be worth paying someone the equivalent of a couple of bottles of wine just to save all the hassle it causes?
This is actually a great exercise to do for improving your time management – it allows you to see where you may be spending too much time doing things that add little value to your life.
It also helps to you to engage your rational thinking into the problem, as often, if you are stressed or emotionally fraught, rather than looking at the possible solutions and logic, your brain automatically focuses on the problem and the emotions of it, meaning that you only see things one way when there are probably quite a few solutions available to you that you hadn’t considered.
I urge you to get out pen and paper and list your daily tasks and events in detail – the results may shock you. It will really help you discover where your stresses, energy drains and feelings of frustration may be coming from.
And it also helps you to highlight some irritations that you may have become so accustomed to; that you don’t even notice them anymore.
Other reasons women get stressed ...
Women are strong – and incredibly resilient. Women endure pregnancy and child birth; the facts and figures on post natal depression are frightening, and the effects pregnancy has on a woman’s body are huge, but it doesn’t stop us, does it?
We are natural nurturers and care givers and although most women happily place the needs of their children and loved ones before their own, it’s more or less expected of women to do this. Over the years I’ve known so many women that have given up their careers, and a large part of their lives to care for elderly parents or sick family – and it proves, that where care and love is needed, it’s normally the women in a family that take on the responsibility – and the stresses that go with it.
Women are more emotional than men, we have different hormones and programming that affects the way we think and behave. We are the side of the human race that is predominantly sensitive, gentle and loving.
These glorious traits, which are part of being a woman, bring about such rewarding and loving relationships, yet they are the very same reasons that make us more sensitive to stress.
The different roles that you naturally fall into through your life, bring with them a great deal of seemingly endless responsibilities. These responsibilities leave you in a position to experience more than your fair share of stresses in life, and fulfilling all the roles and labels that are on the list on the previous pages brings some heavy demands - not just on your time, but on your body and mind too.
A recent study put some actual monetary value on the jobs and tasks a married woman takes responsibility for and carries out regularly – Here’s the shocking part - what you do - day in and day out to look after your family and home, is easily worth sixty thousand a year!
The report figures are based on having two children and being married – and are calculated by adding the costs of paying someone to do what a home maker and mother carries out every day, and at all hours of the day and night. It is pretty shocking don’t you think, that not only do you not receive the benefit of the monetary reward, but that you are getting stressed in the process?
Having more responsibilities, and being the home maker, the main carer for children in a family, and the one that holds everything together – can often leave you feeling a bit over whelmed at times, and if you are like 70% of other women, you have the added responsibility of bringing home an income too – which means you are also a working Mother, it’s no wonder you will experience feelings of exhaustion and frustration at times, and the dangerous part is that feeling run down or exhausted, actually weakens your coping ability and leaves you wide open to stress.
There’s a whole range of other reasons why women tend to get more stress than men; your programming, your conditioning, the way you are, your perceptions and attitudes to life, your ability to cope with the ever demanding list of daily challenges, finding your own purpose in life, and of course, the stresses of life that all seem part of being a 21st century woman – It brings certain expectations, by others and by ourselves too.
Do you recall being 18? Can you remember your hopes and dreams, how did you expect your life would turn out? Does it look anything like that now?
If it doesn’t, there’s a chance that you are measuring and judging what is happening in your life now, to those ideals you held when you were younger; ideals you got from your limited view of the world, from fairy tales and TV, that shaped images in your mind of the ideal relationships, the ideal career, the ideal home, bank balance, and happiness, and it gave you some expectations in life. And somewhere, in the depths of your mind, you are comparing yourself, to your own expectations and the ideal images in your head, and the ideal images you see around you in the women’s magazines and the media that keep adding to your expectations creating a model image of how life should be for a woman - And that causes a fair bit of inner conflict because life isn’t like the mental images you have constructed from the ideals you see in TV and media.
Trying to live up to expectations and ‘shoulds’ is something that we often do to our own detriment, that little voice in your head is reminding you that your life right now doesn’t actually match those expectations you had, and in comes the ‘shoulds’ and judgments from yourself as you dwell on the fact that your life isn’t quite how you expected it to be; you should be earning more money than this, you should be happy caring for your family, and you should be further up the career ladder by now - and round and round they go in your head, all the time, causing you to ignore what you have really achieved and dwell on the negatives of what you haven’t got – or worse still, feeling like a you’re a failure because you haven’t achieved your picture of ‘how it should be’!
Most of us don’t realize we are doing it, but we naturally measure and judge what is in the world around us to the ideals that are in our minds. But what is that ‘should be’, who put it the ideal in your mind?
You can’t be sure that the ideal in your mind is right or accurate because there are no rules that say you should earn X amount by the age of 30, or have children by the age of 35.
If you are not paying attention to your thinking, it’s easy to get carried away living up to ideals that just aren’t accurate and sometimes, you don’t even know how they got there. Here’s just a few of the ways you may be doing the same thing – and adding to your stresses with your faulty thinking along the way ...
Have you got ‘super woman’ syndrome?
I asked this question on an online chat forum recently ...
‘As a modern 21st century woman - do you feel under pressure to be the perfect mother, a domestic goddess and a successful career woman / employee ?’
And the results were shocking – a whopping 80% of women that responded said that they do actually feel under pressure to be seen as ‘a superwoman’ - that is efficient and able to cope with all that life throws their way – do you feel the same? Do you feel the pressure to be seen as totally efficient and successful at being a mother, wife, home maker and career woman?
The TV reality show ‘Wife Swap’ is a great demonstration of what I am talking about here – there are quite a few episodes where one of the wives is totally hooked on being seen as the perfect mother and wife; they’ll spend hours polishing and cleaning their homes, they drive their kids to every class and activity going, and their level of expectations and standards in life are so high, that they just aren’t normal. They make their family quite unhappy (and unstable), by demanding that their ideal of perfectionism is met by placing the most ridiculous expectations on their family; pressing for high grades, excessive achievement and forcing them to always compete are not fair demands to place on their children and a husband, yet they can’t see any other point of view. Their family life is so wrapped up in portraying an image of perfectionism that they are mainly miserable.
To sit and watch some of these women, you are actually thinking ‘are you crazy?’ but how much of that woman you see on TV is in you?
I know these examples are extreme (thank goodness), but if you are not the crazy woman who has to have everything so perfect, and if you’re not the other wife on the show who is usually a slob who hasn’t seen her living room floor in ten years because of the dirty washing – then where are you on this scale?
Chances are you are somewhere in between, but that still makes you open to the pressures of being a superwoman.
‘Having it All’
‘Having it all’ - sounds idyllic doesn’t it? The perfect husband, great kids, gorgeous home, the looks and a great career. If you cast your mind back to being younger, did you have an expectation of how you life would turn out, can you picture it? Was it an idyllic image? How is your life now, does your reality match what your expectations were? Maybe not quite so, but these three little words ‘having it all’ are causing such a huge problem for today’s average woman as we attempt to live up to the expectations set by ourselves and others.
Having it all invariably means ‘doing it all’ - It paints an unrealistic image that most women attempt to live up to, but never actually achieve – at least not without a great deal of unhappiness along the way.
That is because ‘having it all’ means that you are constantly striving to reach something that is just an ideal – whose ideal I don’t know, but it’s just another image conjured up by media and celebrities, and it’s plopped in our minds to make us feel inferior, or to encourage us to strive to be that way. Victoria Beckham is a classic example, but pull the whole image apart and give it some thought – she has a famous husband – they have millions to spend on hired help. She steps off that airplane looking stunning with her children in tow – do you really think she has done all that for herself? I don’t see her running to find a luggage trolley to pick up her zillion designer cases, or dash outside the airport to find a taxi. Her nanny is no doubt somewhere in and amongst the entourage of people around her (which will also include her stylist) and she’s dressed stunningly to be photographed – in 5 inch heels and a pencil skirt so tight that it looks like it’s painted on – and she can do that because she won’t be stood for 4 hours in airport shops and toilets - So don’t even attempt to compare yourself- and if your mind is now recalling the last time you stepped off a plane - with your flip flops and leggings and screaming kids – You are living in the real world – not her.
So does the woman who has it all actually exist – I doubt it – and where do all these standards come from – Just who has set the rules? I don’t know for sure, but what you see on TV and in magazines, sure has a lot to do with it!
This perpetual loop of images and messages is getting stronger too - Many girls are still growing up expecting a ‘have it all’ life – but with marriage at an all time low, single parent families on the rise, shocking childcare facilities the world over and the unsteady economy – it’s just not possible!
There is no real way of having it all – there’s no fixed formula for being the perfect mother, career woman, everyday beauty and dream wife. Those women who have great careers and run huge businesses – what do you think their children are doing when they are working? They go to childcare – if they are being a career woman, that means that someone else has to be looking after their children, somebody else is doing the mothering - We are human, not robots - the sooner you question the images and conditioning you around you and the ones you grew up with, the better.
So stop striving to achieve the impossible – being in a constant state of striving is never good for happiness. You will always feel that what you have now is never good enough, and that’s not fair on you.
You’ll never be happy if you think this way and I strongly advise that you set your own rules – live your life how you want to live it.
If you do want more, that’s great, then also be prepared for hard work, carefully plan out your support and coping strategies to suit your goals, and decide what is going to give - because something has to.
Is what you ‘look like’ causing you stress?
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Lines, wrinkles, a wobbly bum, flabby tum, and sagging boobs?
You’re not alone – over 60% of women do not like what they see in the mirror. Unlike men, women are much more critical of their appearance.
Why is what you see in the mirror important?
Women are always trying to live up to the images in the media, and are judged far more on appearances than men are.
Most of us are probably more obsessed with our appearance than we would like to admit, but if every time you look in the mirror and you don’t like what you see, you are lowering your self esteem and confidence – Would you say to your best friend every time you saw her ‘Wow, you’re so fat and ugly, I mean look at that huge flab on your belly!’ (grab her belly fat then move right up to her face and continue with) ‘Oh no, look at those lines on your forehead, and around your eyes, girl, you’re looking old!’ – No you wouldn’t, so why are you doing it to yourself?
Criticism of your appearance just causes so much anxiety and stress – and if you are guilty of trying to be like the images you see in the glossy’s, you have to stop it - you are attempting to achieve the impossible!
The media’s standards of beauty have become increasingly unrealistic over the years, and technology has greatly aided that increase. Probably less than 1% of the world’s female population have the looks and the body features to be top models, and even then, the images you see are achieved by hours of work with a professional team of stylists and make up artists – the photographer uses lighting and camera angles that are devised to take the best possible shots, and then the image is airbrushed – removing all imperfections, bumps, bulges, spots and stray hairs, they even make the model look taller and thinner. So why does the average woman feel she should have to step out of her house in the morning looking like the models on the glossy make up ads?
There have actually been experiments on the subject of female media imagery, and studies have shown that when women are exposed to the images of super models in the media, it actually induces feelings of insecurity and guilt. It has been proven, that as a result of feeling that way, it can actually bring on disorders such as depression, body dysmorphia, and stress!
Taking an interest in your looks is perfectly normal, and it is a well known fact that attractive people have greater advantages in life such as more success at work, more popularity and a greater circle of friends - and why wouldn’t you want to make the best of yourself?
Looking good does make you feel better and a little more confident. Being well presented, dressed and groomed always gives you a bit of a boost - so make the most of what you have, incorporate some beauty treatments into a ‘me time’ routine if that is what you enjoy, because it is important to do whatever makes you feel good.
But don’t fall into the trap of negative self talk and constant internal self abuse, and don’t make your body image an obsession – it really won’t do anything for your happiness.
I’m sure you can see a bit of yourself in the last few pages. I do hope it’s high lighted some of the areas in your life where you hadn’t even thought stress was coming from – all part of being a woman hey?
I’ve fallen into the traps myself – years ago. All the pressures of being a new mum, wanting to look like you are coping real well, with perfect looks, and running an efficient home, having people say – ‘wow, how do you do it all?’ But you know, living this way is dangerous, as a woman living the 21st century life that changes so rapidly, be aware of the pit falls of setting your own standards too high and bowing to the pressure of the media to be perfect.
What you do is amazing – look for the positives, not the negatives, and celebrate the opportunity to be able to give so much love and caring to people, but watch for the hidden traps that suck you into self criticism and that constant striving for perfection.
Everyday living is rife with stressful situations and pressurizing environments and messages, though for you to stay vibrant, youthful, and positive towards life, you have to learn to handle them wisely, and you’ll soon be the inspiring woman we all look up to and admire!
Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
~Chinese Proverb
The Demands of Life –Welcome to the 21st Century
The demands and pressures of life are all around us – Everyday you have a large amount of demands that you are constantly balancing and juggling to meet;
Getting to work on time
Looking after your family
Buying groceries
Running your home
Performing to a standard ‘they’ expect at work
Paying your bills on time
Finding a car parking space
Beating the rush hour
Meeting your own personal needs
… And dealing with anything else that arises along the way.
These pressures are all part of normal living that constantly demand of your time, attention and energy.
I have no doubt that you can relate to how these demands fit into your life, you are pushed harder at work to produce more on less hours, you’ll have appointments you need to meet all over town. At work, your boss monitors your every move to make sure you are performing, people and customers demand your attention, and emails drop into your inbox one beep at a time, all saying read me and respond – now!
Okay, so those are the obvious demands, the things that if you ask anybody what demands they have in their life, are the most likely answers they’ll give you. Are these demands the cause of your stress? Maybe you think they are, most people do believe that what happens to them causes their stress – or causes them to be stressed, but this isn’t true.
And here’s where stress gets a little ambiguous depending on your interpretation of some of the words used by stress professionals – We tend to imply a negative meaning when we talk about demands – the demands of work, or the demands of running a home and looking after the family, but not all demands are stressful, or negative or even bad, in fact none of them are, they are simply the events of your life that require your attention.
If you imagine humans at their most basic of existence – we are nothing more than a living organism in an environment – we respond to our environments as they switch and change, they can be subtle changes like temperature, light and noise, or they can be extreme mood swings or alterations in energy from the people around us, and just like a plant or flower responds to the changes in seasons, sunlight and temperature, we too do the same by adapting to changes in our environments and energies as they occur.
Demands and Stress
One of the early pioneers of stress, Dr. Hans Selye describes stress as our response to any of the eternal demands of life, be they physical, emotional, environmental or seemingly not on our radar - According to Selye, stress can be defined as;
‘the non specific response of the body to any demand’
Selye proved that we respond to demands in both a positive and negative way, and often our body and mind are working together interpreting, adapting and responding to demands that we are not even aware of.
What Selye meant is that a demand is just a call for you to respond to something - If you get a cold virus, your body responds by fighting the virus with it’s defense mechanism of your immune system, if you are outside and it becomes cold – you’ll start to shiver and get goose bumps – you interpret and respond to that by providing the warmth your body needs, and you have the choice in how you meet that demand; put your coat or jumper on, go inside, or jump up and down ... you’re choosing how you meet that demand by the resources you have available to you.
This is really the whole concept of stress and stress management – we live in cause / effect universe. Working 12 hours a day is a demand on your time, energy and attention – but it isn’t necessarily bad or stressful – but how you feel and respond to working 12 hours a day could be – stress isn’t in the event itself, stress is in how you interpret and respond to an occurrence or event, and there is always cause – and effect.
The Nature of Your Demands
Every single event in your life and your environment, from the weather, to the ringing of your phone alerting you that somebody requires your attention, will have some sort of impact on you, it could be a slight change in your mood, or you may have to wake up and get out of bed to answer the phone.
When you recognize a demand, it forces you to use the various resources you have available to you to respond or react to that demand, we do a lot of responding naturally and unconsciously. Your responses aren’t always obvious to you, neither are they the primary focus of your attention, but you are responding and reacting 24 hours a day - physically and mentally to the demands of your world around you - and the thoughts in your head.
Each and every one of those demands requires you to dip into your personal physical and mental resources to adapt, make a change, or alter in some way, using either physical or mental resources in order for you to respond to them accordingly.
And that’s where stress appears – Recognizing that a demand or a stressor has occurred does not automatically cause you to experience stress - your judgment of the extremity of the demand, and your ability to meet the demand will determine just how stressful meeting the demand will be for you.
The instant appraisal process that we make about all our experiences partially explains too, why a particular event may be negatively stressful to one person but not to another.
Your personal appraisal of the events in your life plays a huge part in whether you will interpret an event as negative or positive, making appraisals leads us to determine the types of demand threat in front of you and how you can cope with it -
The factors you use to weigh up a situation are huge, and they vary too – but they come down to two things;
What does it mean to you? – Is it a threat?
What resources do you have to deal with the situation?
Some of the events in your life are predictable, like the day your rent or mortgage is due, others are completely unpredictable such as your car breaking down or a natural disaster occurring.
Demands come from your environment, your work, your home, your family, and of course the expectations you place on yourself, not forgetting all the social and cultural expectations of life.
Change is Demand
The world around you is continually changing and shifting, the temperature changes, moods of the people close to you change, the lighting changes, noises change, the weather changes, and time brings changes in the tasks you have to do. You change too – you change you mind, your ideals, your preferences, your goals. Nothing ever stays the same, yet as humans, we tend to have to this resistance against change – people like routine, it gives a feeling of control over their lives. We like our comfort zones and the things we get used to, and when things change it requires a certain amount of adaptation, and that sometimes feel uncomfortable, so avoidance of change is often just to avoid the pain of changing, it doesn’t mean things are getting worse – just different - or better.
Are the demands increasing?
In a word – yes, life seems to have got so much faster, we seem to have to cram so much more into our lives, you’ll sit in traffic, on a road system no longer built to cope with the volume of vehicles, work in cities full of people rushing impatiently to get where they are headed and all of these demands are pushing your resources to the limits.
We now live in a world where we consume more, have more, and are offered more choices than ever before, and all that choice is anxiety inducing – Think of your last trip to the supermarket; how long could you stand there thinking which brand of cereal to buy?
Which one is healthiest, which one is cheapest, what will the kids eat? As you give the matter some consideration balancing all the factors, you’re reminded of a recent report about this brand of cereal, it’s bad for the kids. But your children will eat only that brand, so if you buy a different brand, you’ll end up with a battle on your hands with the children. You want them to have a healthy breakfast - what will people think of you buying a cereal that has been reported as unhealthy, should you make more time to give your children a better breakfast like cooked eggs and toast, does this make you a bad mother? You have to make a decision; you are weighing up the pros and cons of just a box of cereals, worse still, in creeps the guilt as you pick up the box of cereals that your children love so much, and you beat yourself up about it.
A world full of choice also brings an availability of everything – if you feel like everything seems to be competing for your attention (and money), you are right, and it’s done by playing to your anxieties and insecurities, you are judged by the choices you make, because if you love your family, you’ll protect them with X brand of cleaner, won’t you?
Technology has also played a huge part in the increasing demands of our lives, strange when you consider that technology is there to supposedly make our lives easier, (I know I couldn’t live without my dishwasher or washing machine), but what about the constant flickering of a computer screen, the printer that won’t, and the number of ringing phones in any public place, (not to mention the really annoying ringtones)?
We live amongst some of the most awful irritants, noise going on around us all the time. Scientific studies show that the electromagnetic waves emitted by these appliances affect our neural systems too – the energy waves of electronic items interfere with our natural energy levels - Take a look around you. How many electronic devices do you have within 20 foot of you right now?
Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t imagine my life without at least some of my technology. It has brought about the most wonderful advances in communication, it benefits millions of us, it assists us in our daily lives, it helps us stay in touch with people that matter, but along with that – it has allowed for the means of communication to be open on every level – you are receiving a constant stream of stimuli, messages to your brain that you keep on filtering in that all need processing 24/7!
TV, radio, video, internet, billboards and flashing adverts on every available surface outside your home, home phones, answer machines, e-mails, fax machines, mobile or cell phones, phone apps, social networking - All constant means for you to receive messages that you will either respond or react to even if you are not aware of it. Interruptions from technology don’t only take that form – You could be on your way to an important meeting, or you’ve finally got an hour to yourself to go shopping - your phone rings, and it’s hubby telling you that the kids are misbehaving –And? What does he expect you to do about it? There is no escape.
It happens when you sit down to relax and read a newspaper, magazine or watch TV, it’s full of demands on your attention – only to consume messages of doom and gloom about the economy and the latest bad news – your mind is constantly processing messages that are ultimately interpreted as threats to your safety as the guy on the news tells you about the dangers of global warning or the latest crime wave that could affect you.
When you watch TV and read the media you are being exposed to a type of manipulation and control that has consequences on your mind and your physiology – Watching TV puts you in a kind of trance because the flicker of the screen is similar to those of the brain wave patterns of being in a relaxed alpha state – and the advertisers know this – what better way to sell their products to you through getting you in a trance like state and repeating their message over and over again. They play on your insecurities and their messages are crafted meticulously to get you to buy their products. When you are in this state, you are completely open to suggestion, and they play to your fears and give you reasons to worry about things you didn’t even know you needed to worry about! It gets the little negative voice in your head going – these are demands that you don’t even notice, yet they cause you to react.
Watching TV has it’s benefits, it is relaxing because of it’s trance inducing state, and it helps you to wind down and switch off from the world and your worries, it also offers some really good educational programmes, but please, please, please, drop the volume and turn away from the screen when the ad breaks and the news comes on, and be aware when you are watching pure junk on the TV.
I’m sure you have become accustomed to a faster pace of life and the continual stream of noise and disturbances around you, but even though you may be accustomed to it, that doesn’t stop it being stressful to you – even if you don’t notice it. You live in a world full of pressure – pressure that seeps into your daily life, humans created it and now we are paying the price as 70% of the population experience the pressure of everyday living too– it’s no wonder as nations – we are stressed!