Resources
The following links and published articles are meant to serve as an extra resource for my clients to learn about specific mental health care topics. Read on to find useful information as well as a few published works of my own!
MOTIVATIONAL THOUGHTS
What do motivational thoughts do?
Motivational thoughts help you take action. This isn’t about making positive thoughts or motivating quotes. Those have their own role to play in shaping your attitude and thinking, but what motivates individual people is different, so you need to have your own thoughts – those which are most effective at getting you motivated.
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – Albert Einstein
This is a decent quote, and it may help you look at the positive side of a situation, but what if it just doesn’t get you excited? Then you need to apply a little brainpower to make the idea your own. You have to make it a truly motivational thought for YOU.
Motivational Thoughts Of Your Own
“Making it your own” means experimenting with a good thought until you find a way to use it in your own recipe for motivation. Suppose, for example, you’re in a difficult situation and don’t feel like dealing with it. As you sit there, you play around with the idea of opportunity coming from difficulty. Fortunately, you discover that it pulls you out of your slump to think about yourself in the future, explaining to a friend how you turned the difficult situation to your advantage.
This is how you create your own motivational thoughts. Now, it might be more motivating if you imagine yourself being interviewed someday about how you overcame this difficult time. The thoughts that work for you are the thoughts you need to be thinking.
Learn Your Motivations
Experiment and get to know how your mind works. I find that beyond just thinking a thought if I explain it to someone, I get excited. That is my own self-motivation recipe. When I feel unmotivated about writing, for example, I explain an idea I have for some article to my wife. By the time I am done, I’m very motivated to work.
You can get creative in your motivational experiments. Maybe thinking about being poor makes you get up and get to work. If so, that is a great motivational thought. If visual thoughts are more motivating than mental conversations, then use those. See pictures in your head that get you going. Perhaps when people say you can’t do something, you do whatever it takes to prove them wrong. Then it might be motivational to think about them saying you can’t.
When there is a truly uninspiring task you have to do, try promising yourself a reward for completion – make it one that really means something to you. Keep that thought in your mind to keep yourself motivated. A trip to the beach and even a simple bowl of ice cream maybe some of your more powerful motivational thoughts.
recipe. When I feel unmotivated about writing, for example, all I explain an idea I have for some article to my wife. By the time I am done, I’m very motivated to work.
You can get creative in your motivational experiments. Maybe thinking about being poor makes you get up and get to work. If so, that is a great motivational thought. If visual thoughts are more motivating than mental conversations, then use those. See pictures in your head that get you going. Perhaps when people say you can’t do something, you do whatever it takes to prove them wrong. Then it might be motivational to think about them saying you can’t.
When there's a task you don't find very compelling, try promising yourself a reward for completion. This could be anything that means a lot to you. Keep that thought in mind to motivate yourself. Things like a short walk on the beach and even as simple as a delicious big bowl of ice cream may be in your head of more powerful motivational thoughts.
5 Tips to Handle Stress
5 Tips to Handle Stress
It's true that life's stressful; that may have been the case back then, but nowadays it's gotten more hectic. Experts state that a little stress can be good; it keeps you sharp and ready to move forward, and is sometimes vital for achieving optimum performance.
However, medical research has determined that prolonged stress is very bad for the body, and can block the body’s natural ability to repair, regenerate and protect itself. Over 90% of disease is caused by stress. Stress is both a physical and psychological response. It can lead to chronic disease, obesity, insomnia, deteriorating relationships, depression, and more.
Stress is such a powerful and harmful force that it is vital that you learn effective stress management techniques to live a successful, happy, and healthy life. We must remember that we will always come across inevitable factors that cause pressure and anxiety on us. What we do not know is that it is not really the problems that are difficult to deal with, but our attitude towards them. So basically, the cause of stress is your attitude toward these things. What, then, is an effective way to deal with stressors?
Below are 5 great tips to handle stress.
1. Identify what makes you stressed and uneasy. Making a list of your stressful experiences is useful. Immediately deal with the issues that you can change, for instance waking up earlier for work in the morning, not leaving things till the last minute, and delegating tasks in case you are taking responsibility for everything. Forget about the issues that you cannot influence like being stuck in a traffic jam or not getting into the elevator because there is no room for you.
2. Calm down. A few minutes breaks would do you good. Wash your face, breath slowly and deeply, and notice if there is tension in any part of your body and release it. You can also listen to relaxing music, or call a friend. Releasing your inner feelings to a friend is a healthy option.
3. It will pass and it will be over before you know it. Remind yourself that the stressful event will end sooner or later and can make you see the positive sides of things. At the same time, calm down your emotions and think of what is the best thing to do rather than take your energy away from what needs to be done.
4. Know yourself. Ask yourself: What triggers your anxiety? If for example, it is your job, then maybe it's time for you to reconsider whether it would be best to find a less stressful job. You can also make your job more tolerable by allowing yourself to get that needed vacation or leave.
5. Learn to use your relaxation response. Just as we all have within us the stress response, we also have an opposite response, which is the relaxation response. A person should elicit that on a regular basis. The relaxation response involves two steps. Repetition, the repetition can be a word, a sound, an expression, or a repetitive movement. The second step is to ignore other thoughts that come to your mind while you’re doing the repetition and come back to the repetition. The technique should be used once or twice a day for about 15 minutes. Sit quietly and choose a suitable repetition, like a prayer, the sound of Om, or the word love, or calm. Or you can do a repetitive exercise, for instance, yoga, jogging, or Reiki. Additional repetitive activities are knitting or handicraft. When you incorporate this into your everyday life, you become calmer and better able to handle the stressors. Practice makes perfect and the more you practice and relax your mind, the easier it gets.
The true causes of stress are not the problems or negative experiences that you encounter in your life, but your attitude toward them. So, the trick is to change your attitude and develop a relaxed state, because you cannot be stressed and relaxed at the same time. It is important to understand that what we focus on, we energize. The more you continue to think about the factors that cause your stress, the more energy you give it. So it is vital to let go and focus on relaxation instead. Consequently, you’re less likely to be upset by a stressor, and thus less likely to have its harmful effect occur.
You have a choice in how you respond. You can keep responding negatively and causing yourself stress, or you can decide to change your attitude and become relaxed.