Stress: How to De-Stress without Doing Less (17 page)

I've lost count of the number of people who, on hearing I was writing this book, have asked me if I am finding it stressful! But seriously, I find myself finishing this book at a time that for me, as usual, has been one when stress has presented a pretty significant challenge! I guess many of us will never eradicate stress completely from our lives. In the same way that we will never be able to rid ourselves totally of those internal gremlins that make us prone to unhelpful thoughts, difficult emotions or stressful moments, stress will inevitably always be there to some degree.

Ultimately, I think that is the most important thing to learn about stress. We should never allow ourselves to become complacent and ignore stress, pretend, it isn't there or won't affect us, and hope it goes away. Remember, learning to deal with stress is about a lifelong journey of becoming better at handling it, but also learning to spot stress more quickly before it starts to become a problem. Successful stress management, like managing our weight, isn't about short-term regimes that are impossible to maintain. It's not about short periods when we manage to relax enough, live reasonably healthily and hold it all together until the next time things go crazy and it all goes to pot. Stress management is like learning to ‘eat healthily' all the time. It is about fitting relaxation and ‘down time' into our daily and weekly schedules so that stress is never allowed to get a foothold.

We should be aware, however, that we probably won't get it right all the time. Healthy eating includes periods of time when we indulge ourselves, and dealing with stress is the same. We will all have times where just by chance life throws a whole bunch of stuff at us that places demands on us (why do those things always seem to all happen at
the same time?). In those moments, the better our skills of stress management and the greater our arsenal of anti-stress weaponry and relaxation methods, the better our chances of getting through it without going crazy at some point (or driving those around us crazy instead). I have learned never to scoff at or rule out anything that is recommended to me as being useful for dealing with stress. It is always worth looking into things and, if we are happy with what is proposed, giving them a try! The worst that can happen is that they don't work. Life needs to be a journey of adding to the things that we know help us when things have become stressful – when suddenly the water levels are around our neck and we are starting to feel that sense of fear that we might go under.

I hope that this book has been a helpful step on your journey. Do keep learning about stress and adding to what you find works for you in terms of coping with it better. If you have identified that there may be things making you more vulnerable, keep looking into them. You deserve to reach the potential that you have, and stress, of all things, should not be allowed to stop you! Use the other people you have fighting on your side. Talk to your doctor, share ideas with friends – even consider joining a relaxation class. You won't manage to get things perfectly right as a result of reading this book. Neither will I! I guess we'll all have days where stress gets on top of us, but, hopefully, we will be able to learn a way of managing life in the challenging world we live in without stress seriously affecting our health or limiting our potential.

Good luck on your journey!