Stress Management For Dummies E-Book

Allen Elkin

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 605

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Tired of letting stress have a negative impact on your life? Easy. It's impossible to get through life without encountering stress. And unfortunately, most of us learn the incorrect ways to cope with it. Thankfully, Stress Management For Dummies gives you trusted, time-tested guidance on teaching your body and mind to properly cope with stress while keeping your sanity intact. Whether it's love, work, family, or something else that has you in the red zone, this updated edition of Stress Management For Dummies will help you identify the stress triggers in your life and cut them down to size -- all without losing your cool. * Shows you how to use stress in a positive, motivational way instead of letting it negatively affect your life * Teaches you to retrain your body and mind to react positively to stress * Helps you overcome common stresses faced in modern life If you want to manage stress and get back to living a normal life, Stress Management For Dummies has you covered.

Leseprobe

Stress Management For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013934912

ISBN 978-1-118-52392-6 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-61251-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-61255-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-61259-0 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Allen Elkin, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, a certified sex therapist, and the director of the Stress Management & Counseling Center in New York City. Nationally known for his expertise in the field of stress and emotional disorders, he has appeared frequently on Today, Good Morning America, and Good Day New York, as well as programs on PBS, CNN, FNN, Fox 5, and National Public Radio. He has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Men’s Health, Fitness, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Self, Mademoiselle, McCall’s, Parents, and other publications. Dr. Elkin holds workshops and presentations for professional organizations and corporations, including the American Society of Contemporary Medicine, Surgery, and Ophthalmology; the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Morgan Stanley; IBM; PepsiCo; and the New York Stock Exchange.

He is the author of two other books on stress, Urban Ease: Stress-Free Living in the Big City (Penguin Books), and Relax in the City Week by Week, (Duncan Baird). He is also a coauthor of Thriving in the Workplace All-in-One For Dummies (Wiley).

When he’s not talking about stress, you can probably find him at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he lives with his wife, Beth, their two children, Josh and Katy, and their cat, Smokey.

Dedication

To my wife, Beth, my best friend, and our children, Josh and Katy, who bring us great joy. 

Acknowledgments

First, and certainly foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Beth, who not only tolerated all the stress and tension that came with writing this book but also helped me edit the manuscript and kept me on track when I got lost. Her caring patience and sense of humor made writing this book much less stressful than it might have been.

I would also like to thank the many wonderful people at Wiley for their attention and care in turning an idea into a book. Special thanks are due to my editors, Lindsay Lefevere, Chrissy Guthrie, and Ashley Petry, and technical reviewer Matthew Grant for their support and encouragement and enormous help in making this a much better book than it might have been.

Finally, thank you to all my teachers and mentors whose thoughts, ideas, and insights are blended in these pages. I owe a special debt to my patients, who daily show me that there is still much more to learn.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We're proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Vertical Websites

Senior Project Editor: Christina Guthrie

(Previous Edition: Tim Gallan, Brian Kramer)

Executive Editor: Lindsay Sandman Lefevere

Copy Editor: Ashley Petry

Assistant Editor: David Lutton

Editorial Program Coordinator: Joe Niesen

Technical Editor: Matthew Grant, PsyD, HSPP

Vertical Websites: Rachel Mills

Editorial Manager: Christine Meloy Beck

Editorial Assistants: Rachelle Amick, Alexa Koschier

Cover Photos: © TommL / iStockphoto.com

Art Coordinator: Alicia B. South

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond

Layout and Graphics: Jennifer Creasey, Joyce Haughey

Proofreaders: Jessica Kramer, Evelyn C. Welborn

Indexer: Potomac Indexing, LLC

Illustrator: Pam Tanzey

Special Help:Megan Knoll

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher

David Palmer, Associate Publisher

Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Stress Management For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Getting Started with Stress Management

Part II: Mastering the Basics

Part III: The Secrets of Stress-Effective Thinking

Part IV: Managing Your Stress in Real Life

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Stress Management

Chapter 1: Stressed Out? Welcome to the Club!

Experiencing a Stress Epidemic?

Understanding Where All This Stress Is Coming From

Struggling in a struggling economy

Getting frazzled at work

Feeling frazzled at home

Piling on new stresses with technology

Dealing with daily hassles (the little things add up)

Looking at the Signs and Symptoms of Stress

Understanding How Stress Can Make You Sick

Understanding how stress can be a pain in the neck (and other places)

Taking stress to heart

Hitting below the belt

Compromising your immune system

The cold facts: Connecting stress and the sniffles

“Not tonight, dear. I have a (stress) headache.”

Stressing Out Your Family

Your relationships

Your kids

Stress Can Be Good?

Chapter 2: Stress Explained (In Surprisingly Few Pages)

So What Is Stress Anyhow?

“Sorry, but I really need a definition”

Stress causes stress?

How This Whole Stress Thing Got Started

Imagining you’re a cave person

Surviving the modern jungle

Understanding the Signs of Stress

Your body reacts

Your feelings and behavior change

Understanding Stress Is as Simple as ABC

Managing Stress: A Three-Pronged Approach

1. Managing your stressors

2. Changing your thoughts

3. Managing your stress responses

Tuning Your Strings: Finding the Right Balance

Chapter 3: Getting Started: Gathering Your Tools

How Stressed Are You? Finding Ways to Measure Your Stress Level

Starting with a simple gut check

Using a stress gauge

Measuring your stress in other ways

Monitoring Your Stress with a Stress Journal

Knowing how to record your stress

Knowing when to record your stress

Facing Roadblocks

Take it a step at a time

Give it a try

Accept your different strokes

Practice to make perfect

Find a quiet place

Link up

Get a stress buddy

Don’t expect overnight results

Part II: Mastering the Basics

Chapter 4: Relaxing Your Body

Stress Can Be a Pain in the Neck (And That’s Just for Starters)

Funny, I don’t feel tense

Invasion of the body scan

Breathing Away Your Tension

Your breath is fine. It’s your breathing that’s bad.

“Why change now? I’ve been breathing for years.”

Evaluating your breathing

Cutting yourself some slack

Changing the way you breathe, changing the way you feel

The yawn that refreshes

Tensing Your Way to Relaxation

Exploring how progressive relaxation works

Scrunching up like a pretzel

Mind over Body: Using the Power of Suggestion

Stretching Away Your Stress

Massage? Ah, There’s the Rub!

Massaging yourself

Becoming the massage-er or massage-ee

Taking a Three-Minute Energy Burst

More Ways to Relax

Chapter 5: Quieting Your Mind

Where Do All These Thoughts Come From!?

Sorting out your thoughts

Thinking automatically

Turning Off Your Mind

Stopping your unwanted thoughts

Snapping out of it

Distracting Yourself

Using Your Imagination

Making Things Move

What, Me Worry?

Scheduling your worries

Blowing up your worries

Striking up the band (or better yet, the string quartet)

Visiting the rain forest

Using some common scents

Do Nothing: Meditation Is Good for You

East comes West

“What can meditation do for me, anyway?”

But it’s harder than it looks

Preparing to meditate

Meditative breathing

Meditating with a mantra

Finding time for mini-meditations

Hypnotize Yourself

No, you won’t be turned into a clucking chicken

Surprise! You’ve already been hypnotized

The power of a trance

Inducing a light trance

Going a little deeper

Get me out of this trance

Want Some Feedback? Go the High-Tech Route

Hard-wired to your own body

Biofeedback (without the wires)

Chapter 6: Cultivating Mindfulness

Understanding Mindfulness

Defining mindfulness

Dispelling myths about mindfulness

Figuring out whether mindfulness is right for you

Recognizing Mindlessness

Auto-pilot: The good, the bad, and the really bad

Mindless multi-tasking

The dangers of mindless thinking

Understanding How Mindfulness Can Help Reduce Your Stress

Developing the Skills of Mindfulness

Staying in the present

Breathing more mindfully

Revisiting your daily routines

Learning how to detach

Controlling your attention

Cultivating Mindful Acceptance

Understanding acceptance

Distinguishing acceptance from resignation

Non-acceptance and your stress

Chapter 7: Stress-Reducing Organizational Skills

Figuring Out Why Your Life Is So Disorganized

Are you organizationally challenged?

Identifying your personal disorganization

Clearing Away the Clutter

Bust those clutter excuses

Get yourself motivated

Draw yourself a clutter roadmap

Get your feet wet

Stop kidding yourself

Avoid discouragement

Get down to the nitty-gritty

Organizing Your Space

Organizing Information

Losing the paper trail

Organizing the papers you do need to keep

Organizing electronically

Managing your email

Keeping Your Life Organized

Being proactive

Buying less

Chapter 8: Finding More Time

Determining Whether You Struggle with Time Management

Being Mindful of Your Time

Knowing where your time goes

Figuring out what you want more time for

Knowing what you want to spend less time doing

Minding your time with cues and prompts

Questioning your choices and changing behaviors

Becoming a List Maker

Starting with a master to-do list

Creating a will-do-today list

Having a will-do-later list

Keeping some tips in mind as you make your lists

Minimizing your Distractions and Interruptions

Managing electronic interruptions

Losing the visitors

Lowering the volume

Limiting your breaks

Shifting your time

Turning it into a positive

Minimizing your TV time

Winning the waiting game

Getting around Psychological Roadblocks to Time Management

Getting over your desire to be perfect

Overcoming procrastination

Letting Go: Discovering the Joys of Delegating

The fine art of delegating

Delegating begins at home

Buying Time

Avoid paying top dollar

Strive for deliverance

Chapter 9: Eating, Exercising, and Getting Your Zzzs

Stress-Effective Eating

Feeding your brain

Choosing low-stress foods

Stopping the stress-eating cycle

Eating mindfully

Mastering the art of anti-stress snacking

Eating out

Stress-Reducing Exercise and Activity

Calming your brain naturally

Thinking activity, not exercise

Doing the gym thing

Keeping yourself motivated

Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

Knowing your sleep needs

Hitting the sheets earlier

Developing a sleep routine

Falling asleep

Part III: The Secrets of Stress-Effective Thinking

Chapter 10: Understanding How Your Thinking Stresses You Out

Believe It or Not, Most of Your Stress Is Self-Created

Stress at 30,000 feet: Flight and fright

The presentation from hell

Remembering Your ABCs

It’s not exactly a new idea

It’s the thought that counts

Separating Thoughts from Feelings

Understanding Your Stress-Producing Thinking

Figuring out whether your thinking is the problem

Understanding your automatic thoughts

Uncovering your hidden thoughts

Your Thinking Errors

Catastrophizing and awfulizing

Can’t-stand-it-itis

What-if-ing

Overgeneralizing

Mind reading and conclusion-jumping

Comparativitis

Personalizing

Emotional reasoning

Filtering

Magnifying and minimizing

Should-ing

Self-rating

Using Your Coping Self-talk

Talking like an air-traffic controller

Putting it all together

Taking time to make it work

Chapter 11: Stress-Resilient Values, Goals, and Attitudes

Recognizing the Value of Your Values

Clarifying Your Values and Goals

The tombstone test

Five-ish years to live

The rating game

Things I love to do

Some other intriguing questions to ponder

Actualizing Your Values, Reaching Your Goals

Staying on track

Making the time

Expressing Gratitude

Understanding how expressing gratitude reduces your stress

Keeping a mental gratitude journal

Remembering to actually express your gratitude

Cultivating Optimism

Recognizing thinking errors that hinder optimism

Arguing with yourself

Constructing an optimistic future

Laughing Your Way to Stress Reduction

He (or she) who laughs, lasts

Some humorous suggestions

Blow things up

Doing Something Good for Someone Else

How helping helps

How to get started

How to offer random acts of kindness

Adding a Spiritual Dimension

Understanding how faith helps you cope with stress

Appreciating the power of belief

Gathering a Little Wisdom

Part IV: Managing Your Stress in Real Life

Chapter 12: Overcoming Your Anger

Figuring Out Just How Mad You Really Are

The Pros and Cons of Anger

Looking at the positives of anger

Examining the downside of anger

Understanding when and why anger is appropriate

Tempering Your Temper

Keeping an anger log

Checking your stress balance

Becoming Mindful of Your Anger

Breathing mindfully

Mindfully detaching

Modifying Your Mindset

Thinking about your thinking

Finding and fixing your thinking errors

Expecting the expected

Lengthening your fuse

Using your coping self-talk

To vent or not to vent? That is the question

Rehearsing your anger

Doing an emotional replay

Becoming an actor

Being discreet and choosing your moment

Breathing your anger away

Looking for the funny part

Chapter 13: Worrying Less

Do You Worry Too Much?

Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Yeah, Right!

Identifying Your Worries

Creating a worry list

Spotting your hidden worries

Understanding Your Worries

Comparing productive and unproductive worry

Discovering why you worry unproductively

Controlling and Stopping Your Worrying

Writing about your worries

Scheduling your worries

Having a place to worry

Thinking Straighter, Worrying Less

Remember that feelings and thoughts aren’t facts

Stop feeding your worries

Cultivate acceptance

Correcting Your Thinking Errors

Minimizing your what-ifs

Assessing the odds

Realizing that Murphy’s Law is wrong

Cutting out your catastrophizing and awfulizing

Getting perspective

Watching out for conclusion-jumping

Coping with uncertainty and lack of control

Watching out for self-rating

Going to yourself for advice

Becoming a problem solver (rather than a worrier)

Using your coping self-talk

Escaping Your Worries

Getting distracted

Going for a walk

Working up a sweat

Talking about it

Humoring yourself

Relaxing your body and calming your mind

Trying some positive imagery

In a pinch, try this

Chapter 14: Reducing Interpersonal Stress

Developing Stress-Reducing Communication

Become a good listener

It’s your turn to talk

Discovering What It Means to Be Assertive

How assertive are you?

Not too hot, not too cold — just right

Examples of assertive behavior

What assertive behavior is not

Becoming More Assertive

Observing assertive behavior

Watching how you say things

Saying “no” (oh, so nicely)

Starting nice and working your way up to nasty

Talking like a broken record

Trying a little “fogging”

Coping with Difficult People

Stay calm

Focus on the issue

Avoid kitchen-sinking

Don’t be a labeler

Watch the “never” and “always” traps

Hit above the belt

Stop personalizing

Curb your “should” statements

Have a dress rehearsal

Lose the battle, win the war

Use the “stoplight” technique

Chapter 15: De-Stress at Work (And Still Keep Your Job)

Reading the Signs of Workplace Stress

Knowing What’s Triggering Your Work Stress

Making Positive Changes to Control Your Workplace Stress

Overcoming SNS (Sunday-night stress)

Starting your workday unstressed

Calming your daily commute

Minimizing your travel stress

De-stressing during your workday

Stretching and reaching for the sky

Creating a stress-resistant workspace

Managing your work time

Nourishing your body (and spirit)

Taking Advantage of Company Perks

Gyms and health clubs

Flextime

Working from home

Employee assistance programs

Coming Home More Relaxed (And Staying That Way)

Chapter 16: Maintaining a Stress-Resilient Lifestyle

Making Stress Management a Habit

Making use of found moments

Using a “stress dot”

Remembering Your Ps (Prompts) and Cues

Making an appointment with yourself

Logging in once in a while

Becoming a freelance, unpaid, stress-management guru

Finding Your Oasis (Sand Optional)

Creating an inner sanctum

Taking a bath

Enjoying a walk in the park

Seeking sanctuary

Becoming a lobbyist

Losing yourself in the shelves

Accentuating the Positive(s) with Stress Buffers

Connecting with Others

Family: The ties that bind

You need a Monica, a Rachel, or a Chandler

Doing Something, Anything

Joining the group

Learning a thing or two

Getting in the game

Accomplishing something

Becoming a volunteer

Getting a pet

Cultivating calm with gardening

Getting in the kitchen

Becoming a bookworm

Remembering to enjoy the little things

Getting out of the house

Regrouping and Getting a Grip

Pre-schedule time away

Build a getaway file

Take a mini-vacation

Living Mindfully in the Present

Taking Your Fun Seriously

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten Habits of Highly Effective Stress Managers

Knowing How to Relax

Eating Right and Exercising Often

Getting Enough Sleep

Not Worrying about the Unimportant Stuff

Not Getting Angry Often

Being Organized

Managing Time Efficiently

Having a Strong Support System

Living According to One’s Values

Having a Good Sense of Humor

Chapter 18: Ten Events That Trigger Stress

Losing a Loved One

Experiencing a Major Illness or Injury

Divorcing or Separating

Having Serious Financial Difficulties

Losing a Job

Getting Married

Moving to a New Place

Fighting with a Close Friend

Having a Child

Retiring

Cheat Sheet

Introduction

Just about everyone feels they have too much stress in their lives. Daily, I hear people complaining that stress is getting to them, robbing them of many of life’s pleasures and depriving them of life’s satisfactions. And that’s not just from the people who walk into my office or show up at one of my stress-management workshops — stress seems to be everywhere. Just take a look at your local newsstand. You’re bound to see more than a few cover stories on stress, warning you of its dangers and telling you what you can do about it. These days more and more people are signing up for stress-management workshops, taking yoga classes, and learning how to meditate, massage their bodies, and quiet their psyches.

You may think that modern advances in science and technology should have resulted in lower stress levels. Clearly, this hasn’t happened — for anybody. Life has become more stressful, not less stressful. Your stressors may take the form of work pressures, financial worries, time constraints, or the demands that come with being part of a family. You may have more specific stress triggers — illness, unemployment, a new baby, or a new mortgage.

Whatever the source of your stress, having a guide would be helpful, right? Unfortunately, life doesn’t come with an instruction booklet or a user’s manual. You need to find your own help. Your stress can be managed. And in fact, much of your stress can be eliminated. You just need the right stress-reducing tools. In fact, you need an entire toolbox filled with a wide variety of stress-management techniques, strategies, and tactics. This book was written to give you these tools.

About This Book

Stress Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, is your guide, helping you navigate the often-confusing array of stress-management options. It gives you the skills and expertise you need to effectively manage and minimize the stress in your life. Virtually every important aspect of stress management is covered in these pages. The book helps you understand where your stress comes from, how it affects you, and most importantly, what you can do about it. It shows you how to relax your body, quiet your mind, and let go of the tension that comes with too much stress. It shows you how you can control your anger, worry less, and create a lifestyle that is stress resistant.

In these pages, I have been careful to ensure that your stress-management program doesn’t add to the stress in your life. I try to be practical and realistic, recognizing that you may not be able to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day and still keep your job. And, although I recognize that having a chauffeur, owning a fabulous house in the country, or having live-in help can lower your stress level, I also realize that this may not be an option for you (or for me, either!).

No one single idea or technique can magically relieve all your stress; nor does every technique or approach work equally well for everyone. You need to put together a package of ideas and methods that you can integrate into the various aspects of your life. It extends from caring about what goes into your mouth to thinking about the kind of chair you sit in, from monitoring how much sleep you get to knowing how to turn off your racing mind. Effective stress management really comes down to effective lifestyle management. That’s why, in these pages, you can find a variety of stress-management approaches. You fill up your stress toolbox with the techniques in this book, and then you can take out the tool you need, when you need it.

If you can find someone — a friend, family member, or coworker — to whom you can teach your newly mastered skills, that’s great. Most people learn best when they can teach someone else. If you can find someone to work with you on your stress-management program, even better. Having a stress buddy can help keep you interested and motivated. Most importantly, see your involvement with this book as an ongoing journey that will take some time — and some effort — but that is well worth the trip. Good luck!

Conventions Used in This Book

I use a few conventions in this book to help your reading go smoothly:

Italics emphasize and highlight new words and terms that I define.

Boldfaced text indicates keywords in bulleted lists and highlights the action parts of numbered steps.

When I want to make a topic more easily understood, I break the essential points down into bulleted lists (like this one), so you can follow them easily without being confused by too many words.

What You’re Not to Read

You don’t have to read everything in this book. I have sprinkled in sidebars (the text in gray boxes), which offer extra information, such as interesting bits of trivia and examples that hopefully amuse and inform you. They are designed to spice up the book. If you’re short of time, skip them and come back to them later when you have more time.

Foolish Assumptions

When I wrote this book, I made a few assumptions about who you, the reader, are:

You want less stress in your life, and you’re willing to devote a little of your valuable time to achieve this.

You already know a lot about stress but welcome additional methods and strategies for coping with your stress.

Your time is valuable and limited, and you want realistic and practical ways of reducing stress that can be easily integrated into your schedule and lifestyle.

You’re willing to try some ideas and approaches that are new to you and may require some openness and experimentation.

How This Book Is Organized

I’ve organized Stress Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, into five parts. Each part covers a range of ideas and approaches that, when put together, give you a comprehensive understanding of what stress is and what you can do to manage, reduce, and even at times eliminate much of the stress in your life. Here’s how the structure of this book breaks down:

Part I: Getting Started with Stress Management

I open the book by talking about what stress is and how it can affect you mentally, physically, and emotionally. I then discuss various techniques that you can use to get a rough measure of just how much stress you may be experiencing.

Part II: Mastering the Basics

What do I mean by “the basics”? This part presents common-sense ways for you to deal with stress. I show you how to treat the physical symptoms of stress, quiet your mind, and deal with day-to-day issues that may be causing stress: Maybe you aren’t as organized as you’d like to be, or maybe your career is taking time away from your family, or maybe you’re not eating right. I can help.

Part III: The Secrets of Stress-Effective Thinking

Think of this part as preventive medicine. It covers more advanced techniques that you can use to decrease the amount of stress in your life. If you make minor changes in the way you think when put in potentially stressful situations, you can actually reduce and perhaps eliminate stress.

Part IV: Managing Your Stress in Real Life

This part helps you develop day-to-day habits for home and work that will ultimately help you live a less stressful life. For example, the simple act of taking a break and doing a few stretches can really reduce the effects of stress at work. And has it occurred to you that if you do more fun things in life — hang out with friends or spend time on a hobby — you’ll be better able to deal with stress?

Part V: The Part of Tens

This part presents some brief top-ten chapters. Find out the ten habits of effective stress managers and the ten most stressful life events.

Icons Used in This Book

This book has lots of little round pictures in the margins, calling your attention to various details in the text. Here’s what these icons mean:

I use this icon to flag a particularly good idea that you should consider.

When presenting a concept that I feel you shouldn’t forget, I use this icon.

When I need to give you a word of caution, I toss this icon your way.

This icon indicates that I’m about to present a specific technique for dealing with stress.

Throughout the book, I ask you to evaluate your situation — determine your stress level, examine how you react in given situations, and so on. When I give you one of these quizzes, I use this icon.

This icon flags anecdotes and trivia that you’re likely to find interesting.

Where to Go from Here

Although it’s possible to read this book sequentially, you don’t have to do that. You can dip into any part that interests you. Most of the material stands alone and isn’t dependent on the other chapters — with one exception. The chapters that show you how to relax your body and quiet your mind, Chapters 4 and 5, are particularly important, and they are central and pertinent to several other chapters. Try to read these chapters earlier on.

Don’t try to master all of the material presented in one shot. Or even two shots. It takes time and practice to learn how to become comfortable with, and competent in, many of the exercises described. Don’t rush yourself. After all, it took years to develop many of your stress-producing habits, so you can’t expect to get rid of them in a flash. Every day, allow yourself at least some time to devote to some aspect of your stress-management program. It may only be a few minutes, but those minutes add up and can result in some impressive stress-management skills.

Part I

Getting Started with Stress Management

For Dummies can help you get started with lots of subjects. Visit www.dummies.com to learn more and do more with For Dummies.

In this part . . .

Get a handle on your stress by finding out where stress comes from, how it affects you, and how certain kinds of stress can actually be good for you.

Discover what, exactly, stress is and the function it was meant to serve. Identify symptoms that tell you when your stress level is getting out of control. Find out that understanding stress is as simple as ABC.

Become familiar with stress-management tools, such as a stress gauge and stress journal, so that you can measure your stress, identify your triggers, and come up with effective ways to cope.

Chapter 1

Stressed Out? Welcome to the Club!

In This Chapter

Figuring out why you feel more stressed

Determining where your stress comes from