Destress Yourself By Eliminating Doubt And Creating Faith

I would like to ask you if you believe you can?  What I mean is, do you believe that you have the ability to accomplish any goal you set your mind to, with ease and comfort?

Ask yourself, "Do I have the ability to accomplish any goal I set my mind to, with ease and comfort?

I BELIEVE!!!  I believe you do and I believe I do.

In order to accomplish any goal that we set, we must believe that we can.  So many people set goals and never accomplish them because deep down inside their self-confidence and self-esteem are so low that they do not believe it is possible.

It may sound simple and it may sound silly but it is true.

When you say to yourself, "I have the ability to accomplish any goal I set my mind to, with ease and comfort."  Do you think and feel like you do?  Do you think and feel that this is true?

A big part of Destressing Yourself is eliminating doubt and creating faith in yourself, others, and in life.

So, when you make the statement above you should believe it, believe that you can.  If you don't believe that you can, say to yourself, "I have the ability to accomplish any goal I set my mind to, with ease and comfort."

Now, write it down, memorize it, say it to yourself often, and say it until you believe it.

Do this my friend, and I guarantee, if you don't believe it, you will.  You gotta have faith!

If you would like to learn more about having faith in yourself, others, and in life, please join me for our FREE Teleclass this month on meditations, affirmations, and visualization.  These three habits will help you accomplish any goal you set your mind to.  In addition, these habits will assist you in increasing your self-confidence.

Meet you there!

Have a wonderful week!!!

Don't forget to have fun and be playful!

Please email me if you have any questions, I would love to hear from you.

If you have not, please add me as a friend on facebook, Elizabeth M. Stanfill.

Elizabeth Stanfill
destressyourself.com
destressyourself.blogspot.com
661-877-7800
elizabeth@destressyourself.com

FREE Learning To Relax Audio

Hey everyone,

I just posted my last Teleclass, Learning To Relax, for FREE at destressyourself.com.

Check it out, you can listen now or right click to download it to your computer.

I hope you enjoy....


Elizabeth

HOW TO DESTRESS YOURSELF

I have five major web sites, Destress Yourself, Destress Yourself Blog, Destress for the EMS, Elizabeth Stanfill (which is our newsletter archive), and Frazier Park, CA.  I also have some research tools to each of these web sites, that show me what people type into the search engine to get to my web sites.  Really cool huh?  I love that stuff!

The number one phrase that is used, everyday, to get to my websites is, "How to Destress Yourself."

Everyday, I am helping people to 'destress yourself'.

If I only had a few minutes to talk with you and you really needed help to Destress Yourself, this is what I would tell you.

There is a stress response, better known as the 'fight or flight' response, that is activated when we face stressful situations.  When the stress response is activated it increases our heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, blood circulation, and causes our blood-flows and many other body functions to shift.

Now, not everyone reacts to each situation the same way because we all think differently.  Our reactions (thoughts about a situation) are what causes this stress response.  So, a situation happens (it could be anything), we see it as stressful (we think doubt, fear, and worry), and then our stress response kicks in.

Negative emotions like anger, frustration, disgust, sadness, anxiety, irritation, aggravation, hatred, misery, depression, grief, and nervousness, imitate the stress response.  So every time you have a negative emotion (for some, this could be all day long) you are creating wear and tear on your body.

SIDE NOTE:  these negative emotions are standard and repetitive for many (the stressed) and that is why I call them habitual ways of reacting.  These habitual ways of reacting can be decreased and eliminated.

So, in order to Destress Yourself, you must discover how, when, and why you are activating this stress response, and then learn how to decrease and ultimately eliminate it.  Or, you could just change your negative reactions.  This may be very easy or this may be very difficult, it just depends on your willingness and commitment.

Let me give you and example of activating the stress response.  A very stressed out person has a habit of worrying about everything because of the way they look at the world and a very relaxed person has a habit of having faith about most things because of the way they look at the world.

So, if I were to ask a question like, "I wonder what is going to happen to our economy?"  A stressed out person would think and talk about all the things that could go wrong, all the while experiencing the negative emotions mentioned above.  A relaxed person would think and talk about all of the positive things that are in store for us and experience more positive emotions.

When the stressed out person starts to think and talk about all the things that could go wrong, guess what?  That's right, the stress response kicks in.  The stress response may kick in all day long for this person because of the way they think.  Their thought process is full of doubt, fear, and worry (stressful).  Not only does this person have a very habitual and stressful way of thinking, they also have a very stressful habit of kicking in the stress response.

This stress response is causing emotional illnesses like depression and anxiety, mental illnesses like a racing mind, the inability to concentrate, and indecisiveness, and physical illnesses like gastrointestinal problems, head aches, neck aches, and shoulder aches from the tension.

This stress response is causing individuals to do things, that they think make them feel better, like binge eating, drinking, smoking, numbing through drugs and medication, as well as immoral behavior like addiction to pornography or inappropriate sexual behavior.

This stress response is wearing out the mind and body and therefore, causes exhaustion and fatigue.  This causes mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion, also known as Burnout.

STRESS IS THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF EVERY ILLNESS!  I believe this with all my heart and if you knew what I know, and see the things I see, and have seen, you would believe it too.

The best way to Destress Yourself is with education and action.  Last week we discussed that "IT IS TIME' to take responsibility for your life.

Take responsibility for your life by learning how, when, and why you are activating the stress response.  The best way to do this is by learning to relax.  I mean really learn how to relax, which is the opposite of the stress response.  We can call it the relaxation response.

Once you learn to relax, or activate the relaxation response, you will be very skilled at noticing when you are activating the stress response because of your awareness.  When you learn to relax you become more aware of your mind and body because of your ability to implement the relaxation response at anytime and anywhere.

You have a choice, you can activate the stress response, which is unintentional, or you can activate the relaxation response, which is intentional.  That is the difference between a stressed out person, who lives their life unintentionally, and a relaxed person, who lives their life full of intention. 

With that said, I would like you to join me for our FREE Tele Class on, you guessed it, Learning to Relax.

This Wednesday, January 27, 2010, at 7 am Pacific Time (10 am Eastern).

Dial in number 1-213-289-0500

Access Code  205356#

Meet You There!

Have a wonderful week!!!

Don't forget to have fun and be playful!

Please email me if you have any questions, I would love to hear from you. 

elizabeth@destressyourself.com

DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD PART II

DSM-IV-TR FOR PTSD Cont.

CRITERION D:  HYPER-AROUSAL

Persistent symptoms of increasing arousal (not present before the trauma), indicated by at least two of the following:

1.  Difficulty falling or staying asleep

2.  Irritability or outbursts of anger

3.  Difficulty concentrating

4.  Hyper-vigilance

5.  Exaggerated startle response

CRITERION E:  DURATION

Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C, and D) is more than one month.

CRITERION F:  FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of function.

Specify if:

Acute:  if duration of symptoms is less than three months

Chronic:  If duration of symptoms is three months or more

Specify if:

With or without delay onset:  Onset of symptoms at least six months after stressor.

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. (200).  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Fourth ed.).  Washington D.C.:  American Psychiatric Association

DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD PART I

DSM-IV-TR CRITERIA FOR PTSD

In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fourth edition of it's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR).  The diagnostic criteria (Criteria A-F) are specified below.

Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include history of exposure to a traumatic event meeting two criteria and symptoms from each of three symptoms clusters:  intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms.  A fifth criterion concerns duration of symptoms and a sixth assesses functioning.

CRITERION A:  STRESSOR

The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:

1.  The person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others.

2. The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.  Note:  In children, it may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.

CRITERION B:  INTRUSIVE RECOLLECTIONS

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways:

1.  Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions.  Note:  in young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.

2.  Recurrent distressing dreams of the event.  Note:  in children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.

3.  Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashbacks episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated).  Note:  in children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.

4.  Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolizes or resemble an aspect of traumatic event.

5.  Physiological reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

CRITERION C:  AVOIDANT/NUMBING

Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following:

1.  Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma.

2.  Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma.

3.  Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma.

4.  Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities.

5.  Feeling detachment or estrangement from others.

6.  Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings).

7.  Sense of foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span).


REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association, (2000).  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Fourth ed.).  Washington D.C.:  American Psychiatric Association.