Is stress good for you?

What an odd notion to think that stress might be good for you. But just think about it. If you were too relaxed, peaceful, and serene you'd never get anything done! "Oh, I'll just get to that tomorrow. So what if I promised my customer it would be done in three days. They'll understand." No way! So a little bit of stress, and a lot of good focus and concentration is what you need to succeed. It is when the stress begins to paralyze you, or cause you to feel too overwhelmed, that you need to take notice, and you need to do something about it.

It’s not news that stress causes disease, and that stress can kill, so what can you do about it besides sit on a psychoanalyst’s couch for an hour every week? Well, the first tip I want to give you is this: Breathe! When we are stressed, or anxious, one of the things we naturally do is hold our breath, or breathe shallowly. This is precisely the opposite of what we need to do to combat stress. Try this now: from the belly, and all the way up into the throat, take a long deep, slow breath, inhaling through the nose. When you get to the top of the breath, sloooowly release the breath out of your mouth until there is absolutely no breath left. You might have to "catch your breath" at the end, because you would have completely emptied your body of the breath. Do three of these in a row, making sure to drop your shoulders with each exhalation. Do these wonderful breaths, as needed. Now get back to work!