Monitor Your Stress

Stress is one of those words that always brings with it a negative connotation. "My boss is stressing me out, and I'm not getting anything done at work." "I'm too stressed with everything else in my life to take time to exercise." "When I get tense, the first thing I do is reach for a tub of ice cream." Stress is probably the one thing that makes us feel most like our lives are out of balance.

But keep in mind that the goal here is not to eliminate all stress from our lives. Some stress is good; it keeps us motivated, challenged, and satisfied. Life would be boring without it. As in many areas of health, however, moderation is the key. Too much stress is damaging to our health and can result in muscle tension, headaches, and stomach problems. Chronic stress can lead to serious health problems like heart disease and increased blood glucose levels. Not only is our physical well-being affected by stress, but also our mental health, relationships, and work performance.

The goal in achieving life balance, then, is to minimize and to manage the factors that add stress to your life. In general there are four main categories of stressors:

1. Environmental—pollution, traffic, noise, weather

2. Social—marriage or divorce, finances, job strain, death of a loved one
3. Physiological—sleep disorders, aging, menopause, living with a chronic disease
4. Internal—perfectionism, self-esteem issues, personality traits

The tricky thing about stress factors is that they are very individual. You may feel overwhelmed by last minute deadlines, whereas your co-worker thrives in that kind of environment. By the same token, an announcement that your parents are getting divorced might not affect you as much as it does one of your siblings.

So even though there are general categories of what causes anxiety for people, it's important to get more personal. If you've got a pretty good idea of what causes your stress level to rise, you can move on to the next step and figure out how you can manage these issues. If you're not sure about what stresses you out, you may want to create your own stress monitor log. For several days when you find yourself biting your finger nails or rubbing the tension out of your neck, jot down events that just happened. Consider things like a traffic jam on the way to work, financial problems (a worrisome bill just arrived in the mail), lack of sleep, unrealistic expectations of yourself, or marital problems.