How to Deal with Stress | Turn your Negative Stress to Positive Motivation

1. Perform diaphragmatic or “deep breathing” exercises.
2. Lie face down on the floor and begin breathing deeply and slowly, with your hands resting under your face. Do this for five minutes.
3. Sit in a reclining chair. Put a hand on your abdomen and a hand on your chest. As you breathe, make sure the hand on your abdomen is moving up and down rather than one on your chest. If the hand on your abdomen is moving you are breathing deeply and slowly.
4. Try progressive muscle relaxation or “deep muscle” relaxation. Progressively tense and relax each muscle group in your body. Learn the difference between muscle tension and relaxation.
5. Meditate. Use visualization or guided imagery to help you learn to be one with your thoughts. Sit quietly with your eyes closed, imagining the sights, sounds and smells of your favorite place, such as a beach or mountain retreat.
6. Exercise regularly or take up yoga.
7. Consult a psychologist about the use of biofeedback.
8. Make time for music, art or other hobbies that help relax and distract you.
9. Learn to identify and monitor stressors. Come up with an organized plan for handling stressful situations. Be careful not to overgeneralize negative reactions to things.
10. Make a list of the important things you need to handle each day. Try to follow the list so you feel organized and on top of things. Put together a coping plan step by step so you have a sense of mastery.
11. Keep an eye on things that might suggest you’re not coping well. For example, are you smoking or drinking more, or sleeping less?
12. Keep a list of the large and little hassles in your day versus the major stressful events in your life. This helps you focus on the fact that you’re keeping track of and managing those as well as you can.
13. Set aside a time every day to work on relaxation.
14. Avoid using caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, junk food, binge eating and other drugs as your primary means for coping with stress. While they can be helpful once in awhile, using them as your only or usual method will result in longer-term problems, such as weight problems or alcoholism.
15. Learn to just say, “No” occasionally. It won’t hurt other people’s feelings as much as you think and is simply a method to be more assertive in your own life, to better help you meet your own needs.
16. Get the right amount of sleep. For most people, this is seven to nine hours a night.
17. Cultivate a sense of humor; laugh.
18. Research has shown that having a close, confiding relationship protects you from many stresses.
19. Don’t run from your problems! This only makes them worse.
20. Talk to your family and friends. See if they can help.

Some Motivational Tips

1. It makes you more alert

The number one reason stress can be a useful motivator has to do with your increased sense of urgency. You become more aware of the situation, even if that "situation" is a traffic jam or a tense conflict with a co-worker. Learning to manage stress is important, and it's not a good way to live, but that keen awareness is a benefit if it means you are looking more closely at body language during a conflict, quickly scanning through sites that provide practical tips, or seeking out a mentor with helpful advice. Suddenly, you are on the fast lane to find answers. Stress is not fun, but if it leads to a positive outcome, it can be worth the pain.

2. It shows you care about the topic

Next time you are about to give a presentation to a group of investors or board a plane in a major snowstorm, consider this simple fact: Stress is a sign that you care about the outcome. I tend to get the most stressed about family issues, which is a good sign--it means I really care about my family. It's when you do not get stressed about a change in plans or a conflict that you should wonder why you are not stressed. When you do care, let that extra energy motivate you and make you work harder.

3. It teaches you to enjoy the times when you are not stressed

Stress, like hunger or a low number in your bank account or even a problem in a relationship, is always temporary (with apologies to those who work in the air traffic control or fire and rescue fields. Or anyone who works with Larry in accounting.) There is an answer. You will get through the problem, even if it takes time. Stress puts you into a mild form of shock and triggers a higher level of alertness, but it will pass. When you are on a hammock in Acapulco next week, relish the time of no stress.

4. It helps you find a quick solution

No one likes to live with stress on a constant basis. If you've ever missed a flight, you know how much a change in plans can motivate you to find another route home. That same sense of resolving something can work in your favor in business because you suddenly become much more interested in finding the right answer. I'm not saying you should create stress or look for it, but when it happens, consider the fact that you now have a slight advantage. You can be much more productive when you are stressed than the times when you are totally relaxed.

Those who learn to cope with stress and see how it can serve as a springboard at times will get a burst of productivity. Ironically, they will not be as stressed out. So what about the one case when stress is not a good motivator?

Tips to Turn Negative stress to Positive

Motivation

You know what you need to do, but it isn’t that simple

When things do not go your way, you need to take the time to relax and get your thoughts together. You react with emotions, rather than logic, you cause yourself to think of the worst. When logical thinking is used instead, you think of solutions that lead to a positive outcome for your situation. But, this cannot occur when you allow stress to corrupt your thoughts, which influence your actions.

Stop for a moment to think about what you are currently stressed about in your life. Is the stress that you are dealing with actually worth the energy you give to it? When you take the time to actually understand why you are stressed, you will discover that you are making your life more difficult than it needs to be.

Yes, we live in a tough world and life is not fair. But, once you actually accept the meaning of this saying, you start to realise that your life is what you make of it. If you allow yourself to get beaten down in life, you will become a victim to the world. If you understand that your current setbacks are only temporary, you will gain more control over your life.

You have to understand that your life is a constant flow of moments. Some moments have long-lasting effects on your life and others are rarely thought of again. The moments that are long-lasting are that way because you placed significance on that event. The same goes for the stress that is within your life. It is only considered stress because you give it the significance to be considered worthy of your thoughts.

The brain is a very powerful tool that we are all blessed with. Your brain has the ability to imagine dreams that can become reality when actions are placed behind your thoughts. Now imagine if you gave your mind the freedom to see you living a life of peace and happiness. Those thoughts could become a reality if you allowed positive thinking to dominate your thoughts. Instead, you allow negative thoughts to dominate the thoughts in your head.

The great thing is that you can actually turn your negative stress into positive motivation. You may be thinking that this is impossible. The only reason you believe this is because your stress currently controls you, rather than you controlling your stress. It is time to reverse your current reality so that you can start to live a more positive life.

Think about your long-term vision

Every person that lives in the world should have a long-term vision that guides the direction of their life. A long-term vision is not simply a dream. It is a strategy that you work on executing every single day. These are the short-term and long-term goals you set that must be accomplished so that your live a life you enjoy.

When you have a long-term vision, you understand that you face an uphill battle to make your desired life come into fruition. This is because nothing worth having comes easy. You will deal with frustrations and setbacks that make your journey towards success difficult. But, this is only motivation for you to accomplish your goals. The journey you endure makes the success worthwhile.

Where would these guy’s be if they gave in?

Steve Jobs was fired from his own company only to come back to transform it into one of the most dominant companies in the world. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team and now is recognised as the greatest basketball player to have ever played. There are countless other stories of now highly successful people who dealt with significant setbacks in their past. They just did not allow themselves to be defined by the difficulties they were faced with. They knew they had to weather the storm and improve themselves to get to their desired destination.

You have to have the same mindset when it comes to your life. Just because things are not going your way now does not mean that you allow stress to rule your life. If that occurs, you will never produce the lifestyle that you want for yourself. Look at your setbacks as motivation to improve your circumstances. You have the power to change your life if you believe in yourself enough to accomplish what you have set out to do.