Stress Reduction for Busy People: Finding Peace in an Anxious World

By Dawn Groves

Offering serious information with a light touch, author Dawn Groves shows that by starting with a few simple changes, anyone can find a few minutes each day to take care of their bodies with exercise, sleep, and good food; their souls with meditation and prayer; and their minds with pursuits that challenge and please. Practical techniques will help readers understand how to mindfully interpret events and issues for healthier emotional responses. Groves demonstrates how a few choices can change bad habits into good ones and how parents can not only cope with their children but also help them become part of a lower-stress solution. Sections include "What to Do in a Crisis," "Your Stress-Management Strategy," and "Goal-Setting Hints and Tips."

• Language: English
• Publisher: New World Library
• Release date: Oct 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781577317777

Dawn Groves

Dawn Groves is a minister, author, and educator. She is also a keynote motivational speaker well known for her dynamic teaching style, warm presence, and accessible wisdom. As the author of Meditation for Busy People and Yoga for Busy People (over 60,000 copies sold,) Dawn clearly addresses the challenges of people who are attempting to combine professional achievement, spiritual growth, and a balanced lifestyle. She teaches workshops and classes for the government, private industry, community colleges, and spiritual centers throughout the United States and Canada. She lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Book preview

being.

introduction

When I first proposed this book idea to New World Library, I thought I’d passed life’s big stress-management proficiency exam. After a series of trials with my health and work, I’d emerged triumphant and ready to share what I’d learned. I began writing with gusto.

Then everything fell apart.

My elderly mom had a stroke, forcing moves from apartment to hospital to nursing home. My husband’s job became tenuous. Our two children (ages six and four) were feeling my absence while I tended to Mom. I stopped sleeping. I endured brutal headaches that made it difficult to perform my teaching job. We moved twice in four months. I developed severe plantar fasciitis in both feet, making it almost impossible to walk or stand for long periods. My bite shifted and I had jaw pain. I gained weight. A visit to the doctor confirmed that my blood pressure had skyrocketed. All this within an eight-month period — and I was in the middle of writing a book about stress reduction!

It exhausts me to remember that time. A monkey could have written better copy than I was generating. My stress-management routines were failing. I was only half present in every facet of my life. Finally, I stopped fighting and dropped headfirst into despair.

Dark nights of the soul aren’t unfamiliar to me. At the turn of the millennium, I was diagnosed with cancer. I remember the core-level fear, the apprehension about my family’s future, the why-me thinking. I also remember coming through that experience stronger, happier, and healthier than I had felt in a long time. So here it was again: loss of control, loneliness, physical pain. But this time the culprit wasn’t cancer; it was chronic, toxic stress.

But I didn’t die. I healed.

Today I still have an elderly mother with dementia, two active young daughters, a busy husband, and a career. My feet still bother me, but my blood pressure is normal. I no longer suffer debilitating headaches. My jaw is fine. I sleep well and I wake up smiling. My family is happy. I’m fifteen pounds lighter. I’m creative again. And, as you can see, I finished this book.

Like the other Busy People books I’ve written, this book is designed to be practical, accessible, and easy to read quickly. It has only four chapters, and it concludes with a list of common questions that reference associated text in the book.

The first chapter talks about what the stress response is and what it does to the body. Stress has powerful physiological repercussions that can cascade into serious problems over time. When I woke up to how badly my body was being hurt by chronic anxiety, I committed myself to getting a handle on it. Hope-fully this chapter will wake you up as well.

The second chapter talks about managing stress in the physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual realms. First, I’ll describe specific practices to help you release the chemicals produced by the stress response, giving you physical relief and helping to circumvent the drain on your immune system. Then we’ll look at how your attitude affects your health; mental/emotional outlook is the origin of most stress. I’ll conclude the chapter with a discussion of spiritual practices such as meditation and prayer. These are tremendous coping resources, no matter what your religious persuasion.

The third chapter deals with handling crises. I’ve included a three-step approach that can help when you feel overwhelmed and unable to respond effectively. I’ll share some ideas on living in an age of fear, with global catastrophe and physical/emotional threats to our personal security. I’ll conclude the chapter by suggesting ways to help children deal with everyday stress and national catastrophes.

The fourth chapter is devoted to a process I find particularly useful for managing the stresses of living: spiritual goal-setting. I’m a big believer in setting and achieving goals as a life-management practice, but I also think that stress disappears when we stop fixating on achievement and find peace within our current circumstances. Achieving a goal and releasing attachment to it are important skills to have in a rapidly changing world. This chapter also addresses common excuses for not setting goals, offering a spiritual point of view.

At the end of the book I’ve provided a list of books that I highly recommend; each is a treasure trove.

I’m not exceptional. I rail against life’s unfairness as much as the next person. But I’ve found peaceful coexistence with this chronically anxious world — and if I can do it, you can do it. No matter how awful your circumstances, no matter how emotionally fried you think you are, there’s a way to come through it with your health, your sanity, and your relationships intact. You can limit your stress response, find purpose within your suffering, take action to shift events or your perceptions of them, and open your mind to happiness despite current circumstances.

I am reminded of a quote from Henry Ward Beecher: Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven. Our tears can blind us or they can awaken us. Since they’re already here, we might as well make good use of them. No, it’s not always easy. You’ll need to make a few course corrections. So what? Small changes reap big rewards when it comes to stress management. You can do this. Do you have any other choice?

1

understanding stress

The word stress conjures up a variety of unpleasant images: workaholism, muscle pain, exhaustion, short temper, sleeplessness. But stress itself isn’t bad; it’s normal. Life is full of positive and negative stressors (events that exert physical or emotional pressure), and the good news is that our bodies are well equipped to handle them. In a perfect world, we gear up emotionally and physically to deal with an event, and once it passes we return to business as usual.

Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But you and I know it doesn’t happen like that anymore. Today’s negative stressors are often long-term, subtle, and subjective. Issues such as eldercare, childcare, job insecurity, health, finances, information overload, personal safety, and now homeland security have no clear resolution and no apparent conclusion. They just lurk in the back of your mind, leaving you bewildered, edgy, and paranoid. Many of us almost never return to business as usual.

We’re Designed to Respond

How we process stress as individuals depends on a variety of factors, including how we’ve handled stress in the past, our genes (some people inherit a shorter fuse), our age, our socioeconomic background, our sex, the nature of the stressors, and how many stressors are occurring simultaneously. But the biology of the stress response is the same for all of us.

When you’re frightened or alarmed, the stress response — also known as the fight-or-flight reaction instantly kicks in.— A cascade of chemical messengers (hormones, neurotransmitters, and amino acids) hurls you into a physiological and psychological condition known as hyperarousal. This condition is