So many people today talk about modern day stress and I cant argue with this as stress seems to be everywhere we look.

The stress of gaining income, providing for a family, getting to work everyday in peak hour traffic, the stress of studying at school, at University, the stress of being a young girl in a society where you are accepted if you are thin and pretty, the list of stress just goes on and on.

I was just talking to my daughter earlier today about stress and explaining to her that although this level of stress is everywhere, there is another stress that people tend to not acknowledge or not even be aware of.  I am referring to the stress we place on ourselves everyday.  It is almost what I call an internal stress that we place  upon ourselves which to me can often be worse than the external stress we all have to live with everyday.

The stress we place on ourselves in the workplace – is my work up to standard, am I working hard enough everyday, will I get a promotion, am I earning enough money. As a parent  we place enormous stress upon ourselves, are we a good parent, am I teaching my children the right thing, what if I get this parenting thing all wrong, and so it goes.

I think external stress is much easier to deal with if perhaps we can firstly relieve the pressure a little but reducing our internal stress.  One of the most effective ways to do this, in my opinion, is through meditation.

I am a firm believer in meditation and truly believe it calms and stills our mind, and brings our mind to rest.  Sure the external stress still goes on, but taking that twenty minutes or so out of our day, to quieten our mind and relax our body, helps us cope with those external pressures much easier.  It also allows us to know what external stress  is really worth worrying about.

I find that if we can just allow ourselves some quiet me time on a daily basis, to do just  a very simple uncomplicated meditation, our overall functioning is greatly improved. It helps us to be better partners, daughters, sons, parents and so on.

I genuinely believe we can quiet down our lives, or simplify our lives and eliminate stress for our daily existance.

By

MaryAnn Roche

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 8:05 am and is filed under Stress and Anxiety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.