Worry No More
See…not everything is good or bad; worry no more!
For example, fire can be bad if it burns you. It can also be good if it warms you on a cold night.
Same thing with worrying. Worry can be what makes you take action and correct something. But if you are constantly thinking of scenarios where things can go wrong, your mind will find it. You are very creative and the mind plays along with you in these scenarios where your imagination will be much worse than it could possibly be.
Additionally, going down this path you will definitely do one thing. This one thing will be to stress yourself about the multiple possibilities you are imagining; thus, creating stressors in your life (read our blog, the Science of Stress)
But do you know what? You don’t have to worry and create stress for yourself. You can break by training your brain to stay calm and look at life from a more positive perspective.
Some believe that by worrying and seeing all the ways something could go bad they are preparing themselves and looking for alternative solutions. Or perhaps you grew up thinking that worrying shows that you care about others’ well-being. How much of this is really true?
Think about what worrying does to your physical body. To your mental state? To your sleep?
editorial teamSources of Our Stress
Sources of stress come at us from all directions. Sometimes it’s subtle, and we have no idea what’s getting on our last nerve.
Other times, the source of stress, of course, it’s all too obvious:
Difficult relationships, a job we hate, a boss who acts like a dictator, a neighbor who favors middle-of-the-night, crank-the-music-up parties, the homeowner’s association that believes God put them in charge of your life, and I could go on, and so could you, I’m sure!
There’s not a whole lot of peace these days. This lack of peace gives us two choices: We can resent our struggle while we suffer, stagger, and lament our lot in life, or we can figure out possibilities for at least partial relief.
As you might guess, I recommend the latter plan of action. And I also recommend you cheer yourself on with “attaboy or attagirl!”–little rewards to encourage you along the way. You are your best cheerleader; if you’re not, become one.
Developing solutions is much easier when you know the sources of your stress. Today, let’s talk about significant, but relatively unknown, stress that can reach out and snatch at us. (more…)
Unhealthy Relationships Can Cause Anxiety And Stress
Anxiety and Stress
Our relationships with others, whether it be our spouse, children, parents, in-laws, co-workers, or a host of many other types of relationships can cause anxiety and stress. A good and healthy relationship should be well-balanced and amicable between the parties involved. But when a relationship becomes one-sided, smothering, demanding, or disrespectful it can create extreme anxiety and stress-producing situations. 
In any relationship in which another person does not respect another person’s feelings, property, or rights, a person feels violated. The feelings that come from unhealthy relationships cause many emotions such as anger, aggression, depression, and resentment as well as an enormous amount of anxiety and stress.
In unhealthy marriage relationships, anxiety can be very profound as a partner may feel that they have nowhere to turn and that they must stay committed to the relationship due to many factors.
Another factor most individuals forget is the cumulative effect of holding on to emotions and stress. If you continuously hold on to feelings and emotions, you’ll be storing that in your body which will develop into aches and other body ailments. For example, if you feel “pissed off”, you might develop incontinence. If you feel unsupported, you might develop back pains…just something to keep in mind.
In abusive relationships, anxiety and stress are even more pronounced as a person is controlled, manipulated, and isolated. A person in these types of unhealthy relationships experiences extreme amounts of anxiety in that they are unsure of how to escape such a bad situation and equally more stressful when children are involved. (more…)
5 Ways to Deal With on-The-Job Anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety disorder, one of the most common mental health issues affecting the American population, often goes unnoticed at the workplace. Though largely ignored. The condition not only severely affects employees’ emotional and physical health but also impacts their careers by interfering with their productivity and performance.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), employees have admitte
d that stress and anxiety most often impact their workplace performance (56 percent), relationship with coworkers and peers (51 percent), quality of work (50 percent), and relationships with superiors (43 percent).
Overall, a certain level of anxiety, preferably within a comfort zone, at the workplace is not always bad, as it helps one stay focused and improve performance. However, if stress is triggered due to the pressure of meeting deadlines, interpersonal relationships, etc., and begins to interfere with one’s personal life, it’s time to seek help or reflect.
I remember in my IT cybersecurity career, while I was working as the lead on a project, I started to feel anxiety, but because I had never had it before, I didn’t know what it was. I’d go to the datacenter, and I’d start feeling agitated, short of breath…sometimes I even had shaky hands. Of course, the first thing you think about is, “I’m having a heart attack”. Then I started paying attention when I’d get this…we were under extreme pressure to meet deadlines, and my feeling at the time was that management was not behind the project; we were left to sink or swim. I had to learn to prepare myself to go into the datacenter, deal with the application engineers and others, while at the same time care for myself. (more…)
Brain Study for Different Reactions to Stress
Stress and anxiety are an inevitable part of one’s life and there cannot be a utopian planet to escape from their wriggle. Stress-induced ailments made businesses in the United States incur a loss of an astronomical $300 billion a year through absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, and direct medical, legal, and insurance fees, as per a 2006 survey of the American Psychological Association (APA).
While many get bogged down by anxiety and stress, many others remain unfazed even in trying times. Their threshold to weather stress and anxiety is higher than their counterparts. According to scientists, the difference lies in certain brain areas that dictate the way one behaves during stress and anxiety.
A study, published in the Frontiers in Neural Circuits in March 2016, found that the stressed brain revealed certain patterns and identified a list of brain areas that might have a critical role to play in stress-induced depression.
Conducting the experiment and mapping the brain activity of mice placed under stress, they found a stark difference in brain activities of mice showing helpless behavior from those who displayed resilient behavior.
This could also be a solid premise for identifying new targets for the treatment of depression. The brain activities revealed in the study open up a huge pool of information for future investigations on depression treatment, anxiety disorder, and stress.
Brain and Stress Study (more…)
10 Easy Ways to Promote Mind-Body Wellness
Keeping an eye on your own mind-body wellness is vitally important to personal health, wellness, and happiness. In essence, we are all responsible for our own health and overall wellness as each day we make a myriad of choices that affect both. Certainly, there are some things we cannot change, as is often the case with some disabilities and health conditions. However, there is so much we can do to provide self-care that promotes longevity and quality of life. We decide for ourselves what we eat, what we do, the places we go, and the people we choose to have around us. All of these go a long way to make or break a healthy lifestyle. We also are able to decide what we think about, what thoughts we entertain, and which ones we evict.
Here is a list of 10 Ways to Promote Mind-Body Wellness:
1. Try not to take yourself too seriously
2. Purge your relationships with anyone who is toxic to you
3. Be sure and surround yourself with positive people
4. Don’t overbook yourself
5. Monitor your stress level daily
6. Take prescription meds only as directed
7. Take over-the-counter medication sparingly
8. Get outside for fresh air and Vitamin D
9. Be sure and get 7 or more hours of sleep per night
10. Walk or exercise regularly and eat a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables
Stress and Anxiety Treatment Through Pet Therapy
Pet therapy is now becoming a popular field in medicine. This kind of therapy helps people to recover from various types of health problems. It is also popularly known as animal-assisted therapy. In this kind of therapy, structured interaction between a person and an animal is made. The interaction also involves handlers. The handlers are usually the pet owners themselves or volunteers. Animal-assisted therapy has the goal to help people recover from various health conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, stroke, mental illnesses, stress, and many more.
Stress and Anxiety Treatment Through Pet Therapy
Pet therapy has its foundation on the pre-existing human-animal bond. This natural type of relationship can help a human being to cope with his physical, mental, emotional, and social stressors. Dogs and cats are the most common animals used in this kind of therapy. However, other kinds of animals can also be used as long as they passed the screening. The screening involves a physical examination of the animal to confirm if it is immunized and free of diseases. The animal also undergoes an obedience course to make sure that it will not cause any harm to the patient. The handler is also oriented and instructed about proper patient interaction. (more…)
Allergy Relief Year Round
I remember that it was a beautiful Saturday one Spring morning. I woke up early because we had a 7:45 a.m. tee time at a golf course we enjoyed and knew it like the back of our hands. Our group was enjoying the fresh air and the beautiful view. As I was looking around, a group of pine trees seemed to sneeze and a green cloud of pollen was released.
OMG…panic!!! My allergies! I’m going to need immediate allergy relief!
What allergy relief? I don’t have my pollen allergy remedy with me…my day is ruined!
If you are like the rest of us, you also suffer from allergies and some months are worse than others. Some suffer from allergies year-round. Others are more sensitive to particular seasons that can make them feel worse. While you may be assuming that Spring is the worst time for allergies, you may be surprised to find that Fall and Winter are just as bad, depending on the type of allergies a person suffers. Seasonal allergies are very common and probably experienced by most of the allergy sufferers.
Allergy Statistics
Did you know that according to statistics, over 30% of adults and 40% of children in the US have allergies?
One estimate of the annual cost of allergies to the businesses and health care system in the United States is $18 billion, according to webmd.com. Below are other interesting allergy statistics:
- More than 50 million Americans suffer from allergies each year.
- Rank of allergies among other leading chronic diseases in the U.S.: 6th.
- Odds that a child with one allergic parent will develop allergies: 30% to 50%.
- Odds that a child with two allergic parents will develop allergies: 60% to 80%.
- Number of weeks by which the ragweed pollen season increased between 1995 and 2015 in U.S. and Canada, likely because of global warming: From 1 to 3 1/2.
- Number of people who visit the ER each year because of food allergies: 200,000.
- Average amount of time that Americans spend indoors: 90%.
- Percentage of indoor pollutants in U.S. homes versus outdoor pollution: 2 to 5 times higher.
- Percentage of U.S. households with one or more dogs (2017-18): 48%.
- Percentage of U.S. households with one or more cats: (2017-18) 38%.
- Percentage of all U.S. households with detectable levels of dog and cat allergens: 90%.
- Percentage of children in 2015 who reported hay fever symptoms in previous 12 months: 8.4% or 6.1 million.
- Percentage of children in 2015 who reported skin allergies (eczema, hives) in previous 12 months: 12% or 8.8 million.
Do you see the above numbers and why there won't be an allergy relief solution at the root problem any time soon?
Searching For The Cure
As an allergy sufferer, at the beginning I didn’t know if I had a cold or what because I never had allergies…but then when I confirmed it wasn’t a cold, I started looking for nature cures. If I can fix this without prescription drugs, that is the ideal situation for me..overall I needed allergy relief!
That’s how the quest started for me in searching for natural allergy relief, a holistic relief such as apple cider vinegar (apple vinegar fixes everything), anything natural, and if it fixes my allergies so that I won’t need the allergy shots, the better…but unfortunately, at the time I couldn’t find anything that provides the allergy relief that worked and every year it got worse. I was afraid to go outside on a high pollen day and forget about playing golf!
This led me to get the allergy shots by my doctor. Yes, there was a relief but at the same time, I was still afraid to spend time outside. I think I had the shots for two years, and I also had my trusty backup of prescription tablets.
I remember one Saturday night; I had gone golfing 18 holes and after I got home, I took a nice long shower and washed my hair to make sure all pollen was off me, place my clothes in the washing machine, and went to bed. I woke up almost as soon as I went to bed and I couldn’t breathe. I got out of bed and started to panic but then I remember my SCUBA breathing training. Must relax…relax…relax. I started counting the in and out breathing through the mouth…I must have spent the entire night pacing while counting my breathing.
Was I scared? YES!
This led me to a serious research of why allergies, immediate allergy relief, natural cure for allergies, metaphysical cures for allergies…basically, anything to do with allergies and how to stop them.
Natural Allergy Relief I Tried
I tried apple cider vinegar. You take a reputable apple cider vinegar brand that has the “mother” which is a cloudy substance that sits at the bottom of the bottle. You drink it three times a day and it’s supposed to improve your allergies; thus, some allergy relief where you can sleep the night uninterupted. (https://www.healthline.com/health/apple-cider-vinegar-for-allergies#acv-and-allergies).
I also tried the Nety Pot to flush my sinuses with a saline solution which I hesitated big time because if you’ve ever had water go up your nose you know how much that hurts. But after a while it was ok. You just have to remember to do it (https://www.everydayhealth.com/allergy/will-a-neti-pot-relieve-your-allergies.aspx)
I also tried eating local honey and pollen to my food but I couldn’t continue with this because I was traveling 80% of my time and carrying these around wasn’t possible. (https://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/bee-pollen-for-allergies#how-to-take)
As I was doing my research, I came across an energy worker. She asked me if I had looked up the metaphysical or spiritual meaning of allergies. Well, I immediately went down this path...anything to get some allergy relief!
According to my research, allergies are “stuck energy”, resistance, fear. It symbolizes an aspect of the individual that has been rejected or repressed (https://healingwithlauraschwalm.wordpress.com/2019/06/22/the-spiritual-cause-to-allergies-food-sensitivities/).
Ok…now we’re getting someplace! Nothing like getting to the root of the problem…you see, during my research I learned that everything that shows up in my health/body has a root problem in the emotional, mental, and spiritual body, and then it is manifested in the physical body! See emotional pain chart (https://www.cforcestudio.com/resources/emotional-pain-chart)
I worked with an energy practitioner who specialized in unblocking the blocks I had created in my mind and body. I also learned the technique myself because there’s nothing better than being self-sufficient, in my book. This is one of the first tools I learned in my energy facilitation career.
So, if you are suffering from allergies…perhaps looking for the root problem will also help you. I invite you to attend our Group Pain Relief Workshop, or schedule a private consultation, we would love to work with you.
Stress Does Not Discriminate
Did you know that normally, as many as 90% of all visits to healthcare providers in the United States are considered to be stress-related? This was very surprising to me, but if you think about it we are all under stress from everyday living.
But now we’re not living in “normal” times, are we?
What effect do you think stress will have on society after COVID19?
Stress does not discriminate!
It doesn’t care about your race, sex, income, or education level.
Stress affects every aspect of the body, mind, and spirit, resulting in a wide range of symptoms from headaches or stomach ailments to heart disease or death.
But stress is difficult to define because it varies from individual to individual. But stress is not what happens to someone — those outside forces are the stressors. What matters is how a person reacts to the 
stressor. A person’s internal responses to external forces are a major factor in disease and health (Pelletier, 1993).
How are YOU reacting to what stresses you in your life?
For example, if the workplace is the stressor, the body has to maintain a heightened state of readiness (the body produces hormones that make organs work overtime), eventually, it reaches a stage of exhaustion. It is unable to sustain the workload required by constant vigilance and fails. Illness and possibly death can ensue.
One such hormone is cortisol. Cortisol levels rise quickly. When cortisol levels remain high for long periods of time, immune system function decreases or may shut down altogether. This can result in mild to severe or even life-threatening conditions such as allergies and autoimmune diseases, and it has even been linked to cancer. (more…)
Career Burnout
The workplace has changed a lot in the past years…
Remember when you were in school and dreaming of a happy and successful career? Yes, this was me and many others alike. In college, we think that getting a degree will get us that “happy” job where we can excel and improve/add to our skills. In most cases this is right. But there’s also the dark side…
The dark side is that there is career burnout. It comes from the stress
one places on oneself and placed on yourself by others and the work situation. You see, there are careers that require highly skilled or clearable personnel. If you are in one of these positions, then you need to learn stress management yesterday. Not learning how to de-stress will cause you to be one of the 65% that think about quitting their job on a daily basis as reported by CNBC.