Fuel yourself with these when stress grabs a tight hold on you:
• Foods rich in magnesium. Studies suggest that magnesium helps control blood pressure – which can be the first thing to go up when under stress. Quick tip to get in the know: Most magnesium comes from vegetables, such as dark green, leafy vegetables. Other foods that are good sources of magnesium are fruits (such as bananas, dried apricots, and avocados), nuts, and legumes.
• Most of us have heard this one before – foods rich in Vitamin C. Drink your OJ, eat your fruit. Studies really do suggest that this little soldier sets up sturdy barricades against colds and other viruses. Quick tip to get in the know: Most vitamin C comes from citrus type fruits. Drink up or eat up on these delicious gifts from mother-nature.
• Yum – this one often takes first place in the taste line-up: cocoa. However, this powerhouse seems to get a bad rap because it can be fattening. Not many of us are used to the idea that if it tastes this good, it’s also good for you. Quite often, it’s the opposite. So give yourself a little treat and also know you are doing some good for your body. Cocoa affects the brain and helps increase feel good neurochemicals. This has a relaxing effect on you and helps to battle stress. But as with anything in life, going overboard can have negative results. Quick tip to get in the know: Dark chocolate seems to earn bonus points for extra health punch. Enjoy some every day.
• Foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids (mostly fish like salmon and tuna). Just the name alone sounds unhealthy – fatty acids? But truth be told – this one gets served up with benefits galore. Helps elevate mood, decrease worry and anxiety, increase memory and more. I know when I was a child, the fish options were minimal and not all that appealing. However, now-a-days, the options (and the tastes) are limitless and delicious. Enjoy! Quick tip to get in the know: Studies show that eating fish a couple times per week helps with test performance and work productivity.
• Foods rich in B vitamins – particularly, oats. Research suggests that oats rev up the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that feels like a cozy blanket for the brain, ahhhhhhh. Quick tip to get in the know: This is a bonus for oatmeal eaters in the AM - the body digests oatmeal slowly, so serotonin hangs around for a while.
So when you feel that tightness that settles in at your gut, squeezes around your shoulders or applies pressure to your head – take a break, take a breath and take a spoonful of something that will work to help you feel better.
Don't forget to check out our website for more details, ideas, topics, recommended books, etc.
Therapy Core
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Overcoming Anxiety As It Relates To Fear of Failure
– being passed along to you from Essential Lifeskills
Not knowing what it really takes to succeed. One reason is that many of us are so focused on success and the appearances of it, that we forget what it really takes to achieve it.
We rarely think about failure as being a part of life and how many success stories have emerged from sheer failure. No one talks about how many times Abraham Lincoln failed at getting elected to office before he ended up becoming president (8), how Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard before becoming a sensation in the computer world, or how Michael Jordan failed to make his high school basketball team before becoming one of the greatest basketball players ever. In these times of fast media and instant news, we often see the glamorous side of success rather than the obstacles and hard work it takes to get there.
Having unrealistic expectations. We often expect to succeed on our first attempt at a venture and if we don't, we think we've failed. How realistic is that? Just because we failed a test, got passed over for a promotion, or didn't get a 'yes' asking that cute girl/guy for their phone number, does it mean we will never succeed at it? Not at all! Yet fear of rejection, or perceived failure, stops many from trying again.
The same applies in competitive sports. Athletes must learn to accept loss before they discover what it takes to win. In any sport, expecting to win from the onset is totally unrealistic. Failure is part of the process of learning how to win. Likewise, in the entertainment and music businesses. Most 'overnight' successes took years in the making before achieving high levels of success.
In his book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly talks about the "10,000-Hour Rule", in which he states that the key to success in any field is largely a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. As an example, he brings up that The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany alone over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time. He also points out that Bill Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when at the age of 13, he spent some 10,000 hours or more, learning programming on a high school computer that he managed to gain access to.
Needless to say, 10,000 hours of practicing anything would include many occurrences of failure, some frustration and falling short of goals.
Perfectionism. Some of us are afraid of failure because we believe we must be perfect. If we make an attempt and then fail at it, we risk looking foolish and therefore feel somehow flawed.
For perfectionists everything must be done at a high level with no room for mistakes. They believe that if they can't get something done perfectly, they'd prefer not do it at all. Unfortunately, this type of thinking deprives the perfectionist of real learning and the benefits and value gained from experience.
Tips to Overcome anxiety as it relates to Fear of Failure
✓ Understand and expect that at times you will fail. Realize that you are human and humans make mistakes. Before any of us learned how to walk, we crawled. We got up, fell down, got up again and continued the process until we could walk expertly.
✓ Don't take failure personally. Instead, view it as a stepping stone. Make certain you learn from it and then apply what you've learned to future situations. Refuse to consider it a character flaw or weakness. Doing so will only prevent you from achieving future success.
✓ No one succeeds all of the time, probably not even most of the time. In baseball, star players fail 70% of the time. Babe Ruth's batting average was .342 which means he struck out 66% of the time. Wayne Gretzky's career shooting percentage in hockey was 17.57% meaning he missed 82.43 % of the time. Wayne is also famous for saying "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." So it is in life. You won't fail at anything if you don't make the attempt. You also won't succeed!
✓ Remember that 'failure' has produced many successes. Consider how many people in history had failed before they became successful and quite likely because of it. Albert Einstein's teacher told him to quit school because; "Einstein, you will never amount to anything!" Ludwig Von Beethoven's music teacher said of him "as a composer, he is hopeless". Henry Ford's first two automobile companies failed.
✓ Appreciate the benefits of failure. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." In other words, your chances of getting things right on the first try are slim to none. The more you try, or experiment, the better you'll get at it.
✓ Believe in yourself. Rather than giving up when things don't work out, take it as an opportunity to build perseverance and resolve. Believe that you've got what it takes to work through the obstacles and difficult times. Remind yourself how many failures became successful because they wouldn't give up.
Therapy Core
Individual Therapy | Couples Therapy | Premarital Coaching | Personality Assessments
Not knowing what it really takes to succeed. One reason is that many of us are so focused on success and the appearances of it, that we forget what it really takes to achieve it.
We rarely think about failure as being a part of life and how many success stories have emerged from sheer failure. No one talks about how many times Abraham Lincoln failed at getting elected to office before he ended up becoming president (8), how Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard before becoming a sensation in the computer world, or how Michael Jordan failed to make his high school basketball team before becoming one of the greatest basketball players ever. In these times of fast media and instant news, we often see the glamorous side of success rather than the obstacles and hard work it takes to get there.
Having unrealistic expectations. We often expect to succeed on our first attempt at a venture and if we don't, we think we've failed. How realistic is that? Just because we failed a test, got passed over for a promotion, or didn't get a 'yes' asking that cute girl/guy for their phone number, does it mean we will never succeed at it? Not at all! Yet fear of rejection, or perceived failure, stops many from trying again.
The same applies in competitive sports. Athletes must learn to accept loss before they discover what it takes to win. In any sport, expecting to win from the onset is totally unrealistic. Failure is part of the process of learning how to win. Likewise, in the entertainment and music businesses. Most 'overnight' successes took years in the making before achieving high levels of success.
In his book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly talks about the "10,000-Hour Rule", in which he states that the key to success in any field is largely a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. As an example, he brings up that The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany alone over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time. He also points out that Bill Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when at the age of 13, he spent some 10,000 hours or more, learning programming on a high school computer that he managed to gain access to.
Needless to say, 10,000 hours of practicing anything would include many occurrences of failure, some frustration and falling short of goals.
Perfectionism. Some of us are afraid of failure because we believe we must be perfect. If we make an attempt and then fail at it, we risk looking foolish and therefore feel somehow flawed.
For perfectionists everything must be done at a high level with no room for mistakes. They believe that if they can't get something done perfectly, they'd prefer not do it at all. Unfortunately, this type of thinking deprives the perfectionist of real learning and the benefits and value gained from experience.
Tips to Overcome anxiety as it relates to Fear of Failure
✓ Understand and expect that at times you will fail. Realize that you are human and humans make mistakes. Before any of us learned how to walk, we crawled. We got up, fell down, got up again and continued the process until we could walk expertly.
✓ Don't take failure personally. Instead, view it as a stepping stone. Make certain you learn from it and then apply what you've learned to future situations. Refuse to consider it a character flaw or weakness. Doing so will only prevent you from achieving future success.
✓ No one succeeds all of the time, probably not even most of the time. In baseball, star players fail 70% of the time. Babe Ruth's batting average was .342 which means he struck out 66% of the time. Wayne Gretzky's career shooting percentage in hockey was 17.57% meaning he missed 82.43 % of the time. Wayne is also famous for saying "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." So it is in life. You won't fail at anything if you don't make the attempt. You also won't succeed!
✓ Remember that 'failure' has produced many successes. Consider how many people in history had failed before they became successful and quite likely because of it. Albert Einstein's teacher told him to quit school because; "Einstein, you will never amount to anything!" Ludwig Von Beethoven's music teacher said of him "as a composer, he is hopeless". Henry Ford's first two automobile companies failed.
✓ Appreciate the benefits of failure. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." In other words, your chances of getting things right on the first try are slim to none. The more you try, or experiment, the better you'll get at it.
✓ Believe in yourself. Rather than giving up when things don't work out, take it as an opportunity to build perseverance and resolve. Believe that you've got what it takes to work through the obstacles and difficult times. Remind yourself how many failures became successful because they wouldn't give up.
Therapy Core
Individual Therapy | Couples Therapy | Premarital Coaching | Personality Assessments
Monday, August 29, 2011
Stress Management?!?!
Why manage stress? Really. It’s a motivator. We seem to deal fairly well with it – in fact, we measure ourselves against our competition by how much more we can handle. Lessening stress seems very risky – a scarier and more challenging endeavor then managing stress. Isn’t this risk the one thing that really stops us from doing the obvious – controlling our stress levels.
I can’t manage it.
I can’t organize.
I have too much to do. Really....
Would you be brave enough to ask yourself if these are just excuses? You don’t really want to manage your stress as being in control of your “to do” list may make you appear as though you don’t have much to do. We all want to be that person that people say “how does he/she do it?” We want them to be properly measuring all of our hard work and struggles so that they know we are top notch jugglers. If we manage it, really control it, some of our mounting deadlines may just appear to be nicely fit calendar decorators. The “Have-To’s” would move into the “want to/like to” category. When we are doing things that we “Want-To” it opens up the door of obligation to others in our lives. Simply because it leaves room – right?? Think about it.
“Have-To’s” are not a choice.
“Want-To’s” are a choice.
When our life has lots of “Want-To’s” someone is going to make claim to our time. When we fill our lives with “Have-To’s” there is no room for claim. We have set the appropriate boundaries. Right?? But are they appropriate – these boundaries? Are they heading you in the direction of real happiness or have you jumped on the train of illusionary “everyone is so impressed by me, look at everything I manage?”
This brings me to the idea of self-sabotage. It’s the result of such behavior. I was on a jog the other day and I realized that every time I thought about how much further I had to jog, the more I got discouraged. This is the type of mental stress that I am used to. "I must, I have to." Then I realized something. Simply concentrating on the song that I was listening to or bravely reassuring myself that there was no one measuring my success, it was just me out there, convinced me that I was able to continue on much further. I became more relaxed. I was more focused on my body and its ability to endure. This process was not easy as I kept jumping back to how far I had run, what was the distance, my heart rate and then, of course, how much further I needed to go. I then decided that each time I caved to the pressure of "the have to's", I would walk - actually give myself a break. I can do that. I can give myself a break and my body rewarded me with a whole lot more energy. Cause no one really cares….no one but me. I am my own toughest critic and the accolades that I might get don’t compensate for the self sabotage I endure.
Stress causes us to measure everything. We measure by the clock, by the scale, by grades, by numbers and the list goes on. Yes, we are driven to do this for various reasons outside of just poor stress management skills BUT when you really do allow yourself the opportunity to relax a little, stop the clock in a sense, you may just find that all of that hard work could actually pay off in some fantastic way. Your "have to's" could become "want to's" and no one would know the better. It could just be your little secret. Visit us at www.Therapy-Core.com, we can help you use your stress in a positive way.
I can’t manage it.
I can’t organize.
I have too much to do. Really....
Would you be brave enough to ask yourself if these are just excuses? You don’t really want to manage your stress as being in control of your “to do” list may make you appear as though you don’t have much to do. We all want to be that person that people say “how does he/she do it?” We want them to be properly measuring all of our hard work and struggles so that they know we are top notch jugglers. If we manage it, really control it, some of our mounting deadlines may just appear to be nicely fit calendar decorators. The “Have-To’s” would move into the “want to/like to” category. When we are doing things that we “Want-To” it opens up the door of obligation to others in our lives. Simply because it leaves room – right?? Think about it.
“Have-To’s” are not a choice.
“Want-To’s” are a choice.
When our life has lots of “Want-To’s” someone is going to make claim to our time. When we fill our lives with “Have-To’s” there is no room for claim. We have set the appropriate boundaries. Right?? But are they appropriate – these boundaries? Are they heading you in the direction of real happiness or have you jumped on the train of illusionary “everyone is so impressed by me, look at everything I manage?”
This brings me to the idea of self-sabotage. It’s the result of such behavior. I was on a jog the other day and I realized that every time I thought about how much further I had to jog, the more I got discouraged. This is the type of mental stress that I am used to. "I must, I have to." Then I realized something. Simply concentrating on the song that I was listening to or bravely reassuring myself that there was no one measuring my success, it was just me out there, convinced me that I was able to continue on much further. I became more relaxed. I was more focused on my body and its ability to endure. This process was not easy as I kept jumping back to how far I had run, what was the distance, my heart rate and then, of course, how much further I needed to go. I then decided that each time I caved to the pressure of "the have to's", I would walk - actually give myself a break. I can do that. I can give myself a break and my body rewarded me with a whole lot more energy. Cause no one really cares….no one but me. I am my own toughest critic and the accolades that I might get don’t compensate for the self sabotage I endure.
Stress causes us to measure everything. We measure by the clock, by the scale, by grades, by numbers and the list goes on. Yes, we are driven to do this for various reasons outside of just poor stress management skills BUT when you really do allow yourself the opportunity to relax a little, stop the clock in a sense, you may just find that all of that hard work could actually pay off in some fantastic way. Your "have to's" could become "want to's" and no one would know the better. It could just be your little secret. Visit us at www.Therapy-Core.com, we can help you use your stress in a positive way.
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