This is the season of joy and good will. Several religions have holy days in this season. The name of the season, Christmastime, comes from the Christians who celebrate the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ. We all also celebrate the start of a new year – with all the hopes and good intentions for a better year than the previous one. So, with all these good intentions in the season of joy and good will, why are so many people stressed out and unhappy?
May I be so bold as to suggest that their focus is the problem? Life is full of things that cause stress, some things are good or enjoyable and others are not. What makes the difference between stress that we tolerate well and that helps us to perform our duties well and stress that wears us down and makes us ill is how we process the stress in our lives.
Many times, we create our own stress. Do you set unrealistic goals and get upset when you don’t reach those goals? Do you ignore your own needs so that you can accomplish more “must” do’s? Do you think that other people’s happiness depends on you and what you do? Do you get mad at yourself anytime what you do isn’t “perfect”? If you do these things, you are setting yourself up for frustration, disappointment, unhappiness and illness. Of course, the overwhelming commercialism in our society isn’t helping. The pressure to buy, buy, buy and the idea that we have to give expensive presents definitely adds to the stress level of anyone who buys into the merchandising propaganda. All of these things create stress in many people’s lives.
Stress that is not handled well is a contributing factor in many illnesses. They actually have a rubric for grading a person’s stress level according to their recent “life events” which predicts the probability of major illness within the year. It is surprisingly accurate, but it doesn’t have to be. The difference is in how you handle the stress.
So, what can you do? Can you reduce the stress or handle it better? Can you be happier? Can you make the other people happy?
First, understand that you cannot make another person happy. There was a very interesting but small study done and reported in the British Medical Journal. The experiment was to see if a person would be happier if everything they said was agreed to. Initially it made a small improvement in the agreed with person’s happiness (as self-judged on a 10 point scale with 10 being extremely happy). In less than 2 weeks both the person being agreed with constantly and the person doing the agreeing were miserable. Have you ever known a child or adult who always gets their way? I have and they have been the most inconsiderate, un-satisfiable and unhappy people I have ever known! Nothing anybody ever did was good enough and they blamed everyone else for not making them happy.
You cannot make another person happy. Why? Because happiness is an inside job. So just stop trying to fix someone else’s happiness. You can still be considerate and thoughtful but don’t blame yourself for their unhappiness.
There are many things you can do to increase your own happiness. A few proven techniques that are not difficult (and get easier the more you do them):
- Be grateful – we have all had people in our lives that helped us in some way. Think about them and what they did, feel grateful for it. You might even want to tell them or write them a note saying thank you.
- Count your blessings – try writing down just three good things that happened to you each week. Focusing on positive things helps us to be optimistic and that increases our happiness and sense of well-being.
- Commit acts of kindness – it seems that when we help someone else, we help ourselves too. Just simply helping another person, individually or through a charity, with our time, money or personal effort, improves our own happiness.
You can do many things to help process the stress in your life better too. Of course we have all heard about doing meditation or yoga, but many of us won’t do those – too much time “wasted” not doing the “must” dos in our life, don’t know how to do it, don’t have (or want) to spend the money to learn, etc. How about one simple thing we can do – in fact, must do – to help? How about breathing?
Yes, breathing. You have to breath anyway so why not put a tiny bit of effort into doing it well?
When we are stressed, we tend to breathe shallowly and use only a small portion of our lungs in the process. In effect we are “holding our breath”. When we make the effort to take a deeper breath by using our diaphragm, our body gets the message to relax. When we exhale, there is a subliminal message to the brain that it is safe. So just sit down for a minute and try it.
Take a deep breath in through your nose, let your belly expand as you use your diaphragm to breathe deeply then exhale slowly through your mouth. Repeat this a couple of times. Notice how differently you feel? Wasn’t that simple to do? Breathe in deeply – relax, exhale slowly – it is safe. Relax, it is safe. Feels good doesn’t it?
So, accept the facts that we are only human and that nothing we do is perfect; take a deep breath, count your blessings, help others and be grateful for the help you have received during your life.
From me to you, relax and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year.
Marie Lozito