Stress is a normal body response in facing various needs or responsibilities of one’s life. The needs or responsibilities could be issues which come from the outside of a person (for example: a letter from a falling behind bank loan, friends, job, or relationship problem), or may also comes from one’s own self thinking (for example: how a person review or judge himself or herself). Stress is often labels as a bad thing. However, every person need some pressure indeed so that they can achieve a better life.

Healthy techniques to handle stress, among others are:

1. Taking a Catnap: A catnap for about 30 to 45 minutes should refresh the body back. A nap also can replenish your health and repair any damage in your body. Notable peoples who have benefit from day sleep or nap to deal with stress are John F Kennedy, Thomas Alva Edison and Salvador Dali.

2. Massaging: You can visit a professional massager or expert or ask your own couple or a friend to massage your neck and shoulder. By massaging you are not only relieving the tense muscles, but also improving your relationship or bond with your couple and friends.

3. Artistic Self Expression: Try to be creative and divert your energy positively. You can try to learn acting, or play musical instruments, photography, drawing, poetry or singing. Music is a very good stress defusing medium. Playing musical instrument or just listening to music alone has proven to be very helpful in relieving stress.

4. To Laugh Often: This technique is not a secret anymore. Your laugh can make the stress that you face to become lighter. This also makes you to always show people a pleasant expression on your face. People will like you, you will feel your burdens lighter. A pleasant expression also attracts more helping hands.

5. Be Soft to Yourself: Whether you realized it or not, in fact we are continuously talking to our self. Talking to our own self reflects self behavior and self image. You can change both of the things through positive talking to your own self. Better, the talking itself can generate changes in the chemical processes of the body which is beneficial, in a way by activating the nervous system that raises relaxation. On the other hand, negative self talking in oneself would result stimulation on sympathetic nervous system and creating a feel of body tiredness.

So handle and overcome your stress. Live happily and healthily.

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Your body is your most important asset. Without a healthy body, you will not be able to enjoy your life. For this reason, you need to take care of your body. In these times when everybody is chasing a career, it’s easy to neglect caring for the body. However, it is never too late to make changes in your daily routine and seek ways to achieve a healthy lifestyle. All too often, people don’t realize that the proper maintenance of the body is the key to good health and beauty.

Taking control of your body will also lead to a more youthful appearance. There are many ways to achieve this. Trying to follow some health and beauty tips in the magazines is a great place to start. One of the best tips is to plan a regular exercise routine. The more you exercise, the healthier you will be. If you don’t really have the time for a full exercise routine, you should know that even the slightest physical movement can make a huge difference. For instance, you can choose to use the stairs instead of elevator. Even walking your dog or doing some gardening is some form of exercise. As far as possible, try to add some physical activities in your daily routine. This will keep your body in good shape and reduce the risk of illnesses or diseases.

A good exercise routine does not necessarily mean that you have to join an expensive gym. The most effective way is to set aside at least 30 minutes to perform some form of exercise to burn fat and tone your body. There are exercise DVDs and simple home equipment that you can use. After sometime, you will notice a change in your body and overall health.

Exercise also has an effect on your skin, giving it luster and glow. To maximize the effects of exercise, it’s best that you accompany it with a good healthy eating habit.

Eating healthy food and acquiring proper nutrition plays an important role when it comes to caring for your body. It is best to avoid junk food as well as foods that contain a high level of fat and oil. Healthy food lessens the risk of illness and other health issues. As a result, you will feel better as your energy increases. Regular consumption of healthy food helps to slow down the aging process.

If you want to reduce the process of aging, then it is best to abstain from smoking. Tobacco contains substances that can cause the skin to age. Perpetual smoking will make your skin look dull, thus, increasing your chances of developing wrinkles even if you are not in the stage yet. Quitting smoking has a lot of positive implications. It includes reducing risks of acquiring cancer, lung, and cardiovascular diseases.

Remember that taking care of body will bring positive results. By following good health and beauty tips, you are taking good care of your body. The end result is a healthier and younger body. Start by making changes today and you will feel the difference right away.

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Have you heard of K.I.S.S? It is much used in business and particularly in training, and it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. Now I agree with keeping it simple in principle, but calling me stupid is not going to help tackle procrastination.

I prefer a much kinder, and more effective way of thinking of it that tackles one of the fundamental problems that procrastinators face, that of being overwhelmed, so that is what I use:

Keep Implementing Small Steps

Every part of that is an essential tool to dealing with procrastination. Whatever it is you are procrastinating about, I promise it will be easier to tackle if you just follow those four simple instructions.

Whatever the issue, if you can look at it as a series of small, achievable, actions you are on the way to overcoming your procrastination.

Keep is the first part and what does it mean? Well it means keep going, or keep repeating an action. Do something to move your project forward, and keep on doing it. No stopping after just one attempt, by all means rest and recoup if it has proved difficult but the key lies in consistently addressing yourself to the problem.

Implementing is straightforward enough; thinking of how to overcome your procrastination is all very well but it is action that will move you forward. I know how easy it is to get seduced into thinking over your options and debating what you ought to do. That is great, but you actually have to do it! To quote the immortal Elvis, ‘a little less talk and a lot more action’ needs to be your motto.

Small is another key word that will help you be successful in tackling procrastination. Not actions that are so huge you can?t get them done in one session, or are so numerous you get exhausted just thinking about which one to do first.

I will let you into a secret; it doesn?t matter which action you decide to do first, as long as it is small, manageable and you do it. Most procrastinators tend to see the project as a giant mountain they have to move in one go; reality is if you take a shovelful at a time it will get moved.

Yes, it takes longer, but not nearly as long as if you never start to move that earth.

Steps are where you catch up with Keep; in other words one step at a time will get you there and you keep on making them! The simplest way to do this is to write a checklist of the actions that need to be done, and put Write checklist down as the first item and keep it limited to items you can do on that day. When you have done your list cross that line out because you have done it!

You are already on your way and taken action. Even the longest and most difficult task only consists of a series of smaller tasks, which if you see them as small steps will be are easily achievable. They may be small steps individually, but they are a giant step for a procrastinator.

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It’s so common – you’re exhausted as usual and your stomach is a bit upset but that’s no surprise with the high pressure schedule you’ve been keeping up all day. You’re also feeling a little bloated so maybe your period’s going to start early and naturally, you have to empty your bladder again. Although this may sound pretty normal for all of us who are juggling marriage, career, motherhood and some community service… and it probably is in fact pretty normal, these are also some of the symptoms of two problems that can kill you, HEART ATTACK and OVARIAN CANCER.

Heart disease is the number one killer of both women and men and diseases of the heart have become the leading killer of women in the United States. Since 1984, heart disease has claimed more women than men. Approximately 500,000 women die each year from cardiovascular disease in the United States alone. In fact, women account for nearly half of all heart attack deaths. Cardiovascular disease claims more female lives than breast cancer, accidents and diabetes combined.

Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer among women in the United States. One in 72 women will develop ovarian cancer (lifetime risk) and one in 95 women will die from ovarian cancer. Do you know one hundred women? This statistic means you should expect one of them to die from ovarian cancer. Each year, approximately 20,000 American women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and about 15,000 women die of the disease. Approximately 174,236 women living in the United States have ovarian cancer or have a history of ovarian cancer.

There are many diseases that are “silent” or whose symptoms mimic lesser problems. People can be unaware of diabetes or hypertension, for example. Left untreated, both chronic medical problems can slowly destroy your quality of life or take your life. Other disorders are sneaky – their symptoms mimic lesser problems, allowing the underlying issue to go undetected until there’s a crisis. Gallbladder problems for example, can lead to gas, indigestion, heartburn and fatigue, nuisance symptoms that most people accept as part of living and manage with over-the-counter medications or benign neglect. A malfunctioning gall bladder often doesn’t get diagnosed until there is a classic gall bladder attack.

So why do we want to shine a special light on heart attack and ovarian cancer? Both can be fatal without early detection. Both have sneaky symptoms, mimic lesser disorders, physicians and other health care providers tend to dismiss or misdiagnose these symptoms, and there are no simple screening tools.

Heart attack is often fatal without early detection whereas ovarian cancer frequently goes undetected until it is advanced and then it is usually fatal. There is often a delay between the time a person begins experiencing symptoms and when they seek medical care.

More than 50% of the 1.2 million people who suffer a heart attack each year in the United States die in an emergency department or before reaching a hospital, within an hour of symptom onset. Survival rates are improved by up to 50% if treatment is started within one hour of symptom onset and by 23% if it is achieved within three hours of symptom onset. Researchers discovered that old age, being a woman, having less education, less money or being black, and symptoms which aren’t severe or don’t fit “classic” heart attack symptoms are associated with increased delays in seeking treatment.

Ovarian cancer is also not easily diagnosed because its initial symptoms are mild, often attributed to other causes and there is no specific diagnostic test for ovarian cancer. There is an 85-93% survival rate if ovarian cancer is diagnosed at Stage I – contained within the ovary (or ovaries). However, less than 20% of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed at this early stage and if discovered at Stage IV, survival is only 18% after 5 years.

Both heart attack and ovarian cancer have “sneaky” symptoms and can also be very nonspecific and mimic other problems. You can probably recite the classic heart attack symptoms, i.e., chest pain radiating down the left arm, crushing sensation, shortness of breath, sweating. That’s absolutely correct, if you’re a man! Unfortunately, researchers have only recently discovered that women’s heart attack symptoms are often very different from those classic symptoms. In a ground breaking study of female heart attack victims, 95% of women studied said they knew their symptoms were new or different a month or more before experiencing their heart attack. The symptoms most commonly reported were unusual fatigue, sleep disturbance and shortness of breath. Fewer than 30% reported having chest pain or discomfort prior to their heart attacks, and 43% reported no chest pain during any phase of the attack.
Here’s what every woman needs to know. Women’s major symptoms prior to their heart attack (a month or so earlier) are non-specific and include unusual fatigue, sleep disturbance, shortness of breath, indigestion and anxiety.

Similarly, ovarian cancer symptoms are often very mild in its early, most easily curable stages. A 2004 study of women with ovarian cancer discovered that crampy abdominal pain and urinary urgency, frequency or incontinence were the most commonly documented symptoms in women who had Stage I and II ovarian cancer. In patients with Stages III and IV cancer, abdominal pain and increased abdominal girth were the most commonly documented symptoms. These rather non-specific symptoms are often shrugged off or attributed to something else. Common misdiagnoses include irritable bowel syndrome, stress and depression.

So how do you pinpoint when your abdominal cramps are simple constipation or a passing virus versus early cancer? The key seems to be recognizing whether the symptoms continue or get worse. With most digestive disorders, symptoms tend to come and go, or they occur in certain situations or after eating certain foods. With ovarian cancer, there’s typically little fluctuation — symptoms are constant and gradually worsen.

To add insult to injury, there is no simple screening test for identifying women who may develop a heart attack or ovarian cancer. Both require time consuming workups. Specialized ‘stress the heart’ tests such as the treadmill stress test or cardiac scans are usually required to sort out women who have the potential to have a heart attack whereas the diagnosis of ovarian cancer is made by a combination of symptoms, blood tests, manual examination and special studies including pelvic ultrasound. The manual exam relies on the doctor to physically feel masses. If masses are felt, the cancer is typically advanced. The pelvic ultrasound is the most reliable way to evaluate the ovaries for cancer. This procedure, in conjunction with the other tests, creates a diagnostic tool kit for ovarian cancer. The blood test, CA-125, measures a protein associated with cancer. If the CA-125 is elevated there’s a good chance that cancer is present, although since other situations such as being premenopausal can also elevate CA-125, there are many false positives. On the other hand, the CA-125 is only elevated about half the time, even when ovarian cancer is present, leading to many false negatives as well. As a result, the CA-125 blood test is used together with other tests.

We now know that there are clusters of symptoms that can help to identify these disorders in their earliest stages. Many women ignore their heart attack symptoms because they are too minor or don’t fit the classic pattern of symptoms. Unfortunately, doctors also fail to recognize these symptoms as heart attack red flags for the same reasons.

Both healthcare providers and women need to change their thinking about women and heart attacks. If your gradual shortness of breath, fatigue, sleep disturbance or indigestion seems to be continuing, see your doctor right away and ask to be evaluated for heart disease, even if it’s not suggested. If you start to feel sweaty, more short of breath and dizzy, call 911. Better a false alarm than a funeral.

Follow the same thinking for ovarian cancer. Recognize that if you have a family history of ovarian cancer, you are at much higher risk for developing the disease. If you have abdominal symptoms like cramping or urinary symptoms such as frequency or urgency almost daily for more than a few weeks, you should see your doctor, preferably your gynecologist.

Listen to your body…and get help for suspicious symptoms. Learn how to identify early symptoms of heart attack and ovarian cancer. Tell every woman you know. If your doctor seems willing to dismiss the symptoms as something else without testing to rule out impending heart attack or early stage ovarian cancer, stop and have a discussion.

Heart attack and ovarian cancer no longer need to be such aggressive killers of women. You know yourself and your body better than anyone else. When your body produces warning symptoms, listen to it. You may find that you are stressed, depressed, have digestive problems or are perimenopausal…and that’s good to know so you can work on helping yourself reduce or eliminate those problems. Or, you may discover that your body is telling you to take action and save your own life.

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Stress is the body’s way of responding to any demand put on it. The body reacts to stress by producing chemicals that find their way into the blood steam. This gives people more energy and strength. This can actually be a good thing if the stress is caused by danger. It gives us the ability to react to that danger quickly. Stress can also have negative effects if it is caused by something emotional such as family problems, overwork or financial issues. It becomes a problem when there is no outlet for this increased energy and strength. This is the type of stress that causes so many problems to our medical and physical heath.

Identifying what is causing our stress is the first step to dealing effectively with it. There are several common types of stress which can be identified. The two main areas are physical and emotional. Let’s look at some of the more common types of stress:

* Survival Stress – This happens when you are physically threatened. It goes to the “fight” or “flight” reaction to that danger that is common in all animals and people. The body responds with a burst of extra energy which allows you to react to that danger. This manifests itself as fighting to survive or removing yourself from the danger.

* Internal Stress – Have you ever found yourself worrying over something that you have little or no control over? Or maybe you find yourself worrying over nothing at all. This type of stress is the hardest to understand and control. Some people may even put themselves in stressful situations or actually become addicted to a lifestyle which is so frantic and hectic that is it a continuous source of stress.

* Environmental Stress – This is the type of stress that occurs from factors around you. This may be from family members or people that we work and come in contact with, from being in a noisy situation or an overcrowded room. Leaning to avoid these situations will do a lot to reduce stress levels.

* Fatigue and Overwork – Stress caused by these two factors is the type that can build up over time and have a negative effect on our health. Maybe you work to many hours or to hard, maybe you don’t always know how to manage your time effectively or just don’t take the time you need for rest or vacation. People tend to believe that these are things that are out of their control and make it the hardest form of stress to control.

When you are under stress there are many stress related hormones that your body releases. Being under stress occasionally is not a problem, but if the situation persists these hormones can rob us of nutrients that are essential to our bodies. One of the problems with prolonged stress and the hormones associated with it can be a depletion of zinc, potassium and B-complex vitamins. Stress hormones being secreted over long periods of time can also interfere with insulin functioning and promote insulin resistance. These increased hormone levels can also change our blood sugar levels opening us up to a variety of medical problems brought on by the fact that our cells are not able to nourish themselves by the glucose in our diets.

If you are prone to long periods of stress or have a history of depression there are certain things you can do to get the nutrients in your body back to optimal levels. Nutrients that become depleted by stress include foliate, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, choline, protein and omega-3 fatty acids. Being aware of this, one may want to adjust their diets or supplement for these nutrients. A common situation associated with stress is called “leaky gut”. This is associated with increased permeability of the intestinal wall. It compromises nutrient absorption in the digestive tract, and the intestinal walls can no longer regulate the movement of nutrients in and out of the digestive tract.

Stress is something that we need to find a way to control before it starts to negatively affect the quality of life and our heath in general. Being aware of the reasons why stress has such a negative effect on our health is a good start. Adjusting diet or using supplementation to allow our body to make up for the nutrients being lost will counteract some of these negative effects. A change in lifestyle or attitude can relieve the problem going forward.

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You believe in your career and in yourself or you wouldn’t be where you are now. But do you have that internal negative voice sometimes? You know the one that undermines your positive beliefs, tries to tell that you won’t make it to the next level up, that you will never achieve a healthy work/life balance, or that you’re no good at a particular area of your work? If you tell yourself negative things about yourself and your career, you will subconsciously look for ways to prove that you are right. And so your beliefs will be constantly reinforced and may ultimately actually become fact. Let’s see what we can do about that.

What I’d like you to do for a moment is concentrate on your main goal for your career. Close your eyes and take yourself forward to the time when you have achieved it, when your career (and accordingly your lifestyle) is everything you want it to be. Stay there for a minute or two and really drink it in. Take note of what you can see, hear and feel.

Ask yourself:

· What strengths did I have back when I was planning to get here, which enabled me to get to this point?

Now come back to the present and keep hold of those positive thoughts.

We all hold Empowering Beliefs. These are the beliefs which empower us to move forwards towards our goals. Some of them we know and can list straight away. Others may surprise us when we encourage our subconscious to come forward with them. All of them are extremely powerful and make a huge difference to the outcome of all our endeavours.

When you express an Empowering Belief the sentence would typically start ‘I am…’ or ‘I can…’

Basing your list on your answer to the bullet pointed question above, write down now 5 Empowering Beliefs you have about your career. What are its strengths? What does it do for you? What do you love about it? ‘It is… what?’ ‘It can… what?’ ‘It does…what?’

Once again basing your list on your answer to the question, write down now 5 Empowering Beliefs you have about yourself which will enable you to get your career to where you want it to be. ‘I am…?’ ‘I can…? ‘I’m great at…?’ ‘My XYZ skills are superb’. Don’t worry if you think it might sound big-headed to anyone else. What’s important is that you believe that you have this strength, ability or knowledge.

That’s a great start!

Now commit to doing something over the next couple of weeks. Every day add at least one new Empowering Belief to your two lists. Your goal is to end up in 2 weeks time with at least 10 Empowering Beliefs about your career and at least 10 Empowering Beliefs about yourself.

So each day ask yourself: ‘What Else?’

Ask other people what they think. Ask colleagues, family and friends, and ask clients. When someone else gives you some positive feedback, accept that they wouldn’t say it unless it were true. So you can easily take that on as a belief of your own – right?

Keep your lists where you can access them easily and often, particularly if you are having a ‘wobble moment’. This is really powerful stuff and can cause a mental shift that will take you shooting forwards. Please note I am not saying that empowering beliefs alone will make things happen. But if you accept and believe all the positive things about your current and future career and about yourself, you will actually go out there and take the action necessary to make it happen! What’s the alternative?

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One of the most important aspects of living a healthy and prosperous life is understanding “risk.” By this I mean knowing how to understand and analyze situations in life that affect health. Being able to accurately weigh benefits and risks when making health decisions is very important! Too often decisions are based on incomplete or inaccurate information and this is a huge mistake with significant consequences!

Failure to accurately assess risk keeps people locked in all kinds of unhealthy situations including poor eating and exercise habits (lifestyle), relationships and jobs. Sometimes people are just afraid to step out and make a change. They see “risk” in making a change when the REAL risk comes from NOT making a change. From my perspective, living with the stress, unhappiness and frustration of indecision and poor health is the greatest risk of all, and one that is definitely not worth taking!

Accessing “risk” is nothing more than collecting information, weighing the alternatives and then making appropriate decisions based on the information.

Some risks to our health are more “real” than others. For example, it is common knowledge that obesity is associated with a wide variety of health problems. On the other hand, there are some health risks that are so remote we rarely think about them. On a practical level, eating highly processed foods and avoiding a daily dose of fresh fruits and vegetables is rarely considered serious. But, as too many have already discovered, the long range consequences of this practice are real and devastating.

Failure to accurately assess risk limits us in many ways. We imagine the “risk” of talking with our children about drugs, dating or sex and we put off having the “talk,” even though the risks of NOT talking are infinitely greater. Fear of flying and public speaking are two more “risks” affecting millions of people. But practically speaking, these fears are unfounded. People ride in cars every day, even though cars are far more dangerous than commercial aircraft! It’s a failure to accurately assess risk, and it limits our health, prosperity and pleasure in life.

The goods news is that failure to accurately access risk is reversible! The effects of those decisions to eat inappropriately or NOT to exercise are, as the common expression goes, “do-overs.” We can effect positive change in our lives by following a few simple steps to accurately access risk:

1. Accurately define your present situation and access your health “risks”. Are you eating a healthy diet? Are you getting enough exercise and good quality sleep? What are the consequences if you DON’T change? Weigh the benefits of healthier living vs the potential risks such as increased cost, inconvenience or discomfort.

2. What do you stand to gain if you change your present circumstances? Assess the “up-side” potential. Too often we look only at the “downside” risk and forget the benefits. What good things might happen if you take the risk and win?

3. Limit the “down-side” if you happen to make a wrong decision. Don’t continue down a path if it does not produce results. This is especially important when following weight loss programs. If the pounds are not coming off or if the weight loss is only temporary, find a new program! You not only want to lose weight, but want to sustain the weight loss for as long as possible. Take steps to ensure this will happen. Clear, concise, realistic objectives will definitely help.

4. Reduce your risk by being smart! Understand the situation and seek the advice of experts in the field of health and nutrition. This includes finding and forming partnerships to receive support and get good advice.

5. Have a fall-back position. If the decision you make fails to produce the desired results, be prepared to take a long, hard look at the circumstances and be prepared to change what you are doing.

Everything in life involves some element of risk. Driving your car, meeting someone new, crossing the street…but we do them every day. Winners in life are willing to accept the risk and continue on their way! Get involved, be smart about how you play the game, come prepared for a few failures along the way, but don’t quite. You will reap the benefits for your effort and live a happier and healthier life. I like to remember the words of the great Winston Churchill when he said, “Never, never, never give up!”

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