Let’s face it. No one wants to be around someone who is always complaining. Or always distracted. Or who is unreliable. But isn’t that pretty much how you get around your family and friends when you suffer from health related issues from work related stress? It’s painful, not having your friends around when you need them most.
But if you are driving them away, then you need to handle your stress better. Focusing on the effects of stress on the relationships in your life may be just as important as focusing on the effects of stress on the body.
Time management is a key component – but not the only one – of handling stress. Many people think time management is only for the workplace. But using time management, along with creative problem solving, meditation techniques, and other elements of a complete stress management system, can save your relationships also.
Here are some ways to use time management to handle stress. This will eliminate most of the problems above, so your friends can enjoy being around you again.
1. You can schedule time with your family and friends. Too often, time with your family and friends is scheduled around work, activities, or other distractions. By scheduling this time, you can focus on your friends, without the anxiety attack that you are taking time from work.
2. You can set priorities. Your time management system can remove the stress of “I should be doing a dozen other things” by properly prioritizing your work. When you know some things are not priorities, you don’t feel stress by not working on these things.
3. You can focus on work or your friends. Nothing is more annoying than realizing that the person you are talking with is mentally 1000 miles away. A quality time management system will virtually force you to focus on work during work periods, and friends during friend periods.
4. You aren’t depressed and bringing your friends down. Long term stress leads to depression. Short term stress can make you depressed, just from fighting it. So how many times have you killed your friends’ buzz just because you are too depressed and too stressed to have a good time? Managing your time to allow for focused attention to the stress, with periods of rejuvenation mixed in, should lift the depression.
5. You can attract new friends. When you are not stressed – when you have a positive attitude – when you have a reputation as a “go to” person – you will have people asking to be your friend. Setting goals and hitting goals will make you very positive and very attractive.
Handling how stress affects your health is one thing. Handling how stress affects your emotions and attitude is another. By using time management and 11 other components of a comprehensive stress management system, you can get rid of your “bad attitude” and enjoy your friends again. You can replace the definition of stress in your life with the definition of happiness.
About the Author
Picture your life when stress is not a concern and where you are the leader in stressful situations. Go to What to do to relieve stress. STRESS JUDO was developed by Rick Carter, trial lawyer and martial artist. STRESS JUDO gives you a fighting chance against stress and turn stressful situations into opportunities.
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