T I M E M A N A G E M E N T
Fight, manage, plan—do whatever you can to try to squeeze
more work into the same limited minutes in the day—at your own
risk. You’re probably incurring still more stress.
So, if stress is an inevitable by-product of living, and if modern
life puts us under ever greater stress, how can you possibly avoid
taking on too much of it?
You probably can’t, but you can manage the stress by under-
standing its nature.
The Fundamental Truth about Stress
Stress isn’t “out there” someplace, in the evil boss or the colicky kid
or the traffic jam. Those are the stressors that trigger the stress.
Stress is inside you, your psychological responses to life’s
challenges.
Do what you can to mitigate the stressors, yes, but there’s a lot
you can’t do anything about. You can do a great deal to modulate
and modify your internal reactions, thus eliminating much of the
stress if not the stressors.
You can learn to cope with life as it is—without letting it kill
you.
You have to Incur Stress to Lose Stress
Before you begin your strategic retreat from the stress wars,
one final visit to the stress scale, where, nestled between “Trouble
with boss (45)” and “Trouble with in-laws (43)” we find: Revision
of personal habits (44).
That’s right. Any attempt to modify your stress response is itself
stressful. So you’ll need to know that you’ll feel increased pres-
sure, not relief, when you begin to retrain some of your responses to
stress. Don’t get discouraged. This is normal and short-lived. You’ll
get through it, and the benefits will be more than worth the effort.