Everything You Need To Know About Stress Management by Eve Adamson
Stress is something which affects us all, an although I have used meditation and self hypnosis very effectively, stress is still something which keeps me on my toes, and I need all my resources to keep it at bay! We can always use some extra tools in our toolkit for managing stress, and I certainly do, which is why Everything You Need To Know About Stress Management appealed to me, as it looks like a hefty and knowledgeable tome, so I thought a good read of this would give me some extra resources – and I was right!
The trouble with stress, a lot of the time, is that we don’t really understand it, and we naturally fear and have trouble with things we don’t understand – and managing something like that is very hard indeed! Stress Management helps you to take a step back and understand why you react in certain ways to certain things, and helps you understand your stress reaction. It’s particularly interesting to learn how your body reacts to stress, the various chemicals produced in your body, and the effects these chemicals have – you learn that stress is a much more serious business than just feeling a little flustered or under pressure. Left unchecked, stress can have serious consequences!
Thankfully, the Managing Stress doesn’t stop there, but takes you on a personal journey through your own relationship with stress and stress management. Everyone is different, so this book does not attempt to pigeonhole you, but rather enables you to explore the many faces of stress, and helps you to identify your stress tolerance point, your stress triggers, stress vulnerability factor and your stress response tendencies.
Once these have been identified, you are better able to choose from the wealth of stress management strategies, tools and options presented by Managing Stress, which offers ways of better preparing your mind and body to deal with stress, ways to reduce stress (not avoid it altogether, for some stress is inevitable!), and ways to minimise the harm that stress does to your mind and body. Most of these stress management tools apply to both sexes, but some forms of stress are gender-specific, so there are sections both for men and women to deal with particular kinds of stress relevant to each.
This was a very easy book to read, well laid out, with handy tips on offer making it an ideal stress management book to read once, then dip into for reminders. With interactive quizzes to help you indentify your relationship with stress, and a wealth of tips, tools and suggestions, the book will appeal to many. Managing stress, as the book emphasises, is a life long process – but we all need to start somewhere, and if you have problems with stress, this book is an ideal place to start your journey to a life with less unnecessary stress!
