Relax.
Relax not only means taking time out for some R&R, but also to relax about everything! Is the thing you are stressing out going to mean the end of the world and life as we know it? If not, learn to chill out about it.

Relaxation and stress reduction could be a whole course in and of itself. To find the right balance between activity and rest is a challenge. Somewhere between being engaged and being overwhelmed is a line that gets crossed. Perhaps it's not even a fine line, but an overlapping gray area where personal needs and responsibilities must be balanced.

Rather than tackling an entire lifetime of habits, this part of the course will focus mostly on awareness. Yes, if your life is too busy and filled to the brim with activities, it is often a good idea to practice time management and activity pruning. Sometimes, however, it's not possible to cut down on what's going on in our lives. If that is the case, the only option we have is to work on our attitudes, reactions, and coping mechanisms.

Part 1: What Are Your Coping Mechanisms?
A “coping mechanism” is a means of managing stress. While we often hear of coping mechanisms in negative terms, coping mechanisms can also be positive. Here are some examples of coping mechanisms:

Examples of negative coping mechanisms:

Going into emotional denial
Chewing your nails
Alcoholism, drug abuse
Overeating
Compulsive shopping
Internet addiction

Examples of positive coping mechanisms:

Meditating
Practicing yoga
Going to church or other spiritual community
Taking a walk
Gardening

Notice that some negative coping mechanisms can overlap with positive ones and vice versa. For example, if you blow off a little bit of steam online after a hard day of work, that can be a positive coping mechanism. It's when the Internet takes over your life that it becomes negative. Likewise, church can be a very positive coping mechanism. Yet, many former members of fundamentalist congregations have likened leaving their church to leaving an abusive cult.

Coping mechanisms are thus not universal. What is a positive coping mechanism for one person could actually be a dangerous path of addiction for another.

What we'd like to do is identify what coping mechanisms we have, and look towards increasing the positive ones and decreasing the negative ones.

Part 2: Letting Go of Mental Stress and Worry
Worry is a habit. We often learn the habit of worry from our parents, but it's also a habit we get into as a coping mechanism. While some worry is normal and meant to keep us safe, we do need to stop worry from running our lives.

For example, if you are driving in a snowstorm, you should be a little worried. That's your signal to slow down and be careful as you drive.

On the other hand, if you are worrying each time you go for a drive, you are just stressing yourself unnecessarily. Yes, it's possible you could get into a car accident. But worrying all the time isn't really going to stop an accident, and it might actually increase your chances if it stresses you out to the point where your driving suffers.

We especially get ourselves into trouble when we take on the worries and stresses of people around us. If we are in any way empathic, that is, sensitive to other people's energy, we can often pick up the negative energies around us and take them on as our own. This makes it doubly important to disengage from other people's dramas. It can literally bring us down.

YOUR HOMEWORK – RELAX MORE

Your assignment for this lesson is as follows:

1. Write down a list of all your negative coping mechanisms. Then write down a list of your positive coping mechanisms. Make a point this week to perform one positive coping mechanism instead of a negative one.

For example, a negative coping mechanism might be: I zone out in front of the TV before bed. A positive coping mechanism might be: Doing some slow yoga stretches before bedtime. So for this week, try to do the yoga instead of watching TV. (As a compromise, do the yoga while watching TV.)

2. Break the worry habit. If you find yourself worrying about yourself or others, try to replace those thoughts with a simple affirmation. My favorite affirmation to use, when other people's drama is stressing me out, is to remind myself: “not my problem, not my problem.” (I say “NMP” for short.) It takes some practice but it is helpful in letting go of needing to “fix” other people.

3. Try a breathing break. When feeling stressed out, just sit still for a moment and take a few deep breaths.

Please share your homework and observations in the forums.