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Stress Management:
Everyone seems to be talking about the health of the
country's economy. And everyone seems to have a
theory as to what is causing our economic problems.
I won't waste your time giving you my theory. But
I do know this -- your stress and your unhealthy
habits may be killing you and hurting your company.
Ron Goetzel, vice president of the Medstat Group in
Washington D. C. , a health information company, found
that our nation spends 25% of its total health care
tab on medical care for unhealthy habits. That's about
$250 billion a year. That's what I call an unfortunate
waste of money.
To get more specific, Goetzel studied 46,000 employees,
from six different companies, for six years. He
found out that the unhealthy habits of these employees
cost their employers $20 million a year. The sad thing
was that all of those costs were unnecessary because all
of the habits were changeable.
Unfortunately, there's even more bad news. Michael
Cook, editor of "Training and Development Journal"
wrote about excessive stress and its relationship
to jobs and illness. He wrote, "Last year, American
industry lost $25 billion due to the premature
death of its employees. "
In a sense, training your employees to get rid of
their unhealthy habits and get rid of their stress
may be one of the best investments your company can
make. There's almost an immediate return on
investment. Perhaps that's why my program, "Take
This Job and Love It! A Program for Managing Stress,
Preventing Burnout, and Balancing Life" is so popular.
What about you? Are you as healthy as you could be
or want to be? Are you doing everything you can to
maximize your health and manage your stress? Or are you guilty of slowly
killing yourself?
Don't be like the person who said, "I finally got my
head together. Now my body is falling apart. "And
don't delude yourself, thinking that you'll soon
be back to normal. You won't be -- if you keep your
unhealthy habits. Don Marquis says, "Middle age
is the time when a man is always thinking that
in a week or two he will feel just as good as ever. "
Don't make the mistake of thinking your less-than-stellar
health just happened. Dr. Paul Tournier said, "Most
illnesses do not, as is generally thought, come like a
bolt out of the blue. The ground is prepared for
years through faulty diet, intemperance, overwork, and
moral conflicts, slowly eroding the subject's vitality. "
As you may guess, or as you may know if you've heard
me speak, this topic of health is one on which I'm
quite passionate. I was severely disabled some 30
years ago, with some doctors predicting my future
would be a wheel chair. A great deal of my health
problems were coming from some unhealthy habits,
but I chose to change them. I've enjoyed incredible
health ever since.
Certainly, we all have to deal with genetics,
accidents, and other factors over which we have no
control. But there are some tremendous benefits if
you choose to get rid of your unhealthy habits.
If you're ready to claim those benefits, you must
OVERCOME INERTIA. In other words, you must overcome
laziness.
Unfortunately, it's easier to keep up your unhealthy
habits than change them. But that's pure craziness,
because no one wants a life of mediocre health.
Everyone wants to be healthy. No one likes being ill.
No one enjoys pain and suffering. Yet few people live
the healthy life they know they should. They eat too
much; they exercise too little, and they know it.
They're slowly killing themselves and doing nothing
about it. They're stuck with inertia. You've got
to overcome it.
Then, you've got to VISUALIZE HEALTH. Take a few
moments every once in a while to picture yourself
as whole, healthy, and well, whether or not you
are. You might even repeat an affirmation to yourself,
something like: "I am filled with energy, vitality, and
health. "
What you are doing is laying the groundwork for good
health and good stress management. Your life is strongly influenced by your
thoughts.
If you dwell on how badly you feel, you will make
yourself sick, even if you're not. And if you focus
on how tired you are, you'll get more tired.
When you think thoughts of health, however, you go a
long way towards being more healthy. When you think
energy, you will have more energy.
Almost every day, at one of my programs, someone will
ask me about my energy level. They wonder how I keep
it up, day after day, year after year, despite my
heavy travel schedule. The answer is simple. I
don't think about how tired I "should" feel or how
much jet lag I "should" have. I never get jet lag.
I just don't think about it.
Are your thoughts leading you towards health or
towards illness?
Two sisters went Christmas shopping together. One said,
"Isn't it fun? The crowds in the street, the throngs in
the stores, and all the new things that are on display.
I love to watch people as they shop. "The other sister
remarked, "The crowds drive me crazy! You can hardly
move there's so many people. Things are overpriced,
and all they're selling is junk. I'm tired, and my
feet hurt. "
The next day, the first sister felt fine. The other
one went back to bed with a headache. I wonder
how much their thoughts contributed to their
outcomes.
To maximize your health, you also need to MAKE
CONSCIOUS CHOICES. Every day you make dozens of
decisions that affect your health. Those decisions
will build you up or tear you down.
Unfortunately, most of those decisions are so subtle
that you don't make them consciously. You may not
even stop to think whether the food you are putting
in your mouth is adding to or subtracting from your
health.
You need to get off autopilot and make conscious
choices. Take exercise, for example. Instead of
just getting on the elevator, you may sometimes
choose to walk up the stairs. You need to consciously
choose what will add to your health.
Of course, some people think this conscious choosing
will kill all the fun in life. It's like the doctor
who gave his patient the results of his annual physical.
He said, "There's no reason why you can't live a
completely normal life as long as you don't try to enjoy
it. "Or as Johnny Carson said, "I know a man who gave
up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was
healthy right up to the time he killed himself. "
That's not my point at all. Good choices don't have
to kill all the fun in life. I'm simply saying you can
have more health if you consciously choose healthy
behaviors more often. Don't let your unhealthy habits
be in automatic control of your life.
As Professor Norman Cousins wrote, a man who
overcame great health problems, "Don't defy the
diagnosis; try to defy the verdict. "When you've
got some health problems, don't deny their existence.
Don't waste your time pretending they're not there.
Spend your time making healthier choices instead.
One of the best choices you can make is the food you
take. EAT SMART. Research has proven that good
foods add to your health, and bad foods sicken or
fatten you.
I won't tell you what foods to eat. You already
know more about the foods you should and should not
eat than you are probably following. I'm just writing
to encourage you to eat smart.
Two of the benefits you'll get are proper weight and
longer life. The research is very clear. Every bit
of excess weight shortens your life.
Perhaps you need to lose weight. I know that's not
easy. I've found that the older you get, the tougher
it is to lose weight, because by then your body and
your fat are really good friends. And nothing in the
world arouses more false hopes than the first few
hours of a diet.
Some people think diets have to be absolutely awful
to work. In other words, if it tastes good, spit it
out.
No! A diet can be very simple. As one of my audience
members said, she just used one simple exercise for
reducing weight. She just moves her head slowly from
side to side when asked if she wants a second helping.
Finally to improve stress management, GET MORE EXERCISE. That will always improve
your health. But it will also raise your spirits.
I've asked hundreds of people in my audiences across
the country, "Have you ever felt down, discouraged,
blue, or depressed after exercising?" Many felt that
way before they exercised, but no one ever felt that
way afterwards.
And getting exercise is easier than you think. Joey
Adams says, "Today's fashion has made everybody
interested in physical fitness. All that stretching,
reaching, pulling, bending -- and that's just
getting into the jeans. "
The famous author, Jonathan Swift, said, "Every man
desires to live long; yet no man desires to be old. "
How true! The good news is you can influence,
encourage, and strengthen your health. The question
is, are you doing it? If not, when will you start?
Action on Stress Management:
For one week, make conscious choices. Every time you
are about to eat something or do something, stop to
ask yourself if it will add to or subtract from your
health. Then choose those activities that add to
your health. Over time, the correct choices,
the healthy choices, will become your natural choices.
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