Below is a list of things you can do to get your stress to a functional level.

1. Acknowledge some stress is good – An appropriate burst of energy will enhance your performance at the right moment. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.
2. Avoid people who cause stress – Learn to identify stress in other people’s behavior.  Just because they are stressed doesn’t mean that you have to be.  Limit your contact with them.
3. Learn from people who have it figured out – Look at people manage their stress well and do what they do.  Look for people who stay calm in crazy times.  What do they do that’s different?  Don’t just figure it out on your own.  Ask them.
4. Breathe – Your body gives a relaxation response when you use deep breathing.  Breathe in slowly (on a five count).  Hold for a five count.  Breathe out on a five count.  Repeat this pattern until you feel your heart rate slowing and you feel yourself getting “normal”.
5. Stop negative thought patterns – Stress often happens because our minds create a worrisome situation for some time out in the future that our body responds to with a fear reaction.  It funny, but usually the very thing we worry about is the thing that does not happen.  Observe your thoughts.  Stop them when you start to create negative images.
6. Know what sets you off – What makes you explode?  What’s the trigger?  Where’s your hot button?  Knowing what causes you to stress is powerful information because you can take action against it and make it less powerful.
7. Take care of yourself PROACTIVELY – Get the proper amount of rest.  Eat well.  Take some exercise.  If you take care of yourself, your body will be able to defend you from stress even before you know it exists.  If you don’t take care of your body, you’re actually adding more stress into the system.

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Okay, sarcasm aside, it only makes sense that with regular exercise you’ll experience that your quality of sleep is improved and that the transition between the cycles and phases of sleep become smoother and more regular. There’s also a separate benefit of exercise in that if you keep up your physical activity during the day, stress and worries may be easier to deal with.  They won’t loom so large, and so sleep is easier.

Research and studies indicate that there is a direct correlation between how much we exercise and how we feel after.  During exercise, the body releases endorphins (nature’s “feel good” chemical) and your spirits brighten.  So, if you increase your physical activity during the day,

1. You’ll feel good from the endorphins, and
2. You’ll burn off energy so that you aren’t buzzing with energy at night as you sleep.

You already know that your body requires a certain amount of physical activity in order to keep functioning in a healthy manner. (How many years have people been telling you this?) But the thing is that the timing of exercise is important, too.  You do not want to be exercising in the three or four hours before you go to bed.   It just messes with you.  The ideal exercise time is in the late afternoon or early evening. You want to make sure you expend your physical energy long before it is time for your body to rest and ready itself for sleep.

It’s very beneficial to exercise three or four times per week for a period of 30 minutes or so.  I would recommend setting a goal of 6 times per week every week. That way, even if you miss on or two, you’re still exercising four or five times, right? Stick with me here.  Let’s say you set a goal of exercising only once or twice a week and then something comes up (and it always does) to prevent one of your workouts.  With your goal set so low, you’ve lost 50 to 100% of your planned workouts. On the other hand, if you shoot for 6 workouts a week and you miss one, you’ve lost out on only 16%.

Exercise can be something simple — like energetic walking. If you prefer, you can include strenuous activities such as running as well.  Just do it.  The goal here is to increase your heart rate and strengthen the capacity of your lungs. In doing so, you will improve your overall health and help yourself emotionally as well.

Along with running and walking there are several other physical activities that you can add to your daily life to increase your level of physical activity. If you are battling insomnia, you’ll find aerobic exercise to be the best.

Your goal with exercise is to increase the amount of oxygen that reaches your blood stream. Overall, there are many types of aerobic exercise for you to choose from. The activities include running, biking, using a treadmill, dancing, and jumping rope.

There are some non-aerobic exercises that you may find beneficial to help you solve your insomnia.

Yoga
Yoga is a system of exercise that stimulates your nervous system, especially the brain. In yoga, breathing techniques and yoga postures increase the blood circulation to the brain, which in turn promote regular and restful sleeping patterns. The regular practice of yoga relieves tension and stress.

Tai Chi
Tai Chi is another ancient art of breathing and movement that was developed by the Chinese monks. The movements are slow, precise, and deliberate, which is ideal if you have joint pains or you are unable to participate in high aerobic exercises. Research has shown that Tai Chi help with insomnia by promoting relaxation.

Let’s say you don’t have any time to exercise on a regular basis, then play some games on yourself.  For example:

1. Sneak tiny moments of activity into your schedule. Whenever possible, you should take the stairs instead of the elevator, and you’ll find that little things like that will do wonders for your body.
2. You should also park your car around the corner and walk that extra block or two to get to your destination.

Get creative.  Heck, take the long way to the bathroom at the office.  Every bit helps.

The numerous small things can add up to increase the activity in your life. Your overall goal here is to have a healthy and well balanced life – with plenty of sleep.

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You have to have carbohydrates in your diet in order to maintain the stamina to work out. Carbohydrates are an essential source of energy and without them your body can achieve exhaustion more quickly than you think and that can induce severe body strain.  This class of injury has been occurring much more often in recent years. A proper diet for an athlete involves consuming quite a few carbohydrates.

To be sure, the amount of carbohydrates that are required to be consumed by athletes is much higher than the amount required for people who are couch potatoes.  And most certainly, the harder and longer the athlete works, the higher the necessary carb intake. To determine the exact amount of carbohydrate consumption that you should personally aim for it is important to talk to your sports medicine doctor.

Increased consumption of carbohydrates is encouraged during competition and most particularly if the athlete is cross-training or competing in more than one sport at a time.  This is to ensure that the body has enough energy to handle the rigors that you are placing upon it during especially strenuous activities.   And predictably, there are other times when your doctor may recommend cutting back on carbohydrate intake.  Your medical and/or nutritional specialist should be consulted if there is a question of getting the proper nutrients.

Fad diets appear in the markets almost weekly, and although the temptation may be strong to follow one of the new “sure fire” diets, it is especially important to consult your doctor and listen to what he or she has to say about your particular nutritional requirements.  An athlete is recommended to store as much as 15 grams per kilogram (2.2 pound) of body weight in the form of carbohydrates.  For an average 180-pound athlete this translates into as much as 1227 grams of carbohydrates.

So how do carbs relate to calories? Use the following conversion. One gram of carbs is about four calories of energy.  So, for our example of the 180-pound athlete, the 1227 grams of carbohydrates they should consume would be about 4909 calories.  While this may be an enormous number for most people, there are some athletes for whom this is a minimum.  Ultimately, it is up to you working with your doctor to determine the best level for your individual needs.

Remember, cutting back on carbs can be quite damaging to the body. If you are not consuming enough of them, the body will starts breaking up proteins for energy. This fine example of biochemical adaptability can be dangerous in the long run because protein is designed to help fuel your muscles and provide the muscle mass for the body, rather than simply providing energy for the body. The end result for many who are not consuming enough carbohydrates is an overall weakened condition and less energy to actively engage in the sport of their choice.

Remember to give important consideration to who is giving you the advice on your dietary needs.  Coaches are not always “in the know” on the most up to date nutrition information. So be careful about taking a coach’s word about how much you should be consuming each day in calories and carbohydrates. To achieve the best results possible consult with your coach, your doctor, and nutritionist to work out the best possible diet that has both your fitness goals, athletic goals and your health goals in mind.

Maintaining your personal health as the top priority is vital to ensuring you are healthy enough to compete. Remember, as you change your level of activity – particularly as you cross over into competitive athletics — imperative to adjust your carbohydrate consumption.  If you do it with a doctor’s supervision you can ensure that you are in a position to maintain your overall health.  Your physical safety is a bigger obligation that requires more consideration than simply reducing your carbohydrate intake.

To promote fitness and healthy eating, you have to make sure that stress isn’t an issue for you.  Go here to eliminate stress starting today.

To those who like the theory but lack the ability, fair enough.  It’s kind of like telling a Little League batter to face off against a Major League fast-baller by saying, “It’s easy.  Just keep your eye on the ball and let the ball hit the bat.”  If you’ve never done it, it’s hard.  But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  After all, if you’re reading this, you’ve learned English, one of the most difficult languages on Earth.  You learned it, and you don’t even know exactly how you learned it.  Fortunately in the realm of human performance, the word “Impossible” rarely means impossible.  More often it only means, “I don’t know how to do it yet.”

To those who think that it’s completely and utterly absurd, I invite you to look a bit deeper into the part of you that says that.  Is it coming from a place of cynicism?  Is it from your own thoughts or is this something that you were taught? Tony Robbins says that cynicism is a gutless response.  It takes no guts to be a cynic.  All you have to do is sit there and wait to be proven wrong.  It’s a completely passive response.

But let’s look a my suggestion logically.  You need money. There are only so many hours in a day, and even if you worked all 24 of them, you’d only make so much money.  You can do the arithmetic yourself to calculate how long it will take to get you the money that you think you need.  However, if you invested in yourself and learned exactly how to leverage the power of the Internet, you could create a little (or big) marketing machine with minimal effort.

It comes down to this, your financial growth will necessarily come down to your personal growth.  Your personal growth comes from your mindset.  If your mindset limits you, it’s time to grow.

Making changes list this in times of stress can be a daunting task.  Go here to remove stress from the equation.

You can click here for a quick head start on how to begin to build your Internet opportunities.

As I’ve said in other posts, you have to know, really know, how much trouble you’re in.  (Look at this post to review.) What is your level of debt? What does your cashflow look like? Then you have to figure out what to do.

Most people think that their only asset is their time.  That is, they think only in terms of trading hours for dollars.  But you know something? There are only 168 hours available to you in any week.  That’s all.  So no matter how many of those hours you are willing to work, there’s an upper limit on the amount of money you can bring in.  Do you make minimum wage?  Do you make $20 per hour? $50?  $1000? $10,000?  The upper limit is easily calculable.  Therefore, the rate at which you can get out of the hole is equally easy to calculate.  (By the way, you can’t work 168 hours per week.  The absolute most you can do realistically is somewhere around 80.  And that leaves time for precious little else.)

So what do you do?  The solution is nearer than you might think, but it will take some serious rethinking!

My mother told me when I was a kid that the essence of success was to “work smarter not harder”.  It took me decades to really understand — and more importantly, to put into practice — what she was talking about.  The trick is to leverage yourself.  Imagine this: if you could be in two places at the same time, you could earn twice as much money as you do now.  What if you could be in four or eight or 100 places at the same time?  You could earn four or eight or 100 times what you’re earning now.

“How do I do that?” I hear you ask.  The answer is that you clone your expertise.  You leverage yourself and your knowledge.  Take a skill that you have and teach it to someone else and get them to pay you for it.  Over and over and over again.

Over the coming days, I’ll be posting several entries on getting going in the world of selling your skills on the internet.

Day-to-day financial stress can get you down.  Go here for a way to short-circuit stress.