The end of September is a beautiful time, but it’s also a time when we might not be feeling as good as we’d like. More often than not, we write this off to stress, which can show up in a lot of different ways. If you’re under stress, you may feel:

• Annoyed
• Irritated
• Exhausted
• Sad
• Stuck
• Or just out of balance

All too often, our reaction to stress is to bring in our rational, logical thinking parts to help us find out what isn’t working. Of course those parts are only trying to help, but now is not the time to focus on what’s not working. Instead, I’d like to help you first ask those parts to step back, and then find ways to focus on changing something.

Most of us already know that certain lifestyle behaviors can go a long way towards reducing our stress. Unfortunately, we also know that change isn’t easy! Even though you’ve heard more than once that deep breathing, meditation, better sleep hygiene, exercise, and building and maintaining healthy and helpful social connection will help in the long run, it’s hard to make them a habit. So how can we help these behaviors move from pipe dreams to reality? We need the 7 magic P’s!

When you’re stressed, you can Google ways to feel better, read the articles, and absorb the information, but that doesn’t mean you know how to apply those techniques to your life. Say you want to hang up a new set of curtains: you may have the rod, the holders, and the screws, but without a screwdriver, those curtains aren’t ever going up! Think of the “P’s” as tools that will help you hold your chosen stress buster in place.

So join me on the Therapy Spot this week, and let’s make our stress-busting behaviors a habit.

Image Credit

“6/52³: Estrés / Stress” by Flickr user Andrés Nieto Porras is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.