Category Archives: Stress

In this section of Personal Development Seattle, I will be addressing stress, touted by the World Health Organization as the biggest killer of the 21st century. Stress can cause heart disease, depression, and even accidents in the workplace. Listening to music, gardening, meditation, and reading are some of the ways in which you can fight stress. Interestingly, no drug is recommended for stress. Stress is considered an emotion, a state of mind, not an illness. The way we react to situations is what causes stress and depression. We subconsciously decide how we want to react to a situation. You must be thinking: “Now who would want to be stressed or depressed?”. But, several years of research shows that we live primarily by reflex and our reactions are all due to subconscious programming. Our reactions seem robotic! When we look around us, we see so many people stuck in jobs they hate, and take their frustrations out on their loved ones. It is important to take control of our emotions and refuse to get stressed. An interesting thought that is floating around is that we let ourselves get stressed because of sheer laziness. Most people are good at making conscious decisions about business deals and such but when it comes to maintaining a calm state of mind, they slip up. Nobody wants to take the time or effort to address the issue that is causing the stress. We would rather indulge in it and allow ourselves to be dragged into depression. When we live normally, we live automatically. That is, we do not think about our reactions and we are never in control of our response. It is only when we are suddenly blown away by a beautiful event like listening to some great music, or watching a sunrise that we are in the right state of mind. Being always in a positive state of mind is also not quite the right state of mind. It is only when you are totally involved in whatever you are doing, that is, living completely in the moment, that we are in the right state of mind. Meditation helps us achieve this. It helps us quieten our thoughts, relax, and discipline our mind. If meditating is difficult, maybe we could do something differently everyday instead of following the same routine day after day. This can also help us concentrate in the moment better. This is sure to break our pre-programmed automatic behaviour patterns. When we learn to focus on what we do, think, and how we react, we reach the perfect state of mind. When people believe that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, they are complacent and believe that medicine can set it right. But, they fail to take one more step to find out what caused the chemical imbalance in the first place. When we decide to find out the reason for this, we take our first positive step to getting rid of depression without medical intervention. People who find it difficult to cope with strenuous situations are the ones who usually end up depressed. The key to treating depression naturally is to find out why we are unable to cope. For example, losing a job could be stressing us out as we are not really qualified to find another similar job. So, equipping ourselves with the proper skills and training could end up removing that fear and make us confident enough to look for another job. Drugs given for depression tend to make you believe that situations are out of your control and that your reaction is purely due to some inherent defect in your genes. The key to overcoming depression is to be very clear about what you want from life and prepare yourself to handle all eventualities. This will keep you from caving in to depression when sudden change happens. The feeling of being totally lost and abandoned with no hope in sight is quite common in those who are ill-prepared for life. This causes stress and the resultant depression. When we are children, we are taught different subjects in school but we are never taught how to handle disappointments, and how to prepare ourselves to accept change. I think if we all start early enough to accept and handle change, depression will not affect as many people. If you are stressed out and depressed, take a moment to think your life through and see where you can make positive changes to your mindset. This exercise should put you back on track faster and surer than any medication.