Researchers are now suggesting that 25 to 35 percent of the people are addicted to stress. Addicted? YES, addicted!

There are two primary ways (outside of recreational chemicals) that people become addicted to stress. Do YOU fall into one of these two categories? There are now a few research studies suggesting that this percentage is as high as 50 percent.

FIRST: A couple of propositions so we are on the same page.

(1) That which causes stress is not the same for everybody. What causes stress for some is like an ice cream sundae for others.

(2) Increased stress can be an assist in output or efficiency … up to a point.

(3) No single idea or program of stress management can be effective.

(4) Stress is impossible to define. In that, it is similar to happiness.

(5) Here's a stab at a definition. Stress is what you experience when you feel you cannot control or cope with a situation.

(6) Being that the essential causes of stress are worry and anxiety, it is worthwhile to note worry and anxiety are concerns about the past and the future. While calm, harmony and peace are now.

STRESS ADDICTION #1 -- Reread item 6 above. Our life is full of "shoulda's", "around-to-it's", "later's and tomorrow's" which in turn create energy wasted on future and on past. Being stress-less is always in the now.

How much of your waking hours do you spend thinking (worrying) about finances, job security, not enough time, clothes that don't fit, pressures at work, illness, family and relationships? Dear reader, that is a lot of your life. 

Working feverishly with little breaks can become addictive The busier we are the more important we become to ourselves. Workaholism has become an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Workaholism is an inability to control or regulate both work habits and overindulgence in work. More is NEVER enough.

Worry and anxiety about all one's desires is both a past and a future mind wasting time. That worry about the future also sucks the energy you could be contributing to – now accomplishments. This is stress with a capital "S".

There is a dramatic difference between workaholism and being fully engaged. The workaholic is pressing and pressured for more … not better. One who is Fully Engaged draws on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Subtract any one of these four and your capacity to fully ignite your passion, dedication, desire and attention is greatly diminished.

STRESS ADDICTION #2 -- Is a bit more complex. Our brain is a product of evolution. Part of our evolutionary, original brains are still called Reptilian and Mammalian brains. For simplicity sake we can refer to the rest as the Thinking Brain. (that is a gross misnomer) Actually our modern brain should be called the thought producing brain. You know all those random thoughts that swirl around in your head? They are hardly thinking. Those are haphazard thoughts that may or may not be related to anything at hand. AND often lead one astray.

As a culture we have confused "thoughts" in a mad scramble running around in our head with thinking. "What if's", "maybe's" along with excuses and denials are erroneously considered as thinking. If the brain is stirring we have this strange and misguided notion that we are accomplishing something. Add to that TV, Cell Phones, Blackberry's, Blueberries and Text Messaging and we have virtually lost the ability to think.

Those "monkey's rampaging inside your head" are actually being sought as a substitute for thinking. We have become a culture of keeping busy. We are now so busy we no longer have time to just sit, watch birds or quietly listen to music. We have become addicted to noise in our heads.

WE ARE ADDICTED TO THE TWO PRIMARY CAUSES OF STRESS

Our desires for what we do not have are taking up much of the energy we would otherwise have to direct into enjoying what we do have.   Put more energy into taming your mind and you will THINK MORE CLEARLY as well as LET GO OF STRESS.

David

*** To subscribe to David's monthly newsletter email  david@secretsofintent.com and make your subject line say  “subscription to Magical Deer” ***