My Views on STRESS, and its Elimination

STRESS

I start with a Chinese proverb which states: “we are born naked, wet and hungry and then the things get worse”

Nowadays everything we do, everywhere we go, there is certain amount of stress involved. The hectic lifestyle is one of the reasons for that, and add to it, the corporate responsibilities, where teamwork is involved.
Had it been for an individual, it would be so easy to predict, since the entire responsibility is on one person but as in a team environment, different bits add up for a collective success. One bit goes down, the entire system suffers. All this adds up to what our topic is today… “STRESS”.
The hottest term nowadays and related to this we hear another term “Stress Management”. Personally I believe its in-appropriate to use this term.

Stress is nothing but a waste product of our lifestyle. But the question is, do we “Manage” waste? Or “Eliminate” it.
A simple example would be the trash that we have at our homes. do we manage it? Like putting it under the sofa, or behind the door? No!! We throw it out , get rid of it, eliminate it.
And today I am going to express my views about Stress Elimination.

Unfortunately there is no pill available to eliminate stress, some people believe that getting high n drugs or alcohol, they get rid of stress. What they do not know is that they are only adding on to the stress that they have. Just like an Ostrich who hides its head in the sand and believe that no one can see it.

Stress is not an entity but a phenomenon, an ongoing process, which cannot be stopped. And the only way to get rid of it is to face it.
A problem can be defined as a situation which we don’t know how to handle. The moment we know how to handle it, we no more have a problem. I know its easier said than done, but hey! How many of us knew how to walk and talk when we were born?
Like any other art, we need to learn to eliminate stress. Although its not possible to deduce a single method for it, there is a general approach to this.
The only time to face stress is when we are highly relaxed (de-stressed).
People nowadays are opting for different method of unstressing like Yoga, Meditation, Laughter therapy; Group sessions where we discuss our personal problems and let go our inhibitions and try to be what and who we are. This is similar to the sessions like they have at rehab- centres, the only difference is that people at the rehab-centres are addicted to drugs etc. who don’t know how to handle the urge, and here we have people who don’t know how to handle stress, or extremely stressful situations. There is a very famous ‘verse’ from “Bhagwad Geeta”: “Karmanye-va–dhikaraste, Ma-faleshu–kadachanah”, which means, “Keep doing your work with full heart and don’t worry about the result”.
When looking at this verse from a different perspective it indirectly means that If you do something whole –heartedly and with dedication , you don’t have to worry about the results, because it will always be successful.
Just like if you add 2 and 3 properly you will always get 5, and no matter how many times you add 2 and 2.99 you will never get 5, you may be extremely close to it but never upto the mark.
This clearly means that unless we do something with complete dedication and clarity, we will always have doubts about success, which inadvertently leads to low levels of stress, which in due course of time accumulates to form a high level of stress altogether.

For information on Meditation, Yoga and other techniques please don’t hesitate to contact me at: onlyritam@gmail.com