Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A Little Something Different

Hello guys. Sorry for the long absence. I know my blog is hardly read or if seen at all but I feel it's been a part of my life. It's an avenue by which I write about pertinent things, values, character, and almost anything important to our lives and health. I haven't really opened this blog for quite some time due to sickness but I feel I owe posting to it. If you've been doing something for quite some time it becomes part of you regardless of what you originally intended to do with it.

Ok, here's something different. I love cars. I think there's a certain romance and poetry in one's love affair with his or her set of wheels. I love cars with character, which means I love old cars. and I love them with a passion. My dream car? Well, it's hard to say because I have lots of dream cars ranging from a 5 window '32 Ford hot rod with a 429 shotgun or a 392 Hemi stuffed between the framerails, to the infamous 911 Carrera RSR and even the car with the most venomous bite, the Cobra 427 SC. But alas, as luck would have it, I am stuck with my ancient '93 Dakota with the magnum v8, and my "project car" for 20 years, my little Porsche 924. I love that car because it's light, nimble, and if set up right can run the slalom with respectable time.

As with many things I have passion doing, my little garage is, on some days, my mecca, tinkering away, disassembling this and that knowing full well I probably may not put it back together the way it was ever again. My point in all this, you ask? a lot of us immerse ourselves with work that when asked what our interests are we unroll the long list of " Well, I'd like to ....if I only have enough time." When we are passionate about something we immerse ourselves in our labors of love and this is one way to fight STRESS, by DIVERSION. Of course a lot of us may have different interests but it really doesn't matter. What matters is we nurture our creativity and at the same time we can share something unique that speaks volumes about ourselves.

I mean wouldn't you feel better if by chance you were in a car show and ran into someone who not only loves cars but is an anime fan like yourself? Wow! Take care guys, it's good to be back, typing away. Until my next post.

P.S.- I write poetry in my other blog.(",)

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Stress and You

Stress is part of everyday living. We encounter stress at home, in the workplace, and even within ourselves. Coping with stress is often difficult because it is done so on a continual basis. In fact, it becomes a ritual. How we deal with stress affects the way we perform, the way we connect with people, and the way we think and feel about ourselves. So you see, stress is no laughing matter.

We register, interpret, and respond to our environments via our neural and hormonal pathways. A key role of our stress hormones is to prepare us for "fight or flight" responses; we either remove ourselves from a stimuli which can potentially harm us or deal with it. Either way our body is subjected to changes which prepares it for one or the other. A point to remember with stress is that it is often blown out of proportion. We allow ourselves to be stressed out. Stress, you see, is a risk factor for heart disease, ulcers, aging, and some degenerative diseases. We often complain about being stressed out at work or at home but we really don't have a full grasp of how it does us damage.

So the main question we have to continually ask ourselves is WHY. Why are we stressed out at even the most miniscule of worries? To understand the question in a different light we have to think in terms of cause-and-effect. When we allow ourselves to worry tirelessly we increase the level of oxidative damage to our cells and this in turn causes premature aging. Another way of looking at it is that people with type A personalities ( the "I want to be in control type") are prone to stress ulcers. The answer to the WHY is simply CONTROL. We are anxious when we don't get our lives and things "figured out". We are afraid of what we don't know, what we don't expect, and we are afraid to take risks.

How then do we manage the everyday stressors we encounter daily? We simply cannot ignore them or even pretend that they never happen. One way is to put a lesser emphasis on their perceived value and outcome. What I am trying to say here is worry less. Another way is to do stress relieving exercises like slow deep breaths or condition your mind to think of another matter altogether. Regardless which practice works for you the emphasis here is to divert yourself from being stressed out. There are a lot of things we can worry about but there are ONLY A HANDFUL of things we can have control over and the power to change. Anything that we have no power over is not worth the effort of worrying. Remember this, positive thoughts breed positive outcomes and positive outcomes create positive flows in your life.

A final word on managing stress is it's a form of lifestyle change. We have to change certain aspects of our lives and what I mean by this is dealing with stress is of a lesser impact compared to avoiding it altogether. Prevention is still key, even when regarding stress. So there you have it folks. Don't sweat the small stuff, because in the greater scheme of things it's actually all small stuff. Take care guys, thanks for dropping in. Until the next post, JowelMD signing out.