At the centre of the stress complex is the self. Our innate ability to manage the stress created by external stressors is governed by many factors. The neurologist and psychologist Dr Anna Zorabian has identified some of the more important:

• Inherited Tendency: we learn behaviour by watching our parents or carers in public situations. We inherit stress when we behave in the same way as someone we admired or depended on. This is called Modelling.

• Type of Personality: people who have a Type "A" Personality tend to experience high levels of stress. Such people are prone to overachievement, tend to force themselves to work towards unrealistic goals, are consistently competitive, constantly aware of time and prone to rushing, quick to show anger and are cynical. The more laid back Type "B" Personalities on the contrary seem to cope much better with their stressors. Psychologist Suzanne Kobasa studied business executives for 8 years, and identified 3 personality traits in those who stayed healthiest while running their companies:
• challenge: people who take on life as a challenge respond with excitement and energy to change. They welcome new situations as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to develop on a personal level, rather than looking at everything new as a possible threat
• commitment: to something they felt meaningful - work, community, family. People with high commitment experience life as interesting. They are curious about what is happening to them and enthusiastic in their endeavours.
• control: is critical - a strong sense of being able to make decisions that make the difference, that they can make things happen.

• Constant Physical Pain or Discomfort: people experience stress because of inescapable pain or physical discomfort.

• Refusal to Accept own Feelings: we can experience stress if we repress and refuse to acknowledge important feelings such as hurt, anger or sadness.

• Fears and Beliefs: we create stress if we focus on the awful side of life, or if we set ourselves rigid rules which we believe we should live by.

• Dietary Deficiency: certain foods may affect our emotional state significantly. Sugar, caffeine and alcohol are closely associated with stress. A lack of Vitamin B complex (found in whole grains, Brewer’s Yeast, liver and fresh vegetables) greatly contributes to irritability. It’s hard to determine which comes first, the dietary deficiency or the stress, because stress causes the depletion of B complex vitamins, and lack of B complex produces stress.

We can, of course, do nothing to change our genetic make up and upbringing. What we can do is to increase our understanding of how we react to stressors. We can examine our lifestyles and beliefs to see whether we are creating a fertile ground for the stressor to attack and take hold.

The most powerful weapon we all have is the ability to learn and to use skills and techniques which will enable us to strengthen our ability to cope with harmful stressors.

When we consider ourselves and our development as stress managers, we need to examine the three aspects which combine to make us as we are: our bodies, our minds and our spirits. We need to take a careful look at how we operate in each of these aspects of our being to see whether we are working in the best way to limit the harmful effects of stressors.

BODY

We all have basic physical needs. If these are unmet or neglected, our ability to cope with stressors will be severely reduced. It may sound glaringly obvious, but we do need to ensure that we are not creating stress in ourselves by:

1. Incorrect diet - too much, too little, unbalanced ingredients.
2. An inappropriate amount of exercise - too much or too little. It goes almost without saying that a balanced amount of exercise appropriate to your age, build and personal preference is an essential ingredient in any stress reduction programme.
3. Failing to balance work and relaxation. This is important. You can think of your life (excluding sleep time) in four compartments (work, family, community, and self) and then assess what percentage of your time and energy in an average week goes to each part. You may have cause for concern when work is over 60% and/or when self is less than 10%. We all require time to meet our own needs and when that is neglected, trouble usually follows. The word leisure is derived from the Latin word licere which means "permission". The main reason so many people lack leisure time is that they don't give themselves permission to make the time to enjoy it.
4. Abuse of alcohol, drugs including excess of coffee, tea or cola. Most people don’t think of coffee, cola or tea as the source of a powerful drug that actually generates a stress reaction in the body. The best way to observe the effect of caffeine is to get it out of the system long enough to see if there is a difference in how you feel. (3 weeks is adequate) 75% - 80% percent of people notice a benefit. They feel more relaxed, less jittery or nervous, sleep better, have more energy (a paradox, since caffeine is a stimulant), less heartburn and fewer muscle aches. One warning: wean yourself gradually or you will get migraine-type headaches from caffeine withdrawal. Try decreasing by one drink per day until you reach zero, then abstain for three weeks.
5. Denying ourselves sleep or taking refuge in excessive amounts of it. Sleep is important for reducing stress. Chronically stressed people almost all suffer from fatigue, and people who are tired do not cope well with stressful situations. Most people know their usual sleep requirement (from 5 - 10 hours a night; the average being 7 - 8), but a large percentage of the population is chronically sleep deprived. Medical experts estimate that 20% - 40% of adults complain of insomnia. Paradoxically, the most common explanation is poor sleep scheduling. One of the best ways to improve your sleep is to reduce your time in bed. It is common for poor sleepers to extend their time in bed, especially after a restless night, in order to "catch up" on sleep. However, the more time you spend in bed, the more difficulty you will have falling asleep and the lighter and poorer your sleep will be. By reducing that time, you will be drowsier at bedtime, can consolidate and deepen your sleep, and make it easier to fall asleep and sleep more deeply the next night.
6. Denying our bodies a good pampering because we are "too busy". It doesn’t really matter what your personal preference is - soaking in a long bath at home, a visit to the hairdresser, a massage, buying something special to wear. The important thing is to DO IT REGULARLY. Your body deserves it.

MIND

As we have seen, stress is a reaction to a perceived threat: what we tell ourselves about what's happening may be what makes it seem to be a threat. We do this through our belief systems, expectations and mental habits..

Belief systems. Much stress results from our beliefs, the assumptions about things that we hold to be true. Many of our beliefs about how things are, how people should behave, and about ourselves aren’t objective truths, but opinions based on our upbringing. Most of our beliefs are held unconsciously, which is how they can run our lives. The following are examples of some of our common unrealistic beliefs:

1. It is necessary for an adult to be approved of always by all those who matter to him/her.
2. We should always be competent and achieving important things in order to be worthwhile.
3. Our unhappiness is externally caused and we have little or no ability to control our sorrows.
4. If something is or may be dangerous or fearsome, we should be terribly concerned about it and keep dwelling on the possibility of its occurring.
5. It is easier to avoid than to face certain difficult situations in life.
6. We should be dependent on others and need someone stronger on whom to rely.
7. Our past history must always determine our present behaviour. Because something once strongly affected our lives, it should have a similar effect indefinitely.
8. We should become upset over other people’s problems.
9. There is always one right, precise and perfect solution to our problems: nothing else will do.

Uncovering the assumptions behind our actions is a good way to learn why we become stressed or experience conflict.

Unrealistic expectations. We often become upset about something because it doesn’t meet with our expectations. Think of travelling on the underground. If you can’t get a seat (or even on to the train at all) in rush hour, you expect it - you may not like it, but it won’t surprise or upset you unduly. However, if it occurs on a Sunday afternoon, especially if it makes you late or you arrive sweaty and rumpled, you are more likely to be stressed by it. When expectations are realistic, life feels more predictable and more manageable. There is an increased feeling of control because we can plan and prepare physically and psychologically. Often, checking the reality of our expectations, of situations and ourselves will help to avoid stress from our negative experiences.

Mental habits We develop mental habits that increase our vulnerability. Habits are not ingrained personality traits and can be changed. Some favourites (and suggestions as to how we can retrain our minds) are:

Deficiency focusing: dwelling on the negative at the expense of the positive. This causes us to see things going wrong more than things going right. (incidentally, it’s the answer to the questions "Why does the toast always fall butter side down ? and "Why am I always in the slowest moving queue in the supermarket ?" It doesn’t and you’re not - it’s just that you don’t notice so much when things go right.) When deficiency-focusing, we can ask, "What's right?" in the situation, or "How can the obstacles be overcome ?" The goal is not to negate or pass off mistakes but to gain perspectives on them by placing them in the proper context.

Necessitating: translating every request into a demand. When we always think we have to do something rather than that we have a choice in doing it, any failure to live up to demands produces stress. Rather than doing this, we can ask "What can really happen if I don't do this?" or "Is there room for negotiation?"

Low skill recognition: underplaying the role of our abilities in our successes. Everything positive is attributed to something external, like luck or another person. Instead, we can try asking "What did I contribute ?" and "What abilities did I show ?" The goal is not to ignore limitations but to recognise skills and abilities which bolster self-esteem and confidence.

The mind and body are integrated through behaviour. We can manage a significant amount of our stress by paying attention to those habits and tendencies that keep us stress-prone and vulnerable to situations that call out the fight-or flight response.

Reframing is a powerful technique we can use to change the way we look at things in order to feel better about them. We all do this inadvertently at times. For example, many would view a strike by staff at the local football club as a personal disaster, whereas others would realise they were going to save a lot of time and money on Saturday afternoon. The key to reframing is to recognise that there are many ways to reinterpret the same situation, like the old question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" The message of reframing is that there are many ways of seeing the same thing - so you may as well pick the one you like.

The third, and often most neglected part of our self is our spirit. Failure to nourish the spirit causes just as much, if not more, damage than failure to nourish the body. It is arguable that we in the West live in a society which is in many ways spiritually impoverished. While some of us retain cultures which do respect the spiritual side of life, many others have no systematic way of expressing this side of themselves. Indeed, we seem often to have forgotten many of the traditional ways of nourishing the spirit by using chanting, meditation, prayer and contemplation.

Simply taking time out in a favourite place, "doing nothing", watching the clouds move, enjoying the peace of a garden, listening to soothing music can all provide valuable strength to the spirit.

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