Strictly-Stress

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Business of Parenting - Part 3

So now, we go farther with laying out the project. We are still just at the beginning stages, but it’s time to get just a little more detailed.

The question to ask, at this point, is "What exactly does empowered and well- balanced look like as far as children are concerned?"

Does it mean your future adult is polite and respectful? What about self-sufficient and independent? Or does it mean the child is all of these plus a whole bunch of other personality traits and characteristics.

I think, it’s relatively easy to raise a child to have a small handful of positive traits, but not quite so easy to pull off a fully, well-rounded future adult. A child who is polite, respectful and obedient is raised one way, but a child who is polite, respectful and obedient, as well as self-sufficient, independent and empowered, must be raised in quite a different way.

People who say my children are well-behaved, often think I must be very strict and that is how I get my children to behave in this way. However, this is not the case. My children do not behave in this way because they are scared of me. Rather, my children choose to behave this way, because they are empowered and they realize that it’s the best way to get what they want out of life. My children do not see the point in acting in ways that will sabotage their life goals. Of course, they have their bad days, but don't we all; however, overall, they have been given tools that allow them to be empowered most of the time.

If you want real empowerment for your children too, then you have to break out the really big "child development" guns, and the best resource I have ever found to make this happen is Dr. Peter Bensen and the Search Institute. Dr. Peter Benson has a list, a seemingly simple list, of 40 items that he calls Developmental Assets and this list forms the foundation of my parenting technique.

Given that my specialty is stress management, I choose to call Dr. Bensen's developmental assets by another name. I choose to call the 40 items on the list stress management assets and problem-solving tools.

You can see Dr. Bensen’s site by going to

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Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Business of Parenting - Part 2

So, now it’s time to decide how far you’re going to go with the design or redesign of your future adults. You don’t have to make all the decisions right away, but you do have to start to get a handle on what you would like to see happen. So far, you have decided that something needs to happen with regards to planning or modifying the behavior component or the attitude component of your child and you’ve decided that this project is important enough that you are going to get fully behind it and commit as many resources as you have available to you.

Of course, if there are two project managers on this project -- two parents, that is -- by now, you have also secured the commitment of the other project manager. I can’t think of very many projects out there, that were finished easily or on budget, if there were two owners and both didn’t want to see the project completed successfully.

For example, if you are designing a new computer software program and one project manager organizes getting a whole bunch of programming completed and then the other comes along and deletes all the files, just think how far you would NOT get fast.

Parenting is like that. Both project managers have to be fully on board at all times and working as a high-functioning team. Like any major project, the stakes are too high to allow destructive actions from one or more team members.

Even if you are operating solo, unless the other project manager is deceased, both project managers have to decide jointly to get behind the project to produce a well-balanced, well-behaved adult. The behavior and attitude components in unfinished adults tend to be highly sensitive and once damaged, they are not easily repaired and can malfunction repeatedly for years to come. It is by far the best idea to do everything possible to avoid damage in the first place. If you have one project manager constantly sabotaging the other’s efforts, this project will fall flat on its face fast.

In business, we call this industrial espionage and in parenting, it’s called psychological warfare. Just ask any unfinished adult (child) how he or she feels about living in a war zone between two project managers who have decided not to work together as a team.

If you are currently, a project manager and you have been using these types of tactics, then knock it off immediately. Become organized now and join the project team in a constructive manner or I can assure you that you will more than fail your 20 year performance review.

Eventually, the unfinished adult becomes the owner of the project and when that happens, they tend to be far less forgiving than when they were still in process.

Friday, November 12, 2010

The Business of Parenting - Part 1

Sometimes good stress management is just a matter of changing how you think about life. As a businessperson and trained project manager, I often think of life in terms of projects that have a beginning and an end. For that reason, I am going to use project management and business language to explain the stress involved with parenting.

People often say to me, your kids are so well-behaved - how did you ever get such good kids. Well, believe me, when I say, it’s no happy accident that I have well-behaved kids. I put in a lot of time and effort to making this a reality and I use an approach called empowerment. This means that I go out of my way to teach my kids how to think for themselves and make good decisions; I set boundaries and offer love and support and all that good stuff, but the three biggest things I do to produce such well-behaved kids is that I control what crosses their lips, I control what they see and hear in the media and I control their schedule. None of this is rocket science, but it is also not for the weak-hearted. As I said before, my parenting accomplishments are no accident. It may sound strange, but I have carefully planned how I will raise my children and you can too.

The first step to solving any problem is to decide how serious you are about fixing the problem. If you aren’t going to get serious, then don’t even bother getting started. Parenting is not like a New Year's Resolution. You can't just forget about it once you are bored or at the first sign of trouble.

If you are going to be a parent, then it’s going to take hard work and a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Don’t try to fool yourself or anyone else into believing that you will be successful if you're always too tired or too busy or too anything else. In the business world, any business that wants to solve a big problem, like building a bridge or filming a movie or designing a new computer program has to get behind that project with all of the company’s resources. Parenting is no different. If you truly want to turn your kids into well-behaved, empowered and healthy and well-balanced, then you have to get behind the project and commit all the resources you have available. It will require change and often it’s big change. Are you prepared to make these big changes or are you just planning to PLAY at fixing the problem? If you aren’t planning to fix the problem for real, then you will probably do more harm than good.

Over the years, I have witnessed parent after parent whine about their kids’ behavior. They blame it on the system and they blame it on this label or that label, but the truth is that kids haven’t changed much in the last 100 years, except that maybe they have access to way more information. What has changed is what we feed them that messes up their body chemistry, what we let them see and hear, which messes up their mental health and what we let them do which messes up their future.

I am not talking about going back to the days of Little House on the Prairie, but I am talking about big changes.

So, to sum up, the first step in solving any wellness challenge is to get serious. I call it developing a Wellness Charter. You have to commit to solving the problem or you have to charter the project. To charter something means to give it the go ahead. There is no project in history that has been completed successfully without the company first fully chartering the project. Solving your parenting wellness challenge will be no exception to the rule.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Panic Attacks -- Anxiety Disorders Eclipsing Country as Millions Victimized by Panic Attacks.

Panic attacks and general anxiety are sweeping across North America at alarming rates. The whole situation is quite distressing to read about. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over 18% of American adults, have anxiety disorder and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry [Vol 60, No.7, July 1999], reports health costs for anxiety exceed 42 billion dollars annually.

In doing a little research into companies that could help, I found BMD Publishing and its tested and proven Panic Away Program to help panic sufferers achieve immediate anxiety relief. (Go to End Panic Forever.)

Mr. Barry McDonagh, former panic attack sufferer, and founder of Panic Away says, "People are often afraid that their anxious feelings indicate mental illness; however, this is a myth." Mr. McDonagh emphasizes the root cause of panic and anxiety is behavioral and not about mental illness at all. By addressing the behaviour problem, 42,656 grateful users have successfully stopped panic attacks.

BMD’s Panic Away addresses the real issue behind panic attacks. “A person's initial panic attack can be so impacting that it leaves a strong imprint on the psyche", says Mr McDonagh. He adds, "This mental imprint generates a cycle or loop of anxiety whereby the person develops an unhealthy fear of having another panic attack and people can spend anywhere from months to years caught in this repetitive cycle of anxiety." The fear can then expand considerably and manifest as physical symptoms such as minor illnesses, pain and even serious disease.

Panic Away’s One Move Technique gives people the immediate ability to stop fearing another panic attack. It is very simple, yet amazingly effective. BMD stresses, “There is absolutely no need for an anxiety sufferer to regress into the past to discover the cause of the initial panic attack. All that is needed is a willingness to break out of the anxiety cycle right now."

It was very interesting to read about a solution that was not drug based. The Panic Away solution matches directly with the teachings of Dr. Norm Shealy, the stress management and pain management pioneer, who reports, "It is the interaction of the four main fields of stress; the chemical, physical, electromagnetic, and emotional; that is the cause of all illness...not some, all." Given how broad and complex, is the problem of disease, it makes sense that drugs alone could never do the job.

Alison Petrie, great-grandmother and 57-year anxiety sufferer says, “Thanks to Panic Away, at the age of 62, I am starting a life I dreamed of living for over 50 years.” Ms. Petrie is one of hundreds of people with good things to say about the Panic Away Program.

To find out more about Panic Away and the One Move Technique, please visit "End Panic Forever".

For additional information about other stress management solutions, please visit Strictly Stress Management.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Stress Video: The Science of Stress!

Learn about two stress hormones: Adrenaline and Cortisol.

100 ways to keep up on your exercise routine.

This stress video from National Geographic will share with you a scientific overview of the body's stress response system involving the stress hormones known as adrenaline and cortisol.

Understanding the link between cortisol and stress is a particularly compelling subject in the study of the science of stress because there can be some fairly major consequences, physically, if this stress hormone is not managed correctly.

When the body is exposed to a stressful experience (mental or physical), it begins to release the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, allowing you to deal with the situation.

Adrenaline helps improve our speed and force, making us more capable of reacting/responding to the stressor, and cortisol provides the energy burst needed to support that extra speed and force.

The video explains that when the stress is physical, the cortisol burst is used up as the body burns energy, but when the stress is mental, the body cannot eliminate the hormone as easily.

Left unchecked over a long period of time, a buildup of cortisol can deplete bone density and cause other chronic diseases.

The basic message of this presentation is that, if you are going to live a life filled with mental stress challenges, then you must have a healthy and rigorous exercise routine in order to eliminate all the cortisol produced in your body.

100 ways to keep up on your exercise routine.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

More Miracles Of Cocoa - 'vitamin' Health Benefits Could Outshine Penicillin

Buy Healthy Chocolate Now!

It's a modern medicinal miracle. Health food advocates haven't been this excited since Psyllium took the nation by storm. Cocoa is for real and it apparently does everything.

A short while ago, it was said to make us smarter and before then it could improve blood flow and maybe deter cancer. Even the news that most of these studies are funded by chocolate maker Mars, Inc. didn't break into the national news.

According to the latest rave study, the benefits of epicatechin are one more reason to be in love with cocoa.

The health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so striking that it may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health, reports Marina Murphy in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told C&I that epicatechin is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.

Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people in Panama. He found that the risk of 4 of the 5 most common killer diseases: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes, is reduced to less then 10% in the Kuna. They can drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Natural cocoa has high levels of epicatechin.

'If these observations predict the future, then we can say without blushing that they are among the most important observations in the history of medicine,' Hollenberg says. ‘We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of 4 of the 5 most common diseases in the western world, how important does that make epicatechin?... I would say very important’

Nutrition expert Daniel Fabricant says that Hollenberg’s results, although observational, are so impressive that they may even warrant a rethink of how vitamins are defined. Epicatechin does not currently meet the criteria. Vitamins are defined as essential to the normal functioning, metabolism, regulation and growth of cells and deficiency is usually linked to disease. At the moment, the science does not support epicatechin having an essential role. But, Fabricant, who is vice president scientific affairs at the Natural Products Association, says: 'the link between high epicatechin consumption and a decreased risk of killer disease is so striking, it should be investigated further. It may be that these diseases are the result of epicatechin deficiency,' he says.

Currently, there are only 13 essential vitamins. An increase in the number of vitamins would provide significant opportunity for nutritional companies to expand their range of products. Flavanols like epicatechin are removed for commercial cocoas because they tend to have a bitter taste. So there is huge scope for nutritional companies to develop epicatechin supplements or capsules

Epicatechin is also found in teas, wine, chocolate and some fruit and vegetables.

http://www.science20.com/news/more_miracles_of_cocoa_vitamin_health_benefits_could_outshine_penicillin
Source: Society of Chemical Industry.
By News Staff
March 11th 2007

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Time for an Attitude Adjustment!

We are all leaders in our own lives. We have to be because no one else is going to do it for us. Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth says, “Leaders are at their best when operating from their strengths and core values.”

However, most of us don’t think of ourselves as leaders. Many of us just think we are like a small cog in a large wheel, doing what we can to get by. Many of us don’t really believe that what we do, say and feel has much impact on the world or even the people in our immediate surroundings — our community.

A great example is the environment. For decades, people have believed that their individual actions don’t matter, but now we see that the collective actions of billions of "individuals" have destroyed this planet and we are now working feverishly to repair the damage.

The truth is that we do matter as individuals, but there is more than one way that individuality can be understood. One way is through a sense of entitlement. A few years ago, Dr. Jean Twenge wrote a book called, ”Generation ME”, which discussed the idea that the post baby boom generation in North America, called Generation X, felt entitled to receiving things not earned.

Dr. Twenge explained that Gen-Xers walked around with their hands out. In this first book, the dynamic was limited to Generation X, but in her latest book, ”The Narcissism Epidemic”, she reports that this dynamic has taken over in all age groups, including seniors and children. I am sure most would agree that extreme narcissism is not a good plan for any society.

A second and perhaps better way to “DO” individuality is what Michael Gerber, author of “The E-Myth”, calls, “Putting your life first.” He does not mean entitlement. He does not believe that life owes anybody anything, not earned. He does believe, however, that people compromise their dreams far too often. I agree with him and I believe that we pay a high price; in terms of wellness, for compromising our dreams.

We all compromise all the time and we have been doing this since birth. In fact, as we grow older, we become masters of compromising. Dr. Gabor Maté, author of “When the Body Says NO, The Costs of Hidden Stress”, says that as babies, before our brains are fully developed, we are forced to constantly compromise our needs as our parents try to function in this high-stress world. Dr. Maté believes that all this compromising leads to repressed emotion and repressed emotion leads to chronic degenerative disease later in life. As I said, we pay a very high price.

Many other doctors, such as Dr. Ray Strand, Dr. Bruce Lipton, and Dr. Kenneth Cooper, all support the notion that extreme emotional stress is a major component of chronic degenerative disease. The reality is that we have confused our need for individuality by taking the destructive narcissism and entitlement path too far, and completely overlooking our own core strengths, values and dreams. It seems that the further we put our hands out, the lower on our own priority lists we fall.

The result has been epidemic levels of chronic degenerative disease across North America. The Centers for Disease Control in the US and Canada now believe that 75% of us suffer from one chronic degenerative disease and 50% of us suffer from two or more chronic degenerative diseases. I don't know about you, but, I think it's time for an attitude adjustment.