High on Stress: A Woman's Guide to Optimising Stress in Her Life

Stress is a major health problem for women. Recent studies suggest that simply reducing stress is overly limiting, and that some forms of stress can benefit us. By turning negative stress into a positive force, stress can actually be a beneficial experience. This self-help guide provides exercises especially written for women to evaluate stress and to boost its potentially positive impact on their mental and physical well-being.

Author's summary - Book women call, "Invaluable! Enjoyable!"
I'd like you potential readers out there to know a bit more about my book so you can make an informed choice about how you're spending your time and money. As women, we have enough to do without getting stuck reading a book we find irrelevant, unhelpful, or not even interesting! I hope that by briefly discussing the three central issues in this book, I could make your job a bit easier. First issue - I believe, and in all probability a number of you agree, that the last thing we need is another generic stress management book. I decided to risk the chance when, through extensive work with both men and women in stress management therapy & seminars, together with research I conducted and reviewed, it was clear that there are real differences between the stress experiences of men and women. Women can and do perceive, experience, create and respond to stress differently than men. The research to date has focused largely on men and so I also wrote this book in the hopes of redressing this situation and providing information, guidance and support to women today who occupy so many different roles (often with conflicting demands) and often strive to do so much so "well" (i.e., perfectly). More often than not, this takes the form of our working to satisfy others' needs and desires rather than our own! You will learn much about the why's and how's of women & their experiences with stress in today's society, as well as developing an understanding of your particular strengths and weaknesses in many of the areas involved in the stress process. This will prep you for Part II which contains a thorough presentation of mindbody techniques to help you reduce the negative stress and INCREASE the positive stress (prostress) in your life. Recent research and work support this, the second major point of this book, that there are two different types of stress. We all tend to think of stress as solely negative. However, work in the stress field increasingly suggests that prostress improves your me! ntal and physical health (for ex., by boosting immune system functioning). Prostress includes situations you perceive as challenging rather than threatening. You believe you can have some control over the situation, have some relevant skills or strengths, look forward to the opportunity to try and perceive that involvement can lead to pleasure and growth. This can involve activities from learning a hobby and playing a sport to doing a presentation at work or getting together with friends. "High on Stress" discusses why it's essential for our emotional and physical well-being to have enough prostress in our lives to balance out the negative stress (distress). Those of you experiencing a lot of negative stress at present or in the recent past will benefit more the more prostress you include in your life. The third major issue covers the fact that the stress process is a mindbody phenomenon. Both your mind (in the form of thoughts, beliefs, memories, personality characteristics (i.e., optimism, low self-esteem, etc.) and body (degree of health based on your lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, drugs, physical tendencies to respond) are directly involved in how you perceive, create or react to stress (prostress vs. distress). Likewise, mindbody must be used to reduce your negative stress and increase your prostress. Proven techniques that I and others have used in the field are presented in Part II. You will learn the physical techniques, such as progressive relaxation, breathing, meditation, and so on, as well as mental techniques, such as monitoring negative beliefs and self-statements and learning to transform them to more realistic, positive self-talk, building self-esteem, assertiveness and communication training, diet (i.e., improving nutrition and addressing eating disorders), exercise, reconnecting with one's own real needs and goals and the like. The techniques can be used for both men and women but the examples I use and the problems/challenges I present are really designed for us as wom! en. As you will see, stress is unavoidable, but unhealthy, negative emotional, social and physical consequences are not. Increase your (Pro)stress and increase your fulfillment, satisfaction, autonomy, health and joy!