Buddhist and modern perspective of stress

Buddhist perspective - stressful life

Four noble truth

I. Life is suffering
II. Suffering has a cause, the cause can be known
III. Suffering can be brought to an end
IV. The path to end suffering has eight parts
    1. right understanding
    2. right mindfulness which together are wisdom
    3. right speech
    4. right action
    5. right living which together are morality
    6. right effort
    7. right attentiveness
    8. right concentration which together are concentration
Stress coping - modern perspective
I. Stress is inevitable
II. Stress has a cause, the cause can be known
III. We can prevent, control and cope up with stress
IV. The way to cope up with stress
   1. knowledge –Wisdom, Self – awareness- know about one’s strength and weakness,                Knowledge about one’s own stress and coping  
   2. skills
           i. Critical thinking – clear thinking (minimum error and bias)
           ii. Problem solving & decision making
           iii. Communication – right speech
          iv. Interpersonal  
           v. Self – regulation
  3. objectives – values, plan, goal, purpose and meaning of your life
  4. practice – right living, practicing meditation, relaxation, exercise and diet etc
  5. social support – interdependence, giving receiving help
   we are going to learn these five areas one by one in the following posts.
   

Be proactive: Increase your personal resource

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." - James Allen

To become a survival of the fittest, we need to develop the following five skills. Lack of these skills may create stress.
1. Critical thinking skill
 Most of our day to day thinking is far from logical; we quite often jump to conclusions based on irrational ideas. Believes and attitudes shapes our perception, which will affect how we approach and cope with our life events. Critical thinking skills help us to reduce the errors in our thinking.
2. Problem solving & decision making skill
 Ineffective problem solving and hasty decision making are more likely leads to emotional distress and stressful consequences. Systematic approach to complex problems will help us to improve our quality of life.
3. Communication skill
 Most of our communication are partial we are poor listener. Appropriate communication prevents us from much stress. For example aggressive people dominate others; non assertive people avoid the issue.
4. Interpersonal skill
  Family and friends are important in helping us to cope with stress. Developing and maintaining satisfying relationship may be necessary during a period of stressful life situation.
5. Self-regulation
 We need to regulate our thinking, feeling and acting so that they are most appropriate to the situation which prevent from stress.

These five skills are complementary to each other and are essential for us to become preventive and proactive to our stressful life events.
 

know more about your stress

" half of the problems in life are because, we act without thinking and the rest half is because we keep thinking without acting"

Ask 4 questions

1. When? 
Source: Thinking makes it so
Life events: How you take it, 
Something happens to you and you think it is,
• Unwanted
• Undesirable
• Unacceptable
• Unpredictable
• Uncontrollable
• Unexpected
• Uncertain
2. How?  
Distress: how do you feel? 
Your thinking generate feelings
Primary emotions
• Anger
• Fear
• Worry
Secondary emotions
• Guilt
• Shame
• Envy etc..
3. Why?
Cause: what you make it 
Our personal resources is very important to handle our thinking and feelings
What is lacking in you? Each one is important to handle life events
1. Knowledge
2. Skills
3. Objectives- purpose, meaning
4. Practice
5. Social support 

4. What?
 Effects: what happen to you if you do not handle properly of your life events?
  It will affect the three important domains,
• Personal – how you feel about yourself in other words how you relate with yourself, your confidence, motivation, self esteem etc..
• Inter personal – how you relate with others, withdraw, aggressive, abusive etc..
• Work/ task – how you relate meaningfully with your task  
Ask four questions
1. What you think when you upset of something?
2. How you feel when you think like that?
3. What you can do to reduce distress?
4. If not what will happen to you?