They say that you are what you eat, and your diet can have a major bearing on your psychological as well as your physical health. Some stress triggers are beyond our control and we have to find ways to deal with them. There are others that we can influence to make things easier on ourselves. Your diet is one thing you can control. So, is the food you eat helping to reduce your stress, or is it working against you?

Good for Stress

• Oily fish
• Skinless chicken
• Low-fat dairy products
• Unrefined wholefoods – wholemeal bread, pasta, rice, oats
• Fruit

Bad for Stress

• Red meat
• Processed foods
• Sugary foods
• Junk food
• Alcohol
• Caffeine

These lists probably look familiar. When it comes to many aspects of health, the same foods keep cropping up as the good or bad guys.

The Bullet Points

Oily fish, such as Tuna, Herring, Sardines and mackerel contain Omega-3, which has a positive impact on the nervous system. This gives rise to the idea that eating fish makes you more intelligent. Helps to prevent against a range of other conditions. Chicken, without the skin which contains the fat, is preferable to red meat but be careful of the source. Some supermarket chicken is water and chemicals and virtually no nutritional value. I personally couldn’t have a diet without red meat but keep it lean and avoid sausages and burgers.

After several years of skimmed milk,(less than 0.1% fat), normal milk or cream actually feel oily on my palate. And I never thought I would say it, but I am starting to prefer no or low meat versions of some traditional dishes such as chili. Looking back, meals with high meat content did tend to make me feel sluggish and less ready to cope with things. There are an amazing variety of fruits available these days and everybody should be able to find something they like.

The bad list speaks for itself. I enjoy my wine and beer too much to cut it out completely but I do feel better drinking moderately. When I have a drink I savour it rather than letting it be a habit. As for caffeine, you can buy decaffinated coffee that tastes good! Honestly! And we all know that ready meals and take aways are full of sugar, salt and chemicals to preserve them and make them taste of anything. They might give you a quick high but how do you feel later?

Do you really want to go from one instant buzz to the next when you could feel good all of the time. It doesn’t take a drastic change to your diet to get it working for you instead of against you. And the more you use food to reduce your stress, the better you tend to like it. You could soon be finding that the healthier options are seeming more attractive than the junk.

The EFT World Summit is a Free online event put together by the producers of the hit documentary film, ‘Try it on Everything’. If you haven’t seen it yet, you kind find out more about it here. In short, the film shows the experiences of 10 people who used EFT,(Emotional Freedom Techniques), on a variety of physical and psychological problems. Stress, anxiety, depression, emotional trauma, physical pain. As the name suggests, you can try it on everything.

The technique is based on Thought Field Therapy, which was discovered in 1980 and involves tapping some of the meridian points from Chinese acupuncture. What EFT has done is to remove some of the complicated diagnostic procedures and simplified the sequence of tapping. This has made it accessible for everyone to use very simply and reap the benefits from. You can see the results people were able to obtain by watching Try it on Everything.

The EFT World summit takes things a little further. It is an event that takes place over 9 days, beginning on Monday 20th April. 18 experts will give presentations on how these techniques can benefit you in many areas of your life, including some quite surprising ones. Registration is FREE and even better, you don’t even have to go anywhere. You can attend the summit online and enjoy the benefits right from your own home.

Register FREE Now

In this article, we will review a few tips on helping a person fall asleep. How long does it take for a person to fall asleep?It depends on a number of factors, including what the person ate before they went to bed, how tired the person is, and numerous other factors.If you have sleep problems, it may take what seems like hours to fall asleep. Here are some more; insomnia tips, insomnia information and insomnia articles.

Insomnia means you are finding it very difficult to fall asleep.It also can mean that staying asleep is difficult. Most people who suffer insomnia say that they remember tossing and turning all night long, or remember being awake at night. Nights when I suffer insomnia I just can’t seem to turn my mind off, and often I can’t even close my eyes. Usually it takes me about a half hour to fall asleep, but my son is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Watching TV helps me fall asleep — I have it on a timer that shuts it off after 30 minutes.I also require total darkness, and my bedroom needs to be ice cold – even in summer. Admittedly, this does not help save energy!

There are natural or behavioral treatments for insomnia. One effective relaxation technique is to tense different muscle groups and then relax them. Another method involves repeating a set of visualizations to produce a state of relaxation. My favorite visualization is simple — lying in the sun on a beach in the Bahamas.

Another helpful method is to limit the time spent in the bedroom for non-sleep activities, thereby associating the bedroom with only sleeping.So take your office, computer, and television out of the bedroom. Also avoid large meals just before bed, and reduce the use of stimulants, such as caffeine; this can help reduce insomnia. One might also try soaking in a hot bath to relax or listening to some soft music before going to bed.

Melatonin aids people in falling asleep. It is especially helpful for people who suffer from insomnia caused by jet lag or shift work. Melatonin occurs naturally in the body when serotonin is exposed to a lowered quantity of light.

Other common over-the-counter (OTC) sleep aids such as Sominex or Nytol can also be tried by adults but, again, a person should discuss with their doctor before taking any of these sleep aids especially if you suffers from or are being treated for depression, or other mental health problems as well as Parkinson’s disease. But it is also buying into the mindset of turning to a pill to solve a problem, which can stimulate problems in other areas of a person’s life.

It is advised that if you have trouble falling asleep and have tried all the natural tips in this article, then perhaps you need to see a sleep management specialist. So many people have sleep challenges, there is now a sub-specialty in medicine for such problems. Inomnia might be a symptom of another medical problem, so it is best to get a consultation with your doctor and discuss your sleeping problems with him.

But even with all the tips on falling asleep, it is still different with each person on how to fall asleep. It is important that you do, because proper rest is crucial in dealing with life’s other stresses.

We’ve all heard that old saying, ‘Out of sight is out of mind’. But when it comes to stress relief, that is definitely not true. You may have pushed whatever is triggering your stress out of your conscious mind, but it is still there in the background, eating away at you.

It is tempting to push it out of your awareness and hope it will go away, but that rarely happens. I know from my own experience that get we sometimes get stressed about things that are much less important than we imagine. But usually, there is a cause that needs to be dealt with.

A scenario

Imagine that debt is the issue. Your credit card bills arrive and you push them unopened into a drawer. You don’t even want to know the magnitude of the debt. You are able to put them out of your mind but the problem is still there, and growing. Interest is piling up and failure to make payments is damaging your credit rating.

Deep down, you are aware of this. It is like a computer program that is minimized on the task bar. You can’t see it but it is using some of your resources and impacting your ability to deal with other stuff in your life. It is taking space in your memory and damaging your capacity to make decisions.

Free your mind

Where there is a very real issue to be dealt with, you should do it and do it early. The reality is rarely as bad as you imagine it will be. Even if it is, it won’t be improved by delaying. While you are not taking action, you are suffering unecessarily.

Take out those bills and open them. Add up the outstanding amoounts and write it down. Once it is on paper, you don’t need to clutter your mind with it. You can start to think and take practical steps. Approach your creditors and explain your difficulties. They aren’t ogres, they are business people.

Working it out

It is in their interest to help you to resolve the situation so that they can recover the debt. Chances are that you will be able to agree a repayment plan that you can afford. Once you can see the debt reducing, even by a little, you feel that you have some kind of control again. It is almost like a physical weight being lifted off you.

Whatever your particular stress factor, it may be beneficial to write about it. Not for anyone else to see, just for you. When you bring it into the cold light of day, it might not seem so scary. Once it is on paper it is a case of ‘in sight and out of mind‘. This may sound weird but it works, I’ve tried it.

If you do, I don’t blame you. I know how that feels. It is only natural that if you have a loved one who is in need of care, that you want to be there for them. If things need to be done that they can no longer manage for themselves, you can’t say no, can you? Tasks around the house that they used to do, still need to be done and somebody has to take up the slack.

If they need to get to somewhere and they can’t drive anymore, you can’t leave them stranded. And how will they cope when they get there. They will need help to get around and take care of business. So there is no option but to fit in with their timetable. If there isn’t enough time to do everything, you will just have to let go of some of your trivial activities, right. Wrong!

The carer needs care too

You feel a duty to look after the person you love. But part of that duty is to maintain your own health and remain capable of doing what is needed. I learned this lesson in a dramatic fashion. When the effects of MS started to impact my wifes abilty to take care of the house, I tried to do as much as I could to help. I went the route of giving up outside interests, to the point where I felt that I had nothing left for myself.

I felt ground down by responsibilities. I was doing everything because I had to and nothing because I wanted to. After a year of being stressed beyond my ability to cope, I fell into depression. At that point, I had become an extra burden for my wife rather than a help. It was a lesson for both of us and one that I took to heart.

Not a luxury but an essential

One of the good things that came out of that period was that I took up Tai Chi. It is a great stress reliever in itself, it takes me out of the house and I get to meet new people . The night of my class is sacrosanct. It takes something extremely important to stop me from going. And do I feel guilty? Not a bit. I know that it is contributing to my physical as well as mental health and that could be very important in the future. I am not getting any younger and I need to stay active.

I was advised very early on, that when you are looking after someone else, it is doubly important to look after yourself. But I still had to learn the hard way. You absolutely must have some activities that you do purely for your own pleasure. It doesn’t matter how trivial they might seem to you one else. You not only need to, you deserve to. Don’t underestimate the benefits of me time.

One way to cope is to plan strategies to prevent or avoid those things that have caused stress in the past. Avoiding stress may include having the ability to say "no" to personal and professional added responsibilities over an above what is normally expected of us, and by avoiding those individuals who tend to stress us out and by taking control of the environment in which we live, work and if applicable go to school. We can avoid reading the newspapers or turn off the news on the TV if hearing about terrible news stresses u. In relationships we can avoid those topics that usually start arguments. We can also rearrange daily tasks or delegate responsibilities so that our “to-do list” doesn’t stress us out.

Incorporate fun and relaxation into your daily routine, practice saying “no” so that you don’t over-commit yourself of your time or abilities, of the tasks that you do accept make sure that you prioritize the tasks that you do accept, when possible break down these tasks into smaller projects and then reward yourself for completing each smaller segment and lastly, learn how to delegate responsibility and supervise so that you are not stressing over whether or not it was done right.

You can also learn how to accept things that you cannot change by trying not to control those things that are not in your control. You can find the positive in all things if you look for it. Share your feelings with others. Practice the art of forgiveness. Anger and resentment will only harden you and create negative energy that binds you to stress.