The Getting Things Done (GTD) Way of Dealing with Stress
There are two simple ways to have a more productive and happier life.
1. Take the controllable stressors out of your life
2. Eat the foods that are right for your body
I said simple–not necessarily easy.
Let’s look at the first one:
I have managed to eliminate or certainly get to manageable levels, the source of most stress for most knowledge workers, which is basically getting everything out of my head and managing externalized systems so that my extended brain is kept pretty intact and current.
David Allen the founder of Getting Things Done (GTD), interview with the Web Daily Worker blog
In this post, David Allen offers his personal stress reducers, which I highly recommend. Also, check out his GTD system to manage your information overload.
As for Number 2, eating right, Allen mentions Eat Right for Your Type, a diet/nutritional book that teaches how to choose food based on your blood type. As strange as this might seem, it works. I have tweaked my diet to fit my blood type for 10 years. From the start, I had more energy. After what I experienced for myself, I have recommended this approach to over a hundred clients. Those who adopted it saw improvements in allergies and their energy levels.
So it’s really very simple: reduce your stress by keeping your body happy, and your mind clear. With the tools listed above, that’s as simple as it sounds.
Is Stress Real, Is Fibromyalgia Real?
These are two questions that are often asked by those experiencing the effects of either. We live in a culture that likes to label every thing. Medicine can’t treat a problem unless it is a diagnosable disease. If it not a disease, it is not real.
Accused of being a quack, the physician Hans Steles who put stress on the map had to move to
Fibromyalgia, suffering the same plight is now being honored with its first drug. Pfizer in a new television ad touts the value of its drug Lyrica for fibromyalgia. I am glad that the suffers of this often misunderstood condition are getting recognized. So often, I have seen people who are told that either they are imagining their symptoms, they are depressed (inferring crazy) or to just get over it.
The cause of fibromyalgia
The downside of this drug release is it further diverts the focus from the real cause – stress and toxicity. Just like with Prozac and depression we will likely see the abatement of symptoms for some, no effects for others and an adverse reaction by others from this drug.
Many have cured themselves of both depression and its sibling, fibromyalgia through releasing their chronic stress and learning not to recreate it. There are few problems with this approach. First, it requires personal responsibility and commitment. Often it requires stepping beyond the traditional models and their treatment regimes. At some point as the stress starts to leave a person’s body the emotions that were associated with its imprinting are felt.
When these emotions first occurred, usually in childhood, we did not have the permission or the tools to express them, so we stuffed them. These emotions became stress, which became tension, which wears us out frequently causing depression, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. As we begin to accept the stress so we can release it, we are accepting the former unacceptable emotions. This is not easy – but it is required if we are to get well.
Original fibromyalgia doc is cynical
In 30 years, I have never seen anyone truly get well from these conditions without dealing with their stress and emotions. The drugs maybe great at suppressing some of the symptoms; no drug removes the cause – stress. “Dr. Frederick Wolfe, the director of the National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases and the lead author of the 1990 paper that first defined the diagnostic guidelines for fibromyalgia, says he has become cynical and discouraged about the diagnosis. He now considers the condition a physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety.” – as quoted from the New York Times.
The New York Times article finishes with – “Still, Dr. Wolfe expects the drugs will be widely used. The companies, he said, are ‘going to make a fortune.’” Let’s hope all this attention validates the pain many suff and supports them in healing the cause of the pain.