New rules, goals can help you cut your stress

Knight Ridder News Service

Is your life becoming unmanageable — with problems piling up faster than you can develop an agenda to fix them?

To manage your stress, it's good to vigorously tackle your list of what needs to be done.

However, if you want to survive, you must become an expert at defining new rules to do things your own way.

Create options that get the job done — while saving your overworked nervous system.

For example, one executive told us, "I refuse to worry about problems after 7 o'clock at night."

He adds, "I save 2 to 4 p.m. as my major problem-solving time. If I can't fix something, I leave it alone until the next day, if at all possible."

Writing new rules for yourself on dealing with stressful matters can help you toughen up, stay sane and keep going.

Try these tips

Do one thing every day that frightens you. Acting this way will save your nerves in the long run.

For example, confront someone about an issue that has been bothering you. Or call your CPA for financial counseling.

See your day in time blocks. This keeps you from trying to do everything at once.

Envision how you want your day to go. For example, you might say, "I will be dressed by 6:45 a.m. I will make three calls while driving to work. I will deal with my personal problems on my lunch hour."

Ask for help you normally wouldn't. For instance, a woman we'll call Janet says, "You're often stuck in a problem because you need a person to pull you out."

By thinking of additional people to call upon, you tap into their resources. Stop trying to do everything alone.

"My husband's relatives were coming to our house for the weekend," says a nurse we'll call Patricia. "They wanted to be at our house by 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon."

Patricia panicked. Her house was a wreck.

She finally decided how to take charge of the situation.

"I asked my husband, Jack, to clean up our bedroom and bath on his lunch hour," Patricia says.

She continues, "When Jack's parents arrived, he put their luggage in our bedroom and whisked them off for an early dinner. I called a cleaning service to work magic on the rest of the house from 4 to 6 p.m."

Before, Patricia says, she would have left the hospital and gone crazy trying to clean the house herself. Then, she would have felt resentful of her in-laws for increasing her stress load.

"Creating a new option to get the end result you want means you must tell yourself, 'Hey, stay calm. You can do this,' " she said.

Another woman we'll call Jennifer says, "My grandmother ran a wedding chapel for 10 years.

"That job involved all kinds of unforeseen emergencies and stressful situations. But," she continues, "my grandmother learned to stay calm and enjoy any challenges. Her self-confidence was amazing."

Jennifer goes on to say, "A weird situation arose one night when a folk-music festival was in town.

"Grandma had a wedding scheduled for 8 p.m. The folk music wasn't loud, but how could she silence the music until the couple said their vows? The music was right outside the chapel on the main street."

Jennifer says her grandmother got creative.

"She told the musicians outside her chapel to announce to the crowd at 7:50, 'We need your help for a wedding.' "

Since the vows were exchanged at 8 p.m., the crowd was told to cheer when the wedding bells starting ringing.

"At 8:10, the bells started ringing," Jennifer says, laughing.

"The bride and groom were astounded that the crowd cheered so loudly when they exited the front of the chapel. Grandma worked it out so that everybody was happy." Working around any stubborn problem means you have to envision alternatives way to manage it.

Always tell yourself, "There is more than one way to create a positive outcome."

By figuring new options, strategies, rules and healthy limits to set with others and yourself, you can take some measure of control over any issue that arises.

Judi Light Hopson, registered nurse Emma H. Hopson and Ted Hagen contributed to this report.