Where Do You Get All That Energy: 12 Ways to Control Stress and Energize Your Life

As I continue this blog on Wednesday Wellness, I am going to share with you my 12 Ways to Control Stress and Energize your Life. Almost every day someone says to me, “Oh, Cathy, where do you get all that energy? We’d like to have just a bit of that energy!” So, I figured that so many people ask that they really must want to know.

While flying home from a lecture, I realized that numerous people had asked me that question at the end of a high-energy eight hour lecture. So, I thought to myself, “What do I do to get and maintain the kind of energy that I have day in and day out?”

These are the 12 things that I wrote down on that flight home.

Follow these practical, doable things and you, too, can have energy both at the beginning of your day and at the end of your day. I don’t have anything that you do not have—but I do work at being healthy and I do nurture my energy. I want to have energy and be able to maximize every day of my life.

I know all about stress. I helped my husband through dental school while I was still in college myself and working two jobs, then started a career as a teacher. I was with him as we started his practice and worked with him to build it from nothing to a healthy, excellent and life-fulfilling practice. I worked as his clinical assistant in his early years (I was all he could afford to tell you the truth!) so I know what it’s like to actually be in the mouth, to be chairside with a patient as they express apprehension or a lack of understanding regarding the benefits of the treatment being recommended, or to see someone walking out the door not accepting treatment when you know they could be healthier, more beautiful, or both if they would say yes to the treatment.

I have seen the difficulty that occurs when team members don’t get along well—or if a member of the team doesn’t fulfill their responsibilities to the frustration of the other team members. Conflict among team members is a major cause of stress for the owner of a business and for all team members.

I have also experienced financial stress that goes along with running a business. Financial stress is a major cause of conflict of families. Stress is real—and can become distress if not controlled.

First of all, let me say that stress is not a bad thing. Stress, in fact, is good. Stress is exhilarating. It releases the endorphins and adrenaline into your body that get you up in the morning, give you the energy to strive to do better and to be on your cutting edge.

Stress is good unless it begins to debilitate you. When stress begins to cause physiological or psychological problems for you, it is then termed “distress.”

Distress is accountable in 80 percent of all of the illnesses being treated in America today. (The same is true in most other countries.)

Fifty percent of the people that are hospitalized at this moment are in a hospital for something that could have been prevented, and yet only five percent of American healthcare dollars are being spent on prevention.

Billions of dollars are lost in businesses today from people who are suffering from the uncontrolled stress.

So, while you cannot and do not want to eliminate stress, controlling stress is a part of wellness. It is a part of a healthy, productive life.

Over the upcoming weeks, I’m going to go through twelve steps of the “Twelve Steps to Controlling Stress and Energizing Your Life.”

I believe in preventive management: both in business and in life. Join me.