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Day 37 - Beck Diet Solution, Reduce Stress


Improve the quality of your life by reducing stress.  If you try to live with unreasonable levels of stress for too long, things will come to a breaking point eventually and something will have to give.  We may be strong but we are only human.  If you reduce the stress now, chances are also lower you’ll try to take temporary refuge from that stress later on by eating to oblivion.

Now that we’re 37 days into the BDS training, we have more techniques at our disposal to confront stress:

1.    Solve the problem (either in whole or in part) using the Seven Question Technique discussed earlier.
2.    Relax.  Do yoga, meditate, take a hot bath, etc.
3.    Change your mindset.

What about your mindset might be causing you stress?  You might have rigid, unreasonable rules which often have the words “should” or absolutes like “always” or “never” in them:

“I should always do my best.”
“I should always prevent problems from happening.”
“I shouldn’t rely on others.”
“I shouldn’t let people down.”
“I shouldn’t make others unhappy.”

What do these self-imposed rules do?  They create stress by imposing unrealistic standards that are impossible to meet, they put precedence on the needs of others over your own, and they set you up for failure.  Try changing the rules thusly:

“I should try to do a reasonable job most of the time.”
“I should try to take reasonable precautions.”
“I should rely on others when it is reasonable to do so.”
“I should try to be a nice person if I reasonably can be.”

And just as you should remove these rigid, unreasonable rules you impose on yourself, remove them from your expectations of other people as well:

·       You don’t have much control, if any, over other people.  Try to change your own thinking and behavior instead of other peoples.’
·       Do you know someone who has a really great approach in their expectations of other people?  Try to model them.
·       Take the words “should,” “never” out of your expectations and change “should” or “shouldn’t” to “It’s reasonable to expect that..”
o   “It’s realistic to expect that other people will make mistakes.”
o   “It’s realistic to expect that people won’t know what I want or need unless I tell them.”
o   “It’s realistic to expect that not everyone will be as appreciative as I’d like them to be.”

When you have more realistic expectations for both yourself and other people, sticking to your weight loss plan and life in general will be easier.
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