If our thoughts at any given moment are pleasant, then we feel good. Therefore, if we train ourselves to control or direct our thoughts, we will also be able to control our mood.

Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life. – Grenville Kleiser

Our thoughts also affect our body’s physiology – it is a bidirectional relationship. In other words, there is a constant interaction between thoughts and chemicals. As much as I may try to change my thoughts, I will never manage to improve my mood if my body does not have the appropriate physiology. How can I feel good if I haven’t eaten and I have a stomach ache or if I haven’t slept and I have a headache? Conversely, even if my chemicals are in excellent condition, I should really learn to control my thoughts.

We all need to feel good, at least for some periods during each day, especially if we are experiencing difficulties and face tough situations. In their attempt to change their mood, people with a poor repertoire of stress management strategies often resort to unhealthy means, such as excessive food intake, alcohol, smoking, or even drugs.

This second section of the book focuses on describing a series of cognitive and behavioural techniques that we can consciously employ to manage our thoughts and our emotions. It aims to help you expand your stress management strategy repertoire and offer techniques to change the way you feel inside when things on the outside go wrong.

Ideally, the most effective way to deal with a stressful situation is to deal with the cause and resolve the problem. Yet, as we noted earlier, we do not always have control over the external parameters upon which an event is dependent. Hence, although sorting out the problem should normally be the first priority, rather than altering external conditions, most cognitive techniques focus on changing one’s emotions by changing the way we think about it.

Thoughts play an extremely important part in our experience of the world. What is going on in our mind can be a creative, constructive, or disastrous force. As we will see, we can choose our thoughts. Choose to think happy thoughts to experience happy moments. Many happy moments make up a happy hour, a happy week, a happy life!

In the words of Aristotle, “happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” More than anything, people seek happiness and, although happiness is the purpose, every other aim only has value because we expect it to make us happy.

The concept of felicity, according to Aristotle, correlates happiness with creativity. Happiness, therefore, is a feeling experienced when a person is developing his/her skills and engaged in meaningful and important activities.

Others consider happiness as the satisfaction that stems from the balance between a person’s needs and their desires.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get. – Bernard Meltzer

Controlling our thoughts, changing our appraisal of situations, and regulating the emotions generated by events are all effective strategies, particularly when we have exhausted all possibilities of resolving the problems ourselves.

Alas, let us take things from the beginning. As you well know, the best approach to disease is not cure but prevention. Before we talk in more detail about responses to stress from the moment an unpleasant event has become a reality, let us invest some time to the “pre-match” or “preparation” period, i.e., the period prior to the manifestation of a problem. To prepare for the sporting demands of the upcoming season, athletes begin training months ahead. How about you?

Chapter 6: Prediction and prevention

If people are constantly falling off a cliff, you could place ambulances under the cliff or build a fence on the top of the cliff. We are placing all too many ambulances under the cliff. – Denis Burkitt

IDEAS TO help us prepare to deal with all types of stressful situations are presented below.

Take good care of yourself

Pay attention to your overall physical and psychological health. As mentioned, individuals who are in good physical condition have better resistance to stress. If you are envisaging an improvement in your ability to manage stress, build your physical condition and your body, so that you can comfortably resist situations of intense emotional gravitas.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. – Samuel Johnson

A well-balanced diet and some form of daily physical activity enhance our ability to resist enduring stress. Pay attention to your diet. At the same time, take up some form of intense physical activity for 30 minutes at least three times a week.

Doctors and psychologists agree that exercise is one of the best antidepressant and anxiolytics. At the same time, exercise boosts our self-confidence, possibly via the following mechanisms: a) increasing our sense of self-control, b) improving our general physical condition, c) hormone secretion (adrenaline, endorphins), which in turn produces an overall feeling of wellbeing, the so-called “runner’s high,” d) increasing body temperature, e) distracting our attention away from problems, and f) assisting social contact.