Manage Stress By Changing Your Attitude

To manage stress effectively, the easiest and the most fruitful method is to
change our attitudes towards the particular stress inducing situation. In a
similar situation one person becomes anxious and stressful whereas the other
may remain calm and cheerful. This difference is just due to their
difference in attitudes towards the event. Your attitudes are the higher ups
in your mental life. They are the habits that sit in the driver's seat. When
you can control them, you are in control of your own life, you remain
untouched by situations and nothing can hurt you. Thus every effort to make
our attitudes positive, benefits us to live without stress and tension.

Spirituality and meditation is extremely beneficial for developing such an
attitude. e.g. when faced with a situation involving a negative behavior of
someone in his/her life, a spiritually inclined person, whose attitude has
changed, would think; "I am just an actor in the world drama. I must try to
play the role given to me in the best possible manner. I should not become
anxious, depressed or worried about the activities of others because they
are also playing their roles in the huge world drama. I remain detached and
peaceful because I am just an observer of various scenes of the drama. My
original nature is peaceful. I am a peaceful soul. I am a child of the ocean
of peace -- the Supreme Being, and so my words and actions should reflect
that nature of peace." The spiritual knowledge also helps me to see the
hidden benefits in every situation however stressful it may seem externally.

Rather than relying on drugs or alcohol or smoking or other techniques, a
better way to handle stress is to change your attitude, which determines
whether we perceive any life experience as pleasant or unpleasant.