The Stress Owner's Manual: Meaning, Balance & Health in Your Life

by Ed Boenisch and C. Michele Haney

Stress is inevitable in our rocket-paced age. But you have more control over it than you may realize. The key is to keep your balance. Recognize that how you view stressful life situations is at least as important as what may be causing the stress itself. This second edition of the practical, verbal and graphic guide to personal stress management offers specific solutions: maps, checklists and rating scales to help you assess the areas of stress in...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1886230544
• ISBN13: 9781886230545
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Impact
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Extend your stress warranty for life!

Most of us are so used to thinking of stress as something to be reduced or relieved if not eliminated from our lives that the idea of owning and maintaining it properly seems absurd. But this is a book based on the realistic premise that stress comes with the territory of being human and isn't necessarily bad for you. The kind that sharpens your ability to think fast and perform well has obvious benefits. The kind that leaves you feeling frustrated, disappointed, and worn down can damage your health. Boenisch and Haney's unique manual is a guide to fine-tuning the fight-or-flight response to stress we're all hard-wired for by making smart choices about what we perceive, think, and believe about daily situations. This sensible, encouraging book divides common pressures into target sections: people, money, work, leisure, mind, and body. Using maps, checklists, and quick guides for assessing your personal stress scores, you can troubleshoot your vulnerable spots and begin applying effective fixes. These include short-term stress buffers like developing hobbies, getting organized, taking mental time outs, scheduling leisure, and eating better. How easy is that? You don't even need a metric wrench! The object is to recognize your physical and psychological symptoms of stress and make conscious choices about controlling their impact on your long-range health and well-being. This compact workbook offers loads of opportunities for productive self-revelation so you can do just that. The authors' suggestions for ongoing attitude improvement and active stress meltdown prevention are simple to apply, personalized, and offer a handy set of tools to keep your life humming smoothly.

This Thing Called Stress

Stress is unavoidable if we are alive. Some stress is harmful, and some stress is beneficial. The most important aspect of stress is the way we deal with it. Currently most of us Americans are finding ourselves dealing with all the stress we think we can handle. THE STRESS OWNER'S MANUAL, MEANING, BALANCE & HEALTH IN YOUR LIFE, is a book I worked through a year ago. Lately, I have been giving it a prominent place at my bedside, and I find many of the wise words in the book helpful. For example,here are some ways listed to deal with stress. "Do unto others.... Smile. Develop hobbies or interests. Rebuild after.... Allow yourself to grieve. Cut back television. Be assertive. Make chores more fun. Enjoy meals. Hold family councils. Nurture a friendship." The list goes on. The book presents a well-organized method through instructions and tools for analyzing and repairing stress. It is a practical action book which allows the reader to become involved. As the author of a novel, Solomon's Porch, which tells about one family's methods of coping with stress, I found THE STRESS OWNER'S MANUAL to be a therapeutic, comprehensive guide to solving many of the stressful aspects of existence I have addressed in fiction.