What Vitamins Should I Take When Under Extreme Stress?

Many stress symptoms can be relieved by proper nutrition and there is no better place to start than to make sure you are getting in enough daily vitamins that can help combat extreme stress levels. Below are some important vitamins and a recommended daily amount that you can take to help ward off stress.

Vitamin A: 15,000 (10,000 for pregnant women) international units daily. This vitamin helps adrenal gland function and promotes healthy growth of epithelial cells, including those lining the blood vessels. Healthy food sources of this vitamin are cod liver oil, liver, beef, oysters, butter, whole milk, and vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, mangoes, spinach, and greens.

Vitamin B-complex: 100 milligrams daily. These vitamins help the nervous system function properly, reduce anxiety and immune system damage, and improve brain function. Also include 50 milligrams daily of pyridoxine (B6), which influences neurotransmitters and helps convert tryptophan to serotonin. You can find this vitamin in food sources such as chicken, fish, pork, eggs, soybeans, brown rice, and oats.

Vitamin C: 3,000 to 10,000 milligrams daily. Vitamin C is an extremely powerful antioxidant that boosts the immune system and is needed to produce connective tissue. This helps maintain the structure of tissues, including blood vessels. Vitamin C reduces some allergic responses and helps offset the depletion of adrenal gland hormones caused by stress. This vitamin is found in citrus fruits and their juices, red bell peppers, black currants, guava, strawberries, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and papaya.

Vitamin E: 400 international units. Vitamin E is the strongest antioxidant and works with Vitamin C and selenium to help strengthen the immune system, fight heart disease, promote healthy nerve function, and minimize the damage to muscles caused by free radicals. This vitamin can be found in food sources such as hazelnut oil, wheat germ oil, almond oil, mayonnaise, sunflower oil, wheat germ, whole-grain cereals, eggs, and fortified cereals.

Calcium: 2,000 milligrams daily. Calcium relaxes muscles, builds bone, reduces intestinal irritation, and lowers blood pressure. Calcium can be found in food sources such as milk and dairy products, kale, turnip greens, canned salmon, sardines with bones, and soybeans.

Magnesium: 1,000 milligrams daily. Magnesium is vital for nerve conditioning, muscle contraction, and transmission of impulses through the nervous system. It works in the production of energy from sugar and reacts with calcium to affect functions such as heartbeat. Low intakes of magnesium are associated with high blood pressure and heart disease. You can find magnesium in such food sources as whole grains, nuts, avocados, beans, and dark green leafy vegetables.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Is Your Comfort Zone Blocking You From Success?

Picture this: You know someone personally who has a thrilling, exotic life. Some friend of yours - maybe your sister, or your spouse - teaches in Japan, or writes in a cabin in the Rockies, or flies to Hamburg to make a deal with Mercedes-Benz. You daydream about how great it must be to live like that, but know it will never happen to you. You’ve stepped back from the exciting opportunities that came your way, because you wanted safety. Whatever courage is required to take risks, you’re pretty sure you don’t have it. You’re hugging the shore, but you can’t take your eyes off the horizon.

A lot of people hug the shore and are perfectly comfortable hugging it - but you are not comfortable. You are full of longing and regret. Deep down, you want adventure. You know perfectly well that you’ve stayed at your job too long. You know you’ve got more of the explorer inside you than you ever use. You know that a different kind of person would have sprung into action, seized the day, moved to new territories long ago, but somewhere you learned to hang on to what you have and not try for more.

So, do you cling to safety or do you have the ripping roar of success inside of you, eagerly welcoming the unknown and willing to risk your comfort zones? By answering the following questions you will learn to determine that answer:

1. Are you always in rehearsal? By that I mean, do you take courses or learn a skill but never really put your learning to any use?

2. When it’s time to take a trip or redesign your bedroom, do you find yourself making endless preparations, constantly hesitating, calling friends to check out their opinions on each action?

3. Do you find yourself fiercely resistant to being pushed or hurried one bit more than suits you? Do you ignore deadlines until they’re dangerously near and become stubborn if someone tries to warn you?

4. Do you hang on to things too long - even bad things, like bad relationships or items of clothing, appliances, memberships that have outworn their usefulness?

5. Do you complain there’s no time to do what you really want - but actually spend a considerable amount of your day watching television or puttering around the house?

6. Do you watch other people’s lives as though they were a spectator sport? People who cling to safety all of their lives are unusually interested in the lives of other people - famous or familiar. This interest may stem from the fact that they feel their own lives aren’t full enough - or maybe they’re watching for tips on how to escape!

7. Do you often think about changing your life, but never get past daydreaming about it?

If you answered yes to three or more of those, you’re a “cling to safety person”, and you’ve got some thinking to do. Safety is riskier than you realize.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Positive Focusing Vs. Positive Thinking

There is a myth that in order to reach our goal we must “think positive” all the time. No, we don’t have to “think positive” all the time. We don’t even have to think positively all the time. To succeed - to fulfill our dream - all we have to do is keep focused on our goal and keep moving toward it.

Let’s say person A, person B and person C all set out for the same goal. They begin at the same place at the same time. Person A is a positive thinker, person B is a positive focuser, person C is both a positive thinker and a positive focuser.

At the “Go,” person A decides to sit down and do a little positive thinking to help prepare for the journey. Person B focuses on the goal and gets moving. Person C gets moving, too.

Person A notices an area of unpositiveness within, and continues to sit, working hard to remove the “darkness” before moving on the journey. Person B does not like the road, does not like the rules, does not like the weather, does not like the planned lunch, etc., but keeps moving toward the goal nonetheless. Person C keeps moving, too, while enjoying the flowers, waving at passersby, singing, and thinking what good exercise all this movement is.

Guess who gets to the goal first? It’s a tie between B and C. Person A hasn’t left the starting place - but is feeling much more positive than before, thank you very much. If person B and person C arrived at the goal at the same time, then what was the point of all that positive focusing? Why bother?

Person C enjoyed the journey, person B did not. That’s the only difference. As long as we stay focused on our goal and continue moving toward it, we can have all the negative thoughts we want.

In terms of goals, what’s the difference? Well, if we were to ask C, “How would you like to go toward another goal?” C might respond, “Sure. That was fun.” Person B, on the other hand, might reply, “I worked hard to get here. I want to rest for a while. Enjoy my victory.”

What’s the point? There are two. First, if your thoughts are not always sweetness and light as you move toward your dream, don’t worry. If you keep moving, you’ll still get to your Dream.

Second, as you move toward your goal, you might like to practice focusing on the positive along the way. You don’t have to “make something up” - you already have; it’s called your Big Goal - your dream! You need only look at what’s in front of you and find something there to appreciate.

Our lives are a combination of good and bad, positive and negative. It’s the best of times and the worst of times, all the time. When we focus on the good that’s already present, we feel better. If not, we don’t. Either way, life goes on. Keeping your mind on the goal and moving toward the goal is the essence of positive focusing.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Using Association To Rid Being Absentminded

You are absentminded when your mind is absent; when you perform actions unconsciously, without thinking. There is a distinct difference between seeing and observing - we see with our eyes, but we observe with our minds. If your mind is “absent” when performing an action, there can be no observation; more important, there can be no original awareness. Absentmindedness is probably the most widespread of minor self-annoyances. Although it plagues most of us, it seems particularly to affect the elderly. The techniques we’ll discuss here have succeeded in eliminating absentmindedness for countless people, including the elderly.

To some people, absentmindedness may seem to be a trivial problem. Perhaps they don’t realize how much time, energy, and aggravation they spend on searching for items they “just put down for a moment,” or on worrying about whether they have turned off the oven, locked the door, unplugged the iron, or on retrieving items they have left in trains, buses, cars, offices, and friends’ homes.

The solution to the problem of absentmindedness is both simple and obvious: All you have to do is to be sure to think of what you’re doing during the moment in which you’re doing it, That’s all, but obviously it’s easier said than done. How can you be sure to force yourself to think of a minor action at the moment you’re doing it?

There’s only one way, and that is by using association. Since association forces Original Awareness - and since being Originally Aware is the same as having something register in your mind in the first place, at the moment it occurs - then forming an instant association must solve the problem of absentmindedness.

Let’s use a quick example: You’re writing at your desk and the phone rings. As you reach for the phone, you place the pencil behind your ear, or in your hair. The phone call is finished - that took only a few minutes - but now you waste time searching for the pencil that’s perched behind your ear. Would you like to avoid that aggravation? Well then, the next time the phone rings and you start to place the pencil behind your ear, make a fast mental picture in your mind. Actually “see” the pencil going into your ear - all the way.

The idea may make you shudder, but when you think of that pencil, you’ll know where it is. That silly association of seeing the pencil go into your ear forced you to think of two things in a fraction of a second: 1) the pencil, and 2) where you were putting it. Problem solved! Solved, that is, if you make an association each time you put down your pencil, wherever you put it. Just make it a habit. Keep the idea in mind the first few times, force yourself to form the associations, and after that it will become habitual.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Why Distraction Causes Memory Problems

As you may know by now, many of us forget things simply because we are unable to actively attend to information when we are getting it. This is true as well for things that we read or see. If we are not focused on something that we are reading or watching, we are not going to sufficiently acquire the information, and will not be able to have it later when we want it.

Distraction is an especially important concern in recalling information that is read or seen. When we are busy, we often try to do many things at once. Reading the newspaper, watching a TV show, or listening to the radio often happens in conjunction with other tasks, such as having a conversation, cooking a meal, or driving to work.

Rarely do we give ourselves the opportunity to focus solely on the material we are reading or seeing. It may be harder for us to divide our attention as we grow older, so that performing multiple tasks may make it harder for us to recall information we are introduced to during those activities.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Time Management Skills: Making a clear vision of your most productive self

Do you want to know how to make the most out of your time? Are you searching for a way to get where you want to be in life faster than the speed you are currently going? The key to succeeding in these areas involves understanding and implementing time management strategies that high achievers use every day of their lives to make more money, increase time spent with family, and achieve all around happiness in life.

Regardless of your daily schedule, whether you work for someone else or yourself, your goal is to compete against yourself to see how much you can get done that contains the most value every day. Think of it as a personal game that you are playing. Each day when you set your personal deadlines and making the most of your schedule, work to race against those set time goals. Work faster, beat the clock, and accomplish your tasks earlier than expected.

Keep the mental vision of yourself as a super product individual in your mind at all times. To help keep this mental picture alive in your head you can use a technique that works for thousands of successful men and women all over the globe. And that technique is to remember a time when you were the most productive in your life. Remember how effective you were at handling those tasks at that time. Consider how efficient you were. You were doing all of the right things and at the right time and at record speed. In addition to accomplishing more, remember how good you felt about yourself and the confidence that properly managing your time did for you.

Now take a look a few years from now and imagine yourself as being the most productive and successful people in your career field. What would your day be like? What would you look like? How much work would you accomplish each day? What hours would you be working? These questions are to be written on paper to help you create a vision for yourself. Doing so and taking a look at your vision every day on paper will do more for your time management needs than anything else.

Once you have created a clear mental picture of the our future self, continue to visualize your ideal self as if you already had the time management traits that you desire to have today. Strive to act as if you had the urgency of the “you-of-tomorrow” in everything that you are working for today. Remember that the person that you see in your vision can and will be the person that exists today, so long as you keep that vision regardless of the circumstances. “So starting today, set the same goals, work with the same vigor, and feel as though you were making the most of your time as you are with your future-self and as you did in the past.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Traditional marriages vs. equal marriages: What is the difference?

There is little doubt that you have heard the term “traditional marriage” usually spoken by your parents or their friends. While a traditional marriage may mean something different to each person, the general sense of the term is when one party usually works to support the family (typically the man) and the other party stays at home, cleans, and takes care of the children (typically the women). But in today’s world we have less of a “traditional” marriage and more of an “equal” marriage.

What is an equal marriage? Equal marriage is not exactly the opposite of traditional marriage, but it is indeed very different. Both partners work outside of the home and expect each other to put in an equal amount of energy when it comes to the house and the children. In equal marriages all of the money is considered to be “our money”. Both partners have the same control over the funds, even if they have separate checking accounts. From one month to another either person may be contributing more than the other in taking care of expenses, but there is no tab being kept and nothing owed from one to another. Who pays more doesn’t make a difference, because the money is entirely “our money”, as stated above.

All decisions on what items to buy, how much is to be spent, and when to purchase them are all mutual decisions, with the husband and wife both holding equal power to make them. Decisions on how much debt to carry is also mutual. Both the husband and wife are free to buy all of the little things they wish, but neither would buy a larger-size item (a larger and more expensive purchase) without discussing it with each other.

Money isn’t the only thing that is considered equal. Household chores and related items are also equal. It can be divided in any way, and how it is divided may be changed over time, but whichever way the split goes, neither partner feels like they are doing more than the other. However, there are often conflicts that do come along, about who is doing more in terms of “quality”.

When it is time for children to come along, neither the husband or the wife automatically gets the role of primary caretaker. Since neither partner’s job is considered more important than the other’s (in most cases) then each of them is expected to change whatever is necessary with their work schedules to contribute the best way possible. However, it is not uncommon for these decisions to be hard to make. Even in a marriage that has their roles well established, it can be hard to determine who is to cut back on what, when it comes to tending to the children.

Popularity: 10% [?]

What Is Stress?

Stress is something that most everybody feels at one point or another in their lives, but yet nobody can quite define it. The first thing you may think of when you hear the word stress is “feeling” overloaded and nervous. But stress also is a force which creates upset stomachs, gnawing fear, migraine headaches, severe grief, excessive drinking, and violent rages. Our memories are dulled by the stress in our lives, our thinking ability diminished, and our efficiency is retarded.

On the other hand, there are some very good positives that stem from the feeling of stress that comes into our life. It motivates us to study, encourages us to keep going when life gets difficult, spurs us to action in the midst of crises, helps us to mature, and at times makes life very exciting.

The word “stress” was actually first used in the world of physics and engineering. It referred to the heavy forces that may be put on a building or a bridge. It is the kind of stress that would contribute to a building or bridge collapsing due to heavy ice formation or the power of extreme winds. In time after, the term “stress” was taken over by medicine, physiology, sociology, economics, and other fields of science, but for most people the world has come to have a distinctly psychological meaning.

Over the years there have been many scholarly attempts to define psychological stress, but the most commonly known and most down-to-earth definition of stress came several years ago from a biologist named Hans Selye who said that “stress is essentially the wear and tear of living. Stress for one person may differ from that experienced by someone else, but every day each of us experiences physical and emotional wear and tear resulting from the pressures of life.

According to Hans Selye, stress is not simply nervous tension, nor is stress a negative feeling that should be avoided, or is something that is always unpleasant. For example, riding a roller coaster is extremely fun in a “stressful” kind of way. All of those exciting feelings you get within your stomach and your mind is due to stress. Playing sports is another fun and healthy way of being involved with an activity and the joy that you feel is the direct result from different forms of stress, which are all pleasant. Have you ever watched an emotional television show or seen a movie that had you on the edge of your seat, in tears, or laughing all of the way to the end? This is all a form of different stresses and they are ones in which we seek out and enjoy.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Two Keys To A More Successful Career

Are you worried that you might not have what it takes to make it on the job in the future? You’re not alone. In a survey of 100 personnel managers by the Cambridge Human Resource Group, a consulting firm, more than 40% said that their firms’ employees worry about what talents and abilities will be expected of them in the future.

Below are two broad themes to remember for improving your odds of on-the-job success:

1. Further your education. Consider these telling statistics: For every dollar earned by a college graduate, the average high school grad makes about 57%. Holders of doctorate and professional degrees take home roughly twice as much as those who have B.A.’s. A fast-tracker’s learning curve shouldn’t end with any particular degree. By building up new skills at work, you stand to enhance both your career and salary.

What abilities are most sought after in corporate America today? Computer know-how, for starters. Workers who use PCs to ply their trade earn roughly 10% to 15% more than those who don’t. Other top talents include technical writing ability and managerial wizardry. Regardless of your line of work, in our global economy foreign languages can give you added leverage. As a banker, think of the edge you’ll have with a fluency in Spanish; if you’re a corporate lawyer, think of the punch you’ll pack with crack Japanese. Luckily there are plenty of places that can help keep your skills competitive. Hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide offer executive education seminars and short courses. For a quick tune-up in a specific area, say, negotiating prowess, don’t forget community colleges and professional associations; many offer a wide range of career classes.

2. Don’t thumb your nose at lateral moves. “Up” would seem the only logical career climber’s destination. As corporations continue to strip away management layers, however, you can count on more job openings to be sideways moves. In fact, over the next decade roughly half of all job moves are expected to be lateral ones, not vertical. Such career zigzags can carry you farther than you might think.

By testing out new opportunities in other departments and divisions at your current employer, you may gain valuable experience, not to mention great networking contacts and a better view of how the overall firm functions. Although your pay and prestige probably won’t spike right away, such experiences can help stem job boredom, broaden your career prospects, and eventually help you to move vertically. So if you’re in a rut and don’t see much chance for a step up at work, ask your boss for a lateral transfer.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Using Association Techniques For Better Memory

All memory, whether trained or untrained, is based on association. But that’s stating it too simply. You will be taught many systems of association by doing your research on memory training, but it goes much deeper than that. You see, when people say, “I forgot,” they didn’t, usually - what really happened was that they didn’t remember in the first place. How can you forget something that you didn’t remember, originally? Turn that around, and you have the solution to remembering - if you do remember something originally, how can you forget it?

One of the fundamentals of a trained memory is what we call Original Awareness. Anything of which you are Originally Aware cannot be forgotten. And, applying a system of association forced Original Awareness - Observation is essential to Original Awareness - anything you wish to remember must first be observed. Using association will take care of that, too.

But how in the world do you associate something that’s intangible or abstract? That question leads to another fundamental of trained memory. It is always easier to remember things that have meaning than it is to remember things that do not. You’ll see that nothing is abstract or intangible so far as the systems are concerned. You will learn how to make any intangible thing, any abstract piece of information, tangible and meaningful in your mind. Once you’ve mastered that simple technique, all remembering and therefore all learning will be easier for you for the rest of your life.

Let’s begin with association. First of all, you should realize that you’ve used association all of your life. The problem is that you have associated subconsciously, without recognizing the association for what it was. Anything you clearly associated, even if subconsciously, is sure to have been easily remembered. But since you have no control over your subconscious, association has been a hit-or-miss kind of thing all your life.

Here’s a basic memory rule: You Can Remember Any New Piece of Information if It Is Associated to Something You Already Know or Remember.

When you took music class in school do you remember the lines on the music staff, the treble clef, E, G, B, D, and F? If your teacher ever told you to think of the sentence “Every Good Boy Does Fine”, then you do remember them. Your teacher was following that basic memory rule, probably without realizing it. He or she was helping you to remember new (and abstract) information, the letters E, G, B, D, and F, by associating them to something you already knew, or at least understood - the simple sentence “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” Obviously, it worked.

Teachers in the early grades have been telling their students for years that it’s easy to remember how to spell piece if you think of the phrase “a piece of pie.” Since most young students already know how to spell pie, associating that old knowledge to the new—the spelling of “piece”—solves the problem. Again in this example of association, the basic rule has been followed.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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