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One of the most sought after commodities in anyones life is peace. There is even a children’s book written about a mum who can’t find five minutes peace. The great news is that peace is a free commodity - it won’t cost you a penny to buy. However, the bad news is that this is not something you can simply buy, there is no shop where you can go in and say, “I’ll take five minutes peace please”.

You will find plenty of charlatans who will try to persuade you that they can sell you peace - but they are wrong. Peace is not something you can buy and you can’t get it just by following a new exercise regime or purchasing the latest book about it.

The truth is that peace is something you only get by working at it.

To get peace you need to give yourself a gift of some time

If you want more peace in your life then you need to take some time to get it. Now I know that is is possible to have inner peace even when things seem to be like bedlam all around you but you can’t get that without first of all learning how to do it. So you will need to give yourself some time. I suggest finding at least 15 minutes every day for this. Put it in your diary now.

To have peace you need to be filled with peaceful thoughts

If your mind is full of frantic and desperate thoughts then you will never find peace. You can go to the most wonderful place in the world but if your mind is full of activity then you will not find peace there. The only way to find peace is to put peaceful thoughts into your mind.

You can do this in many different ways. You can use words that are peaceful to help you think in a peaceful calm kind of way - try words like: calm, clear, still, rest, etc. Or you could think about peaceful places you have been to. Or you could make use of a relaxation exercise. Or you could go to someone very peaceful and let yourself indulge in the peace.

Whatever you do you need to get some peaceful thoughts into your mind.

Another way

I hope you will indulge me for just a moment because I want to share a way that I have found peace - a deeper peace than I could have found otherwise. Please don’t think I’ve gone all nutty and religious on you here but I just wouldn’t feel comfortable keeping this to myself when you are searching for peace.

I find that God provides me with a deep inner peace. As a Christian it gives me great comfort and peace to know that God loves me. I still need to think those peaceful thoughts (there is a lot of good stuff in the Bible if you want some extra help on this - if you are not sure where to start then try Psalm 23) but without my faith I don’t get the kind of peace I can get otherwise.

In studies this simple truth has been shown time and again. People with a faith tend to be less stressed than those without. You make your own mind up but I’m happy I have what I do.

Escaping from the busy-ness of life would be great, wouldn’t it? Don’t we all want a chance to get away from it all and find that little oasis where all of our troubles are gone and we can be perfectly happy? Yet when we try so often we fail. We have holidays that take us five days to settle in to and then we have to start thinking about getting back. Or we anticipate a future where maybe this might just be possible - perhaps when we retire we can enjoy this temple of peace.

If you are looking for this temple then read on …

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Sometimes I have found myself in a situation I didn’t want to be in. It’s easy for me during those times to feel very negative about things and this negativity always makes any situation worse. There is a simple technique that works for many people that allows you to get away from the negative feelings pretty easily but it does take a little practice.

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The way we see things can have a big impact on the amount of anxiety and disturbance we feel in any situation. The amount of anxiety we feel has a dramatic effect on our performance. However you can learn to take control of a situation and see things very differently. This technique is commonly known as reframing.

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In a recent study reported in Diabetic medicine it was shown that men who suffer from psychological distress are 2.2 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Significantly this was not the case for women and further research is needed to find out why.

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Affirmations are an important technique that help you change the way you perceive yourself. If you have a poor self image or you suffer with too much stress because of the way you think about yourself then affirmations can help you. Affirmations are probably the most widely used and accepted form of self improvement. Here I show you what to do in a simple but effective way.

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Parents who care for children with developmental problems are likely to suffer from a reduced immune system. This reduction leaves them open to illness.

In a recent report produced by reasearchers at Birmingham University -  reported in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity - found that carers of children with developmental problems had a poorer immune response to a vaccine against pneumonia.

The reason for this? Increased stress.

You can read more about this story at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7513661.stm

Stress can have a deteremental effect on the immune system which has big implications for any sufferer.

The reduced immune system will leave you open to all kinds of problems and is likely to result in more absence from work. Coughs and colds as well as more serious problems are all made more likely and worse by stress.

The answer is to manage that stress effectively.

This post is pretty long but it covers a lot of ground. Stress in the workplace (wokplace stress, work related stress etc) is on the increase. It is arguably the most serious problem that businesses must face in the modern world. Anyone who employs someone should be aware of the demands placed on their workers and the effects this is having.

This presents an opportunity to improve productivity and hence profit. When stress is managed productivity increases. Happy workers work harder.

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Stress does not cause illness - or at least as far as we know. But stress can trigger illness and certainly stress makes illness worse. In studies undertaken with cancer patients it has been shown that quality and length of life is increased among those who undertake some kind of relaxation therapy.

So what illness have been linked to too much stress?

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There are as many different answers to the question of “what is stress?” as there are people in the world. What is stressful for one person is not for another. For instance many people find it hard to stand up in front of a group and speak yet others find this kind of thing very easy to do.

Psychologists talk about the ABC of stress.

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