Managing Emotional Stress: Mindfulness.

I found this on Think Pink/Live Green. I thought after my 4th cancer dx., I should try and manage my emotional stress better.

#23. Manage Your Emotional Stress Emotional strain can ruin your quality of life and may even affect your breast health. Fear of breast cancer, depression, and anxiety can drain all your energy and steal the joy of living. Critically judging yourself and others and holding onto unrealistic expectations adds to your emotional burden. Anything you can do to reduce your stress and enhance your emotional comfort and joy will help your body recover better from the wear and tear of modern life. Focus on the present rather than worry about the past and future. Adjust your expectations to make them reasonable. Don't take on too much at once. Break down tasks into doable chunks. Try to see a disappointment as a valuable life lesson rather than a terrible mistake or a dismal failure. Mindful measures such as meditation, yoga, visualization exercises, and prayer can be valuable additions to your daily or weekly routine. These practices can reduce your emotional stress and build your energy, confidence, and determination to take care of yourself. "Mindfulness is never about doing something perfectly—it is about allowing things to be as they are, resting in awareness."

"When we are hurting, the first thing we need to do is to be kind to ourselves." ~ Russ Harris, The Reality Slap

Firstly, tend to your basic needs:

1. Nourish yourself with delicious foods.

2. Drink plenty of water.

3. Move your body.

4. Get enough sleep.

This allows us to bring energy and light into our lives. Energy that we all need in dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis.