Do you want to improve your health and decrease your stress level?

If you’re experiencing some of the common symptoms of stress, such as irritability or anger, fatigue, feeling overwhelmed and changes in sleeping habits, then the physical and mental consequences of stress are all too clear.

And if you have made efforts to improve your stress levels, you’re not alone.  According to a new survey, Stress in America: Missing the Health Care Connection, which was conducted online by Harris Interactive, Americans think it’s important to improve their health and levels of stress.

Over the past five years, 60 percent of adults have tried to reduce their stress and more than half are still trying to meet this goal, according to the survey.

In fact, according to the survey’s findings, Americans are struggling to keep their stress at levels that they believe are healthy.  But how well do we do that?

A joyful journey, as I see it, involves holistic — or whole person — health.

It includes the emotional, physical, spiritual and mental realms. Balanced focus, divine empowerment, and confrontational self-examination in all areas will enable all of us to use more of our gifts in full measure. We are each endowed with talents and come as a “complete package” of inherent creative value and worth.

Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Why?

Could it be that there is not value in a life that is floating mindlessly along without concern of its true potential and full health?

To make sure we are not limiting ourselves and to instead experience greater joy and well-being, we need to ask ourselves these questions while traveling on this journey of life.

Low salaries, lack of opportunity for advancement and heavy workloads have more than one-third of Americans reporting feeling chronic work stress.

And women are feeling it more acutely than ever.  After decades of making progress in the work force, many women are feeling less valued than men, according to a recent APA survey on Stress in the Workplace.  They’re feeling they don’t receive adequate monetary compensation for their work and feel that employers offer them fewer opportunities for internal career advancement than men.

Why are women feeling less appreciated than men, when it comes to compensation and why are they stressed by lack of opportunity?

Possibly because they are.

You don’t have to feel guilty when you put off doing the ton of items that you’d like to accomplish and can’t seem to get done.

It may be that you have changed your priorities and are focusing on more important tasks, neglecting items that don’t hold an important value in the bigger scheme of things. You may also be overwhelmed at the enormousness of the task and give up, rather than breaking it into smaller time segments to get it done.

Either way, you will free up much needed mental space once you identify which category your “to-do” list item should fall into. You will also find that you are free from excess mental clutter and open up more time and energy to accomplish the things that you truly value.

Have you tried to lose weight? 

More than one third of U.S. adults currently are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Physicians and other health care professionals urge us to lose weight or risk becoming vulnerable to a host of diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Weight loss has become a national conversation.

On an individual basis, most of us either have tried to lose weight or are actively engaged in maintaining a healthy weight.  Why we struggle with weight and how best to lose weight are hotly debated topics.  The nation’s current weight struggles have been attributed to a range of biological, societal and personal problems such as unhealthy school lunches, media advertising, too much corn and corn syrup in our diets, sugar substitutes, lack of willpower, overreliance on fast and prepackaged foods and many more.

But what gets in the way of your ability to lose weight?

Why is it so tough to remember to floss?

I rarely run into patients who can’t remember to brush their teeth twice a day, but even the most conscientious among us come to their hygiene appointment anxious and awaiting the hygienist’s lecture about flossing.

Flossing can be icky and awkward — no one likes feeling like they’re shoving their entire fist into their mouth. But the reason why we don’t make flossing a habit is a bit more complicated and has its roots in psychology.

During the early 1900s, right around World War I, dental hygiene was so bad, it was said to be a national security risk. Why? People weren’t brushing their teeth, of course, and the 1900s marks the period when Americans first began to consume sugary, ready-to-eat processed foods, such as crackers, breads, and potato chips.

Sometimes traits that we think do not go together actually do. Perfectionism and procrastination are one of those unlikely duos.

Most people picture procrastinators as lazy folks who don’t care about doing things in a timely manner. If you’re a perfectionist, however, you know that’s not you. You care. You have high standards. You expect a lot, maybe too much, from yourself.

Then how come you have a tendency to put things off? It doesn’t make sense. But in a twisted kind of way, it does. Here’s why: The same attribute that is your strength — your desire to do things perfectly — also is your nemesis.

There are times when we encounter others who just “rub us the wrong way.” Have there ever been times in your life when others would say or do something that gets “under your skin,” or as I like to say, “pushes your button?” The kind of people that irritate you every time they speak, or certain actions that just leave you feeling like you want to scream and pull your hair out?

Some things or people may not push your buttons that hard. Some just cause you to feel minor irritation, or give you that roll-your-eyes feeling.

Whatever the case, have you wondered why these actions or behaviors push those buttons? Better yet, do you know what those buttons are?

One of my Secrets of Adulthood (and a point oddly under-emphasized by positive psychologists) is:

Outer order contributes to inner calm.

More, really, than it should. Why does making your bed make such a difference?

But as much as most of us want to keep our home, office, car, etc. in reasonable order, it’s tough. Here’s a list of some myths of de-cluttering that make it harder to maintain order.

1. “I need to get organized.”

No! Don’t get organized is your first step.

We’re all too familiar with the adage, “Money can’t buy happiness.” But according to author Laura Vanderkam, in her empowering and thoughtful book All The Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, “If money can’t buy happiness, perhaps we aren’t spending it right.”

Vanderkam encourages us to rethink how we view money.

Rather than money being “evil or soulless” or a point of comparison, she suggests we start seeing it as a tool for “acquiring, doing, and taking care of things that bring us joy.”

Let’s find out how.

When I ask people what they’d like to do for their own happiness projects, they often say something like, “Exercise more regularly.” Exercise is very important for health and mood, and everyone knows this. And yet it’s often tough for people to stick to an exercise routine.

I think that one mistake is to choose a form of exercise based on a) what your friend recommends, b) what kind of change to your body you want to see, or c) what is the fashionable form of exercise.

It’s helpful to consider these factors, but in the end, we’re far more likely to stick with an exercise routine that suits our nature and our schedule. If you’re struggling to exercise regularly, this is not the place to fight your nature! If you’ve been a night person all your life, vowing to get up at 5:00 a.m. to run isn’t very realistic.

So what questions can you ask yourself to find an exercise routine that works for you?

I’ve written a lot about abstainers vs. moderators. In …