STRESS AND GOING TO UNIVERSITY

Thousands of young men and women have gone to university this week. Some for the first time, some for the second and some for the last time. They’ve left home to spend their most formative years learning the skills to venture forth into the big wide world and get themselves a job on the strength of their academic results.

Thousands of young men and women grinning with nerves as they wave their parents goodbye and turn their backs on their childhood. Nervous smiles as they ponder what to expect; making new friends and fitting in, managing their own finances, controlling their own time and deciding what to cook.

Many will prosper and have the time of their lives. Many will make friendships which will last a life-time and many will excel at their chosen subjects and go onto get their perfect jobs and enjoy a career of wealth, happiness and fulfilment. Many will fall at the first hurdle and many will succumb to the stresses and strains of university life and drop out. Many students go for the wrong reasons, be it to impress their parents or to get their parents off their backs. Many go simply because they have nothing else better to do and many go because the prospect of getting a job and working for a living fills them with dread. Whatever reason, the truth of the matter is stark; university throws up many hidden threats which can push the stress levels of any young person to their limits.

But not all Stress is Harmful.

It’s with this in mind that you should remember that stress can be useful. Don’t be scared and shy away from it. Its inevitable to feel a certain amount of stress at having to complete a 3000 word essay by the next day. It’s inevitable to feel stress at having to be at a lecture hall at 9am after getting back from a night-out on the town at 8.55am. A certain amount of stress will make you excel and rise to the challenge. Good stress is called Eustress and should be embraced as a friend and ally. The challenge is to know what’s useful and what’s harmful. To know when to embrace stress and when to dump it.

Three easy steps to beat Stress at University?

1. Make time for yourself. This simple piece of advice applies across the board, be it to reduce stress at work, at home or at university. Everybody will be demanding your time, be it lecturers, friends and family. All these people are important and of-course its only right and proper to make time for them. But there is one person more important than all these people and that person is YOU! So switch off your mobile and shut your laptop; close your text books and put down the pen. Walk outside and go for a walk, make yourself a cup of tea or listen to music. The old proverb of ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ is so true and so prevalent in today’s age.

2. Say No when you need to. There will always be pressure on you to get your head out of the books and go down the pub. Down that extra pint and knock back that extra shot. Socialising can be the best thing about university because there is no better way to make friends and foster lasting relationships, but you can over do it. Saying No is a sign of maturity, and saying No at university can make the difference between a 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd.

3. Make use of the facilities. Universities are great places to live and learn, offering a wealth of after class activities. Whatever your passion there’s an activity to compliment it. Get involved and sign up. Whether its sport, theatre, debate or cooking; universities offer it all. With bars, shops, sports centres, tennis and squash courts, health centres, theatres and concert halls all within easy walking distance, there is no excuse not to get involved. Harking back to that aged old proverb, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’, to make my point. Stress will come at you from a variety of different angles, but remember, stress is easy to control and manage. Use stress when you need to and dump it when you don’t.

Going to university can be the best time of your life. Embrace the experience with open arms and submerge yourself in everything it has to offer.

Enjoy university but don’t let stress get the better of you.

ANGRY COUPLES.

When the opportunity came to attend one of Mike Fisher's British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) weekend courses, I grabbed it with both two hands.

I'll be totally honest with you. I've been in a relationship for eleven years now and since having kids, its fair to say that I've been angry everyday since. Don't get me wrong, I love my partner and I love our kids. As is the case in many relationships, its not an issue of love, sex or attraction, but rather how couples react to anger and disappointment, which dictates whether they live in joyful bliss or abstract misery.

We get on like a house-on-fire when the kids are at school. When its peaceful and quiet, we love each other as friends should, but come breakfast, lunch, dinner, bath time and bed time, we're stressed out and getting angrier by the minute; and more often than not, we end up bickering like brother and sister.

And that is exactly what Mike Fisher touches upon during his course. He got us to think of the last time we were at boiling point, and then stopped us and asked how old we were feeling at that precise moment. We all confessed to feeling as if we were kids again. Seven years old being shouted at by mum, feeling ashamed and scared, nine years old and having a fight with our sister or ten years old and on the verge of tears while dad shouts in your face over a minor misdemeanour. Its true, we all revert back to being kids when we get angry with each other; we “regress” as Mike would say.

So I jumped at the chance of attending Mike Fisher's anger management course because my anger was ruining my relationship and scaring my kids. Something, meaning me, had to change.

Don't take things personally.

I've lost count how many times my partner said something to me which I've assumed to mean something completely different? All of a sudden my back is up and I'm in defensive mode. Without double checking exactly what she meant, I'm assuming the worst. As a consequence, she takes it personally and all of a sudden the Cold War is in full swing and we've put up our Berlin Walls to protect ourselves.

This is just the start; without Mike's help I would have escalated the situation by launching into a verbal assault of anger and fury. Name-calling is always easy, recollecting past offences always fuels the fire, so does swearing, slamming things, throwing things and punching things. More often than not physical violence ends the battle but prolongs the suffering for the couples and their families. Of-course the battle wounds last forever especially for the kids.

Mike reminds us to 'don't take anything personally' but its hard when the person we are meant to love says such cruel and heartless things to us. But what we have to remember is that everything said during the red mist of anger, is only spoken until enough rage and fury has built up to force them out.

Mike would talk about our primary needs, that we all need to be valued, appreciated, safe, acknowledged, held, trusted and loved. We look at our partners to provide these 'needs', and when they aren't met we get angry and scared.

So what does Mike say about getting what you need from your partner?

Its about “Expressing your anger cleanly” he'd say, and recommend the clearing technique which I've used on many occasions to control my anger.

Here is a quick version of The Clearing Progress to help you. Make sure you know the facts relating to the conflict, assume nothing and don't take things personally!

Fill in your own words as you say....

I feel..... angry with you.

Because..... I have asked you ten times to clean out your hairs from the plug hole!

When..... my mum and dad had argument about this I felt really scared and confused.

What I want is..... when I ask you to do something and you say yes, please do it!

What I am willing to own about my behaviour is..... often I do not follow through on commitment that I make.

Words of Wisdom.

I'll leave you with some words of wisdom as told by an ancient Indian sage.

A question was asked, "When people are angry, why do they shout at each other?"

“Because when we lose our calm, we shout," came an answer.

"Granted," said the sage, "but, why should you raise your voice when the other person is just next to you? It's not that he's hearing you better that way. You can still make your point without shouting at the top of your voice.

Anger immediately creates a distance. When two people are angry at each other, their hearts are no longer close, their emotions are divided and they go miles apart. To cover that distance they yell. The angrier they are, the louder they shout. They are no longer in mode of love, of acceptance, of proximity. They are unable to hear each other, shouting is how they believe they can be heard.

And! what happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, they almost whisper, because their hearts are very close. There's little or no distance between them.

When they love each other even more, they exchange even less words, more softly, they murmur, they whisper, yet they hear each other better, their bond strengthens, their love prospers. Finally, they may not even whisper, they only look at each other, silence becomes more potent than speech, that's how close two people can get when they are in love.”

Mike Fisher's anger management workshop saved my relationship by teaching me to understand my anger and to deal with it in a way I never knew possible.

If you are angry like me, then check out Mike's websites at www.stressexperts.co.uk, www.beatinganger.com and www.angerguru.com and get the help you need.

ANGER IN PRISONS

Two pieces of news this week got me thinking about anger in UK prisons. Number one follows comments from the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC, who says its time to make benefit cheats serve longer jail terms of up to 10 years. The second follows a Commons Justice committee reports that says more elderly sex offenders are being jailed than ever before.

Two pieces of news that make me wonder what effect it'll have on the well-being of all prisoners in the system. Will an influx of elderly perverts tip the balance or will an increase in swindlers break the camels back and push the UK prison population into the red mist? After-all, convicted criminals aren't exactly known for their gentle dispositions and tolerant natures.

Being deprived of your freedom is punishment enough, but prisoners must also deal with the constant supervision and control of their movements and interactions. Locked behind bars for up to twenty-three hours a day, left to stew over their own failings and stupidity, is enough to make anyone angry. Angry at themselves, the world, the system, their parents and God Almighty.

In fact, prison is the perfect place for anger to grow and prosper.

Controlling Anger in Prisons.

Anger management programmes have enjoyed a varying degree of success in UK prisons. At one point in 2006 the Home Office significantly scaled back their anger management courses citing them to be “counter-productive,' after a City financier was killed by a prisoner who had just been released from prison after serving six years for attempted murder. He attended twenty-four sessions of an anger management course, which helped convince the parole board to let him go free, but with hindsight it was argued, the course had done nothing to tackle his violent behaviour.

From nearly fifty different programmes available covering alcohol, sex, reoffending and health programmes, prison chiefs acknowledge anger in UK prisons is an on-going problem in which they are still looking for solutions and programmes to deal with it.

Some call in the services of therapeutic practitioners, who use yoga and breathing techniques to help the men relax and control their aggression, while others use more accredited programmes such as CALM (Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it) which is more of an emotional management programme, to ART (Aggression Replacement Training), which seeks to challenge offenders to accept responsibility for their crime and its consequences, to TSP (Thinking Skills Programme) which focuses on supporting offenders to develop skills in setting goals and making plans to achieve them without offending.

Mike Fisher from the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) is also playing a role in UK prisons. Working alongside Linda Bolland who runs programmes at HMP SEND in Surrey with excellent results, he has recently been commissioned to run programmes in a London prison, reducing reoffending rates amongst young offenders and defusing the ticking time bombs about to explode in every prison cell.

What makes prisoners happy?

Other than being let out early or better yet, getting away with a suspended sentence, a TV in their cell is a small luxury which no prisoner would scoff at. Though a TV makes a prisoner very happy, it evokes anger from the taxpayer, especially when its revealed hospital patients are charged £42 a week for watching TV, while prisoners are only charged £1 a week.

Striking the happy medium of keeping prisoners happy and keeping those paying for prisons happy is a delicate balancing act.

Its a Catch 22.

Stress leads to anger and anger leads stress, its a vicious circle. Being able to identify your anger for what it is and having the tools to step out of the circle of anger, is something anyone can achieve.

Mike Fisher and BAAM has helped over 16,000 people nationwide deal with their anger problems and continues to blaze new trails in the anger management world.

To learn more about what Mike Fisher offers check out his websites www.stressexperts.co.uk, www.beatinganger.com and www.angerguru.com, or better yet book yourself a space on his FREE 1 HOUR WEBINAR, on Thursday 26th September 2013, between 7-8pm.

Follow this link http://www.beatinganger.com/free-webinar for everything you need to know.

Working for the Very Best.

Have you ever wondered what its like to work for the very best? The most famous and high profile people in the world? Have you ever wondered what's it like to be in the private entourage of the world's most famous celebrities, corporate giants and royalty? Well dream no more. It can be yours.

Working for high profile clientele takes a special type of person. Above all else they must be able to satisfy the high standards which come with working for the most demanding clients in the world. If you think you have what it takes, the next step will be to make sure you don't make mistakes as you approach their world, with the view of knocking on their door and being allowed in.

The Two Golden Rules of working for the rich and famous is excellent service and absolute privacy.

Excellent Service.

Mediocre is not acceptable. Only the very best standard of service is allowed. Whether its the finer details when organizing an event, to the finest ingredients in a meal, to the immaculate cleaning and folding of bed sheets and laundry. If you haven't got the technical experience to provide the very best service, you won't be working for the very best.

Absolute Privacy.

Whether you want a job as a PA, cleaner, chef, body-guard or nanny, you will be allowed into the inner sanctum of their private world. Its a niche market with vast rewards. But if its discovered that their private details, their private tastes, spending habits and hobbies are the basis of idle gossip, then you wont be working for the very best ever again.

To work for the very best means you get paid the very best. Yearly incomes of $100,000 is just the beginning. Working for the rich and famous is a niche market which brings great rewards and perks. Working for the very best means you accompany your client everywhere they go. Exotic locations on holiday. Inclusion to the most private clubs and the most prestigious events around the world.

Working for the rich and famous is a dream, that can come true for you!

Where to start?

The Luxury School of Staffing is your perfect introduction that offers everything you need to know about approaching the world of the rich and famous and getting a job.

Gertrude Lily CEO and driving force behind this exclusive training school has the experience to guide you through the minefield of obstacles, to ensure you have the skills and knowledge to approach high profile clientele with the confidence to shine through and get the job of your dreams.

To find out more information visit the website www.institute.vipgoldencare.com and get in touch.

Make Stress your Friend, not your Enemy.

Mike Fisher, Europe's foremost Guru on Anger and Stress sent me a link to a video the other day which has opened my eyes to the way I see stress.

For too long I've been looking for methods and techniques which will beat my stress into submission. I've been told that chronic stress is bad for my health, that it leads to insomnia, high blood pressure and depression, amongst many more symptoms I could mention. If ever I feel my anger rising, I've been taught to relax and count to ten, 'Imagine yourself on a desert island with the warm surf lapping at your feet', a stress expert would recite on youtube as he beckons the audience to close their eyes and feel the stress recede.

And then along comes a pretty lady who blows it all away.

Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal is seen delivering a TED Global sponsored talk to a packed audience in Edinburgh.

After opening with her fear that she's been teaching a method of beating stress over the last ten years, which “has been doing more harm than good,” she lays it on the line, “I’ve changed my mind about stress, and today I want to change yours.”

She cites scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who have shown that the 'perception' of stress effects health. Hence, thinking that stress is bad for you makes it bad for you.

For example if someone is making a life style choice between a stressful job and a not so stressful job, it doesn't matter which way they go. It is in fact equally wise to choose the stressful job so long as you believe you can handle the stress that comes with it.

The study reveals that over the eight years of the survey, 182,000 people died prematurely from the belief that stress was bad for them. This in itself, as Kelly reminds us, makes the sheer act of 'Belief' the 15th largest cause of death in the United States.

She drives home her point with, “When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage, and when you choose to connect with others under stress you create resilience.”

“Stress gives us access to our hearts, the compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning connecting with others. Your pounding beating heart working so hard to give you energy and when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress, you are actually making a pretty profound statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges and you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.”

Her passionate words of 'connecting with others' to get better at stress reminds me of Mike Fisher's free webinars which are now on.

He's inviting anyone with anger and stress issues to join him for a FREE 1 HOUR webinar on Thursday 12^th September and Thursday 26^th September 2013 between 7pm-8pm. Mark the dates on your calender NOW.

Mike's webinar is an introduction to understand how stress fuels anger and left unchecked turns into rage and fury.

Book yourself a space now by clicking on the link below. See Mike in action and use the opportunity to decide whether or not you or anyone else, needs to attend one of BAAM's many courses across the UK.

Mike Fisher founder of the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) has a wealth of experience and knowledge in helping you beat anger. Take the first step by booking your free one hour webinar today!

If you liked this post, Mike will be thrilled if you’d share it with any friends who might find it useful. You can tweet it, Google + or you can share it on Facebook or by email by copying this link: http://www.beatinganger.com/free-webinar

You can also check out www.stressexperts.co.uk and www.angerguru.com to learn more about Mike Fisher and what BAAM has to offer.

Stress and returning to School

The summer holidays are over and its time to go back to school. A million children sigh as the inevitable becomes tomorrow.

No more staying up late and getting up late. No more relaxed days under the warm sun and certainly no more hose pipes, shorts and tee-shirts.

The young children are getting stressed over facing the unknown starting school for the first time, the older kids are wary of returning to the guarded friendships and bullying of the playground, while teenagers dread the regimented world where they have to buckle down to work and get the A grades.

Then theres the parent's to think about. No more late nights with early starts and no more lazy breakfasts and easy routines. There are uniforms to buy, wash and iron. New stationary, new bags, new shoes and new sports kit to get.

The school run is a nightmare for every parent across the nation. Deciding who takes the kids is enough to initiate divorce proceedings.

The change of routine can be as stressful to the parents as for the children. More often then not the stress of the starting school brings out the anger in all the family, and soon the adults are acting like children and the whole house is in uproar.

'It’s entirely normal to feel a degree of stress as the start of school approaches.' experts would say.

What can you do about it?

There are always tools and methods to help you through any kind of stressful situation. Mike Fisher from the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) is an expert in stress and anger and knows better than anyone how to deal with your stress in these times of need.

Rule 1 of his Eight Golden Rules of Anger Management is to 'Back off, stop, think, take a look at the big picture.

“Will it matter in five minutes?” he'd ask, and then “Will it matter in five years?”

Perhaps it won't and we are stressing over nothing?

Relax, everything is under control and the start of the new school year is guaranteed to be a success because you are prepared for the new challenge ahead.

Here are three tips to help you:

1. Now is the time to talk to the family and listen to their feelings. You may notice your kids suddenly feeling very ill and predicting they may have a sudden illness on the day they are due back at school. You may even find the bed wetting, which you have thought had stopped two months ago, come back. Strike up the conversation of how they feel about going back to school but don't pressure the kids in answering. Only by knowing what the problem is can you find the solution.
   
   
2. Guide the kids back into a routine. While it is inevitable that a new regime starts as the school bell rings, it's always a good idea to guide the kids back into a routine gently. Why not try a dummy run where you travel the route to school, be it by foot or bus. A rehearsal can be a fun way to prepare the kids to the routine for the next six weeks, five days a week, twice a day.
   
   
3. Back to school means back to rules. No more ear rings in PE, no more smart phones and no more jeans. With a brand new start to the year comes a brand new set of rules. A stress free parent would have checked well ahead. When does school start, what's the correct dress code and when do we pick them up? Checking ahead ensures no mistakes.

Going back to school doesn't have to be the stressful nightmare you imagine it to be.

If you liked this post, Mike would be thrilled if you’d share it with any friends who might find it useful. You can tweet it, Google +, or you can share it on Facebook or by email by copying his websites: www.stressexperts.co.uk, www.beatinganger.com and www.angerguru.com.

Mike Fisher is the founder of the British Association of Anger Management and has helped people from all walks of life address their anger and stress issues.

If you are in need of some help for your anger call Mike on 0345 1300 286 or send an email. If you find that your anger is costing you too much in terms of your family, career and health, then perhaps it's time you examine it by booking onto one of his programmes. Mike will be happy to hear from you so go ahead. Give him a call and change your life forever.

Anger and Air Rage

Air rage is so prevalent in today's stressed out society that someone has even written a book about it called 'Air Rage: Crisis in the Skies'.

Even in todays BBC news the Civil Aviation Authority reports five examples of air rage on flights from Northern Ireland to England in the last two years, and further examples of air rage on flights in and out of Liverpool's John Lennon airport.

The global picture shows an increase in air rage, and markedly so after 9/11. Mike Fisher founder of the British Association of Anger Management says 'I imagine across the planet there's definitely an increase and I think it is partly to do with the amount of alcohol that is actually consumed on airline travel, coupled with all the anxieties and stresses of travelling in the first place.'

With alcohol served on demand, its inevitable that passengers become stressed, angry, unruly and ultimately violent.

Though alcohol is not the only culprit to blame. China suffers from an increase in air rage because their planes aren't on time. It would seem that even though they spend billions on building the world's biggest and best airports, they can't keep to a schedule. With only 18% of flights out of Beijing's Capital airport departing on time, its easy to see why passengers flip out and go berserk.

What is Air Rage?

Air rage comes in two forms of variety, hostile and emotional. The most common emotion being anger. We all suffer anger at having to wait, anger at bad service, and anger at being squeezed into a confined space. Stressors can build up on an airplane, as much as they can on any mode of transport. Though the unique problem with an airplane over a train is that you can't evict passengers from an airplane. I heard a story today about a lady who became so hysterical on a flight she had to be restrained in a straight jacket. In fact, crew routinely carry restraining shackles just in case now.

Lets delve deeper.

Once you look into the symptoms of air travel, a different picture emerges.

The very first thing that happens to us once we settle into our flight is the altitude change. We've all heard of altitude sickness. At the extreme it can be life threatening. So when the cabin quickly pressurizes to 10,000 feet above sea level, the body reacts by becoming dehydrated. Airline pilots often complain of dry and flaky skin, proving that when the body is repeatedly subjected to such drastic altitude changes, the effects become chronic.

The Journal of Environmental Health Research reports that air travel increases the risk of catching a cold by 100 times because of the recycled air. If someone is sick and coughs his germs in first class, every passenger on that plane will breathe them in too.

An unseen danger of flying that many people are unaware of, is the radiation from cosmic rays which are concentrated at high altitudes. Its so high that one international flight will supply a hit of radiation equivalent to one chest x-ray.

Then there is the dreaded deep vein thrombosis (DVT), where the symptom of sitting in the same position for hours plus dehydration, greatly increases the risk of blood clots.

Last but not least is jet lag. The transitition from one time zone to another causes fatigue, memory loss, insomnia and even psychotic or mood disorders.

No wonder cases of air rage are on the increase. Flying is dangerous business.

Three easy steps to beat air rage and the symptoms of air travel.

1. Move around. Try to get an aisle seat and stretch and move your legs often, and take trips to the bathroom even if you don’t have to go.

2. Drink water, not alcohol. Its goes without saying that water hydrates the body while alcohol dehydrates.

3. Read Mike Fisher's book 'Beating Anger' and learn the eight-point plan for coping with rage.

Air rage is on the increase but it doesn't mean you must suffer it too.

Check out Mike Fisher's British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) websites at www.stressexperts.co.uk, www.beatinganger.com and www.angerguru.com. They offer practical advice in beating anger and stress. Get in touch, Mike would love to hear from you.