Find Your Best Stress Zone

The 2009 Stress in America Survey recently released by the American Psychological Association shows that 75% of adults report feeling moderate to high levels of stress. Women are affected worse than men, and are more likely to report physical symptoms of stress like fatigue, irritability, and headaches. 

Stress levels have also increased by 41% this year, considering the economic downturn as a major factor in stress levels. The health consequences of extreme stress are most severe when people ignore symptoms and fail to manage their stress well. OPTIMAL STRESS (November 2009, Wiley, $24.95) by Dr. Carol Scott explains how to manage and embrace this stress and even using it to your advantage. 

According to Dr. Scott, stress is a process, incorporating both cause and effect, with emotional, psychological, behavioral, biological and physical components. No off-the-shelf stress-reduction scheme can possibly work for every woman. The packaged wisdom of pop-psychology can be very seductive, but too often these approaches provide only short-term relief. They ease our symptoms, without ever resolving the fundamental internal conflicts at the root of the problem. 

OPTIMAL STRESS offers a new way to view, organize, and shape your world so that you have a healthy response to any stressor or demand in your life. It demands a clear understanding of three key principles—Priorities, Passions, and Purpose—but more importantly, it allows women to synthesize that information in such a way that they have a renewed sense of meaning, coherence and congruence in their lives. 

Scott's approach rests on developing an understanding of what stress is, of what it is not, and most importantly, how to find the right stress-health balance. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as the right level of stress that can actually be good for you. Scott defines this as the Best Stress Zone, a state of mind where you can organize and shape your world, and increase your ability to respond in a healthy way to the inevitable challenges and demands in your life.