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Sleep, nutrition, exercise, and relaxation are the four areas you must focus on to keep yourself healthy and less stressful, says William Atkinson in Eliminate Stress from Your Life Forever: A simple program for better living ( www.pentagon-press.com). “A lot of people find themselves staying up late watching TV to try to decompress from stress. However, new research definitely shows that they would be much better off spending that time sleeping,” the author observes.

Citing medical studies that recommend eight hours of sleep, he bemoans that a lot of people report with pride that they can ‘get by’ with six hours of sleep.

However, there is a big difference between ‘getting by’ and functioning at your best, Atkinson argues.

“Sleep-deprived people average twice as many visits to the doctor a year than do people who are not sleep deprived. They also have twice as many infections, because their immune systems are weakened.”

Imperative read.

Fight FEAR

Russ Harris captures the four obstacles to change in a simple acronym: FEAR, for Fusion with unhelpful thoughts, Expectations that are unrealistic, Avoidance of uncomfortable feelings, and Remoteness from your values.

The most common hurdle is fusion, Harris says, in The Happiness Trap: Stop struggling, start living ( www.macmillanindia.com). When we fuse with unhelpful thoughts, the demons on our boat grow bigger and nastier, he cautions.

“And the scariest of all these demons is called, ‘You will fail!’, which usually hangs around with several of his pals, ‘There’s no point in trying,’ ‘You’re wasting your time’ and ‘Look at all the times you failed in the past.’”

Use your de-fusion skills to overcome the F, the author advises.

“See these thoughts for what they are (just words), let them come and go, and return your focus to taking effective action.”

Recommended for a patient study.

D. MURALI

BookPeek.blogspot.com

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