The Common Causes of Headache are -

• Chronic headaches are commonly due to Migraine
• Tension, emotional stress, depression (Depression headache is associated occasionally with the focus of a somatic delusional system).
• Intra-cranial injury, head injury, cervical spondylosis, dental or ocular disease, temporo-mandibular joint dysfunction, sinusitis, hypertension, and a wide variety of general medical disorders.
• Alcoholism – alcohol is toxic to tissues, causes irritation to the meninges and thus a cerebral pain.
• Constipation – due to absorption of toxic products in the circulatory system. Constipation sometimes causes temporary loss of plasma into the wall of the gut, and the resulting poor flow of blood to the head could be the cause of the headache.

To Be Continued …

Get fit: Get exercise, under the early morning sun.

Find a hobby: It will give your heart and mind with a satisfying break from the weekly grind and set you on a good path for increased productivity and creativity.

Help others: Nothing brightens the soul or warms the senses like giving to another for no reason other than to give. Reach out to your local NGO or professional organization and ask for referrals to local places that need your help.

Get clarity on your goals: Write down a declaration of purpose, for yourself. Stepping back and looking at your life as a whole has a way of putting the stresses of the moment into right perspective.

Find humor: Laughing and making others laughing is a great way to reduce stress. Start out by learning a few good jokes and add as you go.

Don’t give reasons produce results: Once you’ve given up on blaming others you’ll start seeing more of the good in your life. Accept responsibility.
Thank God: Create an attitude of gratitude. Thank God for all that, He has given you instead of crying and cribbing about what he has kept away from you.

If you slow down enough and stop chasing things, soon those things will come around and catch you. Stop…breathe…relax!

I too like Natalie Goldberg believe that stress is an ignorant state, which believes that everything is an emergency.  Some techniques that have worked for my clients and I presume will work for you as well are -

Show Love
Induce the relaxation response and lower your stress hormones, by cuddling your pet, giving an unexpected hug to a friend or family member, snuggling with your spouse, or talking to a friend about the good things in your lives. When you do this you not only become creative and help yourself but help others as well.

Massage
Massage is a known stress-buster and a relaxant. If you cannot take a massage from a professional than try giving one to yourself.

Retreat to a place of Quiet
When you sense too many things happening too fast and bothering you, it’s time to stop and find a quiet place to sit or lie down and put the stressful situation on hold. Take a few deep breaths and concentrate on releasing tension and slowing down your mind & heartbeat.

Listen to Music
When the going gets rough, take a musical stress detour by aligning your heartbeat with the slow tempo of your favorite song, or classical music.

Change your Attitude
Envision anything that triggers a positive feeling; a vision of your childhood when you use to be carefree and having fun, vision of your child or spouse, the image of your pet, that great piece of jewellery you’re saving up to buy, a memento from a vacation…Conjuring up the thought will help slow your breathing, relax your tense muscles and put a smile on your face. Creating a positive emotional attitude can also calm and steady your heart rhythm, contributing to feelings of relaxation and peace with-in.

The first thing to overcome the stress of work-place is again being aware. Awareness of the stress and stress causing factors will illuminate the way for calm and peace within and without.

Some techniques that have worked for my clients and I presume will work for you as well are -

Mindfulness
Mindfulness means focusing on one activity at a time. It’s all about approaching life like a child, without passing judgement or projecting what could, would or should be. Practice it by focusing on your immediate surroundings. If you’re outdoors, enjoy the shape and colours of flowers, hear a bird’s call or consider a tree. Look at things in your office; at your desk with total awareness; as if you are looking at them for the first time. Just be with those things.

Visualize & Affirm Yourself Relaxed
Create a detailed mental picture using all your senses, of you being at your favorite vacation spot, a beach, or something that gives you pure joy. This helps to take your mind off your stress, and replaces it with an image that evokes a sense of calm.

Meditate
Anything you do with total awareness is meditation. When you catch yourself thinking about your jobs to do, your relationships, or your lifelong to-do list, simply observe the thoughts and your body sensations at that moment. Every couple of hours do it for few minutes

Breathe Slowly & Deeply
Stress causes tense, fast, shallow breathing, while a state of relaxation causes slow, deep breathing. So to turn tension into relaxation, change the way you breathe.
Take 10 very slow and deep breaths and as you breathe in let you abdomen move out without the chest moving. And as you breathe out let the abdomen move in without the chest moving. To make it easy you may put you right palm on the abdomen and the left on your chest. The duration of exhalation should be double the time taken to inhale.

To Be Continued…

So please wake-up to the call of stress, and take a break…take rest. It is easier said than done, as most of us can never find the will or the way to stop the ever moving pendulum of ups and downs in our lives. At such times tell yourself – ‘Stop right there!’ Go outside – take a stroll or sit to catch your breath, and relax. To enjoy your life and feel good again you must slow down; you could read a book, or just sit and relax in the warm sunshine. Besides this one of the most powerful tools that I have found to combat stress is to smile, and stop frowning. Even a false act of smiling can transcend the state of being into a happy one. And you cannot stop the rolling effect of smile at you only, it makes others invariably smile back at you.

Just for today resolve that you would smile when alone at least five times and you will smile at least at three total strangers. Who knows you may end up with lots of happy and smiling faces. Keep smiling keep passing joy. God Bless!

To Be Continued…

It’s very important to minimize your levels of stress and you can do that by thinking rather than reacting. Don’t just keep repeating what happened when something happens and stop saying: “That makes me so angry” or “I hate it when that happens.” A problem occurs whenever you say, ‘I don’t like this or that.’ As long as you accept the issue at hand it is just one obstacle to be crossed and not a proble to be carried on your shoulders. At such times, take a breath and ask yourself, ‘what is a reasonable response to this situation?’ You always have a choice, because it is not the event that causes the stress, but the way you react to the event; so simply choose to react differently.

To Be Continued …

Emotional intelligence in the workplace has four major components:

• Awareness of Self – The ability to recognize your emotions and their impact while using gut feelings / intuition to guide your decisions.
• Awareness of Others – The ability to sense, understand, and empathize to other’s emotions and feel comfortable socially.
• Managing Emotions – The ability to control your emotions and behavior and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Managing Relationships – The ability to inspire, influence, and connect to others and manage conflict.

The skill set that enables you to acquire these capabilities can be learned but requires the development of emotional and nonverbal ways of communicating that include:

• Recognize the body signals. Learn to recognize your particular stress response and become familiar with sensual cues that can rapidly calm and energize you.
• Becoming aware of what and how you feel. It will add to your self confidence, self control and understanding of others, which in turn will help you build more satisfying relationships.
• Recognize and effectively use the nonverbal cues of your communication process including eye contact, facial expression, and tone of voice, posture, gesture and touch; in short body language. It’s not what you say but how you say it that impacts others and your relationships; for better or worse.
• Get humorous. Develop the capacity to meet challenges with humor. There is no better stress buster than a good laugh and nothing reduces stress quicker in the workplace than a mutually shared joke. But, if the laugh is at someone else’s expense, you may end up with more rather than less stress!!
• Learn to navigate conflict by becoming a good listener, Be that person who can face conflict fearlessly with a clear understanding, that when differences are resolved, they invariably strengthen relationships.

To Be Continued…

Try experimenting with…

Improve lighting at work place by working by a window or using full-spectrum bulbs in your desk lamp.  Bad lighting causes a strain on your eyes and increase fatigue.Managing Chemical Stress at Workplace
If you eat a good, well-balanced diet, you should be able to minimize this sort of chemical stress. With a little forethought, you can make sure that your body receives all the nutrients it needs to function effectively.

Avoid extensive use of -

Caffeine:
Caffeine is a strong stimulant. If you drink more than 2 cups of coffee a day, then you may become twitchy, hyperactive and irritable. Switch to healthy alternatives like, green tea, fresh juices and coconut water.

Alcohol:
In small amounts, alcohol may help you relax, but if you have more than 2 pegs, it may increase stress as it disrupts sleep, reduces your effectiveness, and possibly harms working relationships.

Nicotine:
Its toxic effects raise your heart rate and stress your body. If you smoke, try taking your pulse before and after a cigarette, and notice the difference.

Sugar:
Sugar-rich foods can raise energy immediately. The problem with this is that your body copes with high levels of sugar by secreting insulin, which reduces the amount of sugar in your blood stream. Insulin persists and continues acting even after it has controlled blood sugar levels, and this causes an energy dip.

To Be Continued…

To reduce background sound in open offices – Install partitions to lessen the sound, use meeting rooms separate from the main work area, use quiet rooms or corners when concentration is needed, and when all else fails, use earplugs. If the layout of your workspace is not in your control, which is generally the case; then consider making a well-thought-out suggestion to the management as to how things could be improved. Emphasize the benefits of making the change; do not criticize them.  Make sure that you explain to your co-workers why you are making those changes; you don’t want them to think that you are separate from them.

Quality of Air
Poor air quality is more insidious as an issue. While people tend to notice obvious problems with atmospheric pollution, they are often unaware of the negative effect of invisible and odorless pollutants like Carbon Monoxide and Nitrogen Dioxide. High levels of atmospheric pollutants can damage people’s ability to concentrate. Similarly, lack of ventilation can deplete oxygen in the air, and can lead to headache, tiredness and reduced concentration.

You can do a number of things to improve air quality and reduce the stress caused by it -

• Ban smoking in the office.
• Keep office windows open.
• Use an ionizer or a de-humidifier.
• Introduce plants where the air is too dry. Not only do plants raise the amount of oxygen in the air and reduce stuffiness, they also help to absorb pollutants from the air.
• Keep drinking plenty of water least you get dehydrated.

To Be Continued …

When offices are open for others to see, you are constantly on stage so to say.

Open offices can be immensely distracting when you are doing a job that needs intense concentration. The noise of telephones and of people talking can significantly undermine performance in these jobs. Besides, these offices also lack privacy. This is important because it forces people constantly to “maintain appearances”, and to be constantly sociable when they may be more efficient focusing on the job in hand. Use of improper & uncomfortable furniture

Bad furniture, or bad use of good furniture, may cause pains, aches and stress.
Make sure you use a properly designed, properly adjusted chair – otherwise, you’re very likely to end up with backache. This sounds simple but if you check with any Orthopedic surgeon you will find out that more than ¾ of the patients coming for backache are stress related.

• If you spend a large part of each day working at a computer, then make sure that the monitor and keyboard are comfortably placed, and that you are well positioned when using both.
• If you find that your eyes get sore when looking at a monitor, or that you start to get headaches, then try taking breaks periodically, and get your eyes tested. Wear glasses if you have them.
• If you find that tendons in your hands get sore when you type for sustained periods, it may be worth experimenting with a ergonomic keyboard.
• Wherever your environment causes you pain look at what you can do to relieve it. Take the time to arrange your working environment so that it is comfortable.
• Take break every hour for 2 minutes to get-up, stretch, do deep breathing or lay back and meditate.

To Be Continued …