[dreamrunner]

Hi everybody....hope all is well.

I was wondering.....how all of you deal with stress.Life is life and you cant avoid bad things happening all the time.
Stress is my biggest trigger to getting an episode started.

When bad things,unavoidable things happen, how do you think?
What do you do to combat a spiral?

[sweetleaf]

Some things that have helped me:

Smoking! (ha ha)
Pet therapy
Music therapy

[onyx69000]

some thing have helped me
smoking:~)
music
walking
talking on the computer
talking on the phone to friend
eating
meds help me too.

[Direction]

For me...structure...I use to be a super structured...somewhere that went away...I've been bringing it back and it helps me at least.

Structure...some tool (a list, planner, spreadsheet) to keep track of deadlines, daily or weekly tasks to read that deadline, etc.)

On Wed I had to stand in front of 30 people and run our organization meeting...I was prepared well...and I double upped on my dose of clonzepam (that certainly took the edge off)

[onyx69000]

congrats directions i would not have been abe to that !!!!! dreamrunner i hope you find some sort of release for your stress. luv you -onyx

[dreamrunner]

All the walks and smokes in the world cant help me when Im really stressed....thats why my pdoc perscribes ativan....
Structure for me is the best thing too.....Ive always been like that,very neat and orderly.
Its the self talk Im having trouble with.
I let my thoughts run when Im stressed I guess.

Thanks all for your suggestions....Ill try.

[Direction]

I've tried those self talk cards...make a bunch of index cards that have something that is important to you that is positive...read through them...It's worth a try?