In today's modern world stress can be one of the major factors towards failure or success.
It can be easy to miss the small irritations in the background, the ones that nibble away at your well being, which in turn, stop you from making real progress without knowing the cause.
So it makes sense to find ways to deal with those irritating niggles, and place yourself firmly back in control.
Rather than grow your stress, you can begin to grow your well being instead.
It's important to recognise that not all irritations will have the same effect on your stress levels.
The big ones can make you angry just thinking about them, whilst the in-between ones are annoying, rather than anger inducing.
Some though, are so small you don't even realise that they are winding you up.
It all adds to your stress levels, and therefore needs addressing.
The good news is that once you've identified the small niggles, you can let them go.
Let's look at how to meet the small irritations head on.
First, you need to identify what it is that's niggling you.
This may take a bit of time, but it will be well worth it because, it's going to help you deal with your unseen enemy.
Start by getting yourself a small notebook, and begin jotting down everything that irritates, or niggles you for one week.
One week should enough to cover most areas in your life.
On a scale of 1(low) to 5(high) how irritated does it make you feel? Write that down too.
Writing it down means you will be able to look at it objectively when you're in a lighter frame of mind.
Being able to look at your irritation's in a lighter frame of mind is vital to your well being.
This is because it's impossible to make any rational decisions when in an agitated, or stressful mindset.
At the end of your niggle identification week separate them into three columns, large, in-between and small.
Having taken your first step to taking back control of your life, you have a guide as to what level of stress the irritation is giving you.
In this article we are looking at managing the small irritations first.
What are small irritations? For instance, it could be something as simple as the toothpaste lid being left off.
That's all it takes.
You automatically replace the lid, with a small grimace that makes you feel anything between 1 and 5 on your personal stress scale.
Over time, that grimace has become a trigger to a self taught behaviour pattern.
You pull the trigger, and it fires your subconscious mind into action by re-living the annoyance.
What you don't realise is, that more often than not, the trigger includes everything that ever annoyed you.
All you see is toothpaste with no lid.
What you don't see the hidden irritations stacking up behind.
Which means, it has a bigger impact on your stress levels than you are aware of.
Be honest.
As irritating as the lid being adrift from the toothpaste is, do you really have any control over it? No of course you don't.
That lies in the hands of the person who left it off in the first place.
The truth is, if it bothered them they wouldn't do it.
This being the case, doesn't it makes sense to find a way to manage it? Laughter is a great tool to try first.
Start by laughing at the tube of toothpaste without it's lid, however crazy that sounds.
It will feel like a daft thing to do, but try it anyway.
Why? Because when you laugh, or even smile, it sends a totally different message to your subconscious mind.
Instead of dragging up all your hidden irritations, it's now hunting for, and finding, good memories that will make you feel better.
It's a trick to fool your subconscious mind, and it's a trick that works.
The subconscious mind doesn't recognise right from wrong, or good from bad.
Similar to a computer, it acts as a storage area for everything that's ever happened in your life.
Whatever happens to you, it goes into action, hunting through your memories to find a similar experience to help you cope.
This being the case, it makes sense to send your subconscious mind positive messages to pattern match, rather than negative ones.
Another stress busting trick is to breathe long and slow.
Do this at least 5 times, exhaling for as long as you can stretch it.
This will slow your body down, soothing and calming it until the irritation fades.
The good news is that, going forwards, these 'tricks' will assist you to grow new behaviour patterns for your brain to pattern match too.
When this happens, the next time you go into the bathroom, and see the toothpaste tube, you'll automatically smile to yourself as you replace the lid.
Practice it all it takes, if you are willing to give it a try.
See how many of the small irritations in your book you can replace with a smile or a belly laugh, however mad you appear to yourself (or others!).
Try it for at least 3 weeks, in the knowledge that you giving yourself permission to rid yourself of the small irritations that have plagued you in the past.
Your stress levels will thank you for it.