Five Stress Busting Tips

Stress is something that causes frustration and horror to many people out there. We wonder if there is anything that we could do to cause relief to the stress levels that we feel in this day and age. There are many things that cause stress rather it be work, school, family, or just a general feeling of life causing us a fair deal of agony. 

Five Tips to Bust Your Stress

So what does a person do when stress overwhelms them? Thankfully there are solutions that cause us to relieve our stress. Let’s take a look at these tips to relieve stress or as they are more commonly referred to as, stress busters. Maybe these tips can cause us to achieve some kind of clarity and lead us to a more normal life and frame of mind.

The first stress busting tip is to make a list. It might seem like the most elementary thing in the world but it’s true. If we neglect to make a list, we’re going to cause ourselves to scramble around, forever busy. We are going to lose our heads and our sanity unless we try and get these things straight in our minds. By making a list, we are able to cut out all of the frantic running around like a chicken with our heads cut off and go and do it.

Sometimes we have to take a day for ourselves. That is one point that I cannot emphasize on enough with this stress busting tip. Taking some time off for ourselves will allow us to sit back and relax, smell the coffee, and enjoy even more of life. We might feel inclined to worry about other people but sometimes we got to think out about number one, otherwise we’ll start feeling like number two.

A nice relaxing soak in the bathtub is not something that can go wrong as we are trying to bust that stress. There is something about the warm water and bubbles that relaxes us, keeps us calm and keeps us fresh despite the situation at hand.

For those who love books, you may know how reading a good book can keep you utterly calm and tranquil, while bringing you to a place where you should be able to enjoy even more of the finer things in life. A book being placed in your hands, there is really nothing more to life than that. So just perk up, kick your feet up, and enjoy what life has to offer. You’ll be really glad that you did in the end.

A final stress buster is to sit back in a nice quiet room and relax, just soak in the surroundings. You don’t have to mediate, although if you do, that might help things. Just keep yourself calm and everything will work out in the end as planned. Put on some soothing music in the background.

Life can be relatively short and we make it much shorter if we spend too much time stressing out about those little things in life. Especially given that the big things are more insane and are more than enough to deal with without the little things adding up.

Black Friday Insanity

Black Friday has passed into the ether for another year, and it's online equivalent, Cyber Monday. Over the years, Black Friday has had an almost mythical reputation as a day where people have to go out. It is almost like some tradition, where people head out, often in the bitter cold of winter, and camp out outside. Then, it is an absolute free for all for the sales of this day.

Over the past number of years, Black Friday has gotten more and more insane by each passing year. Are there deals? In many ways, there are deals, but the fact is stores tend to use any number of subtle tricks that will make you think that you are getting a better deal than you thought. It is actually a sneaky, and quite intelligent aspect of the day.

Throughout the year, the average retail prices slowly spike more and more. Granted, in this failing economy, who would even notice? The prices of everything are going up in this day and age. It does cost an arm and a leg to get even the most simple things. Do you ever look at your budget and cringe? Naturally, we are going to jump for a deal.

Of course, those deals are going to be an illusion. The deals are only going to be slightly below what we were going to pay normally, or right at what we pay. Yet, they seem like they are much more expensive. Stores are smart in exploiting people, and making them think they have a good deal. In fact, one could argue that the best time to shop would shop for Christmas would be in the weeks after.

Yet, each and every year people tend to get over fights for merchandise. Is this genius, or insane? Genius on the parts of the store, insane on the part of the customers. Well, until the point you get to the liability lawsuits that are part and parcel for this day. Every story you might hear about someone being trampled, it really is insane.

Then again, I've never been one for the Black Friday hysteria. Some people have been, and the stores do make a killing off of the day. When I hear about people fighting over shoes or the hottest holiday toy, I just want to shake my head. 

Elmo Puppeteer Resigns on Allegations

The news just broke within the last few hours of the Elmo Puppeteer, Kevin Clash, resigning from his role due to the rumors of him having sexual relations with a minor. We should state that these are rumors, but such an allegation could have a huge impact on a person's reputation. Especially if that person is the puppeteer beyond a beloved childhood icon of many youths like Elmo from Seasame Street.

Resignation seemed to be the ideal thing to do. It could prevent this scandal, whether true or false, from being more ugly than it is. Even if the accusations are ultimately proven false, this is a stigma that will follow Mr. Clash around for some time. What is proven in a court of law seldom does hold up in the minds of people. There is little doubt that there will be some extremely strong opinions regarding the guilt of innocence of the Elmo puppeteer.

When you hear something like this, there are two schools of thought. The one school of thought would be that this is just someone out to run a smear campaign, to get a quick buck. And the other makes you wonder if something really did happen. Without all of the facts out, and more information will no doubt come back, it's hard to make a judgment either way.

Regardless, Kevin Clash has offered his resignation. While some might declare this to be an admission of guilt, it is likely the best thing to do for both parties. Dealing with these allegations can have an adverse effect on all parties, and could cause some heat from the Sesame Street side of things. Likely the resignation was something that would have happened either willingly or forced.

It is unfortunate that the allegations are even out there. It will be even more unfortunate if there is some truth to them. The only thing for sure in a situation like this is that it will always taint a person, regardless of the truth. It is a hard stigma to escape from.

A Nation Divided

The dust has settled from the election a few days ago. For those of you living underneath a rock, we have four more years of Barack Obama. Whether that is better or for worse, that point is irrelevant at the minute. The fact of the matter is Obama is here, and here to stay for four more years as the United States President. And as you would expect, this has gotten people up in arms.

The fact that people are up in arms about the result of a Presidential Election really is no surprise. Everyone has their candidate that they are going to back. Whether it be Republican, Democrat, or third party, there are going to be people who are going to be upset that their chosen champion did not win.

So, naturally the news media, as it tends to do, is making a mountain out of a molehill. “A nation divided” is a common rallying cry on many news stories. The United States is about to split apart. You would think that the second coming of the Confederate States of America is near based off of some of the words being written about how doom and gloom is here just based off of the Presidential Election.

The fact of the matter is this. Half of the people would be upset if Obama one, half of the people would be upset if Romney won. Half of the people would be upset if an inanimate object won the election. There are people who are upset about various problems in the nation. The economy does not appear to be getting better any time soon. The stock market plummeted yesterday after the election.

Why yes the nation is divided. It was not like it has never been divided after every other election. This is just another prime case of the news media manufacturing stories that are not really there.

For better or for worse, Obama is in the command chair for four more years. We’ll see what the nation looks like in 2016.

Stock Market Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Hurricane Sandy, the latest storm to hit could potentially be rather serious business for one reason and one reason only. It is going to bring the New York Stock Exchange to a close. Most certainly this is an odd little event, as Mother Nature is more powerful than the stock market. Investors wonder what the closing of the stock market means, if it means anything, or if we should panic over this storm.