I am impressed with your three distinctions of stress. Fatigue is a huge set up of stress. We are often so accustom to being exhausted that we don’t realize its impact on us.

Making a decision does reduce stress. I would add that along with feeling better because you made the decision about make the speech, you are feeling better because you left the flight or fight situation. Regardless of what conscious decision we make or don’t make, our physiology can override our minds and create the sympathetic – autonomic nervous system response. Know fear was a post I did on http://www.stressedout.org a while ago talking about just stepping into the experience.

Right on with –” Take responsibility for your life.” I agree that going for what we need takes us out of being a victim. Confronting the co-working puts me in a position of power, even if I don’t get the outcome I wanted.

Stress is a great teacher, one that we often don’t like. Making it our ally empowers us. I would choose a different word than control. Control has the association of being an adversary to the process. I suggest we explore what stress is attempting to teach us and learn to release ourselves from it limitations.

Great blog. Keep up the good work.

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I’ve found replacing ‘have to’ with ‘choose to’ can make a tremendous difference — it’s a fundamental shift in perception, going from an attitude of arguing with reality to one of being aligned with it.

Another way of looking at this I’ve heard mentioned elsewhere, is to act as if you had chosen whatever it is you are facing at that moment. Which does the same thing of helping you shift from resisting reality to being in alignment.