Reducing stress can help us to manage our lives effectively. We can reduce stress by reviewing life and its potential problems, solutions and resources. If you are, a common ordinary family then you is set up with a home, car, job, children, entertainment, and other related responsibilities. You may own your own home, vehicle and established a foundation to succeed in life. You spend one day out of every week to enjoy quality time with the family, and you visit your friends on occasions to get away from your status in life.

Your job is running smoothly and you see no need to worry about any problem since you feel everything is under control. Your security is standing, your confidence is high, and your emotions are in tact. Everything seems perfect, so you are relaxing when you arrive home from work, since your job brought forth a rewarding day because of your outstanding efforts. Sounds perfect and I would give my last dollar to live in this environment, in fact most of us would. Now we are looking at a situation where stressors and stress are minimal. Since we can never eliminate stress from our lives, we have to question this scenario.

The husband is not worrying about anything, since he has established what appears to be a firm foundation for his family. Is the husband prepared for stressors and stress? Did the husband plan to prepare in case disaster occurs? IS the husband expecting that life will remain faithful or is he expecting that troubles could surface at any time? Finally, is the husband prepared to make decisions when troubles surface, and did he prepare his family for the problems that are potential in their future?

Does the family have a resource, support group, and help available when troubles occur. Maybe they sit up a savings account believing money would bail them out of all problems. Look carefully between the lines and tell me where stressors and stress exist? Since, we do not know what has been discussed in the family we are going to assume that this family is stable, secure and has not set up a stress management scheme in case the worst possible occurs.

By assuming this, we can deduce that the family is not prepared to handle tribulation at a higher magnitude than common problems. We can assume that the family has not planned a stress management relief when a high impact situation attacks. We can assume that the family is not using their head to the fullest, since we cannot determine if the family can make appropriate decisions when a major problem arises.

Unfortunately, we are going to cause a series of problems for this family to see how prepared we all are in any case scenario. Ok, the world is good and the family is happier than they are ever where in life.

The family continues daily taking care of responsibilities and enjoying their fruitful environment. Suddenly, everyone wakes up one fine sunny afternoon and finds that dad lost his job; mom is not working since dad has it all under control. Panic strikes, the husband flairs with anger since he has lost his security, a minimal ability to take care of his family and responsibilities.

He thinks I have enough money in my account to take care of the mortgage and bills until I land another job. Then he calls his bank all to find out that his Identity was stolen and his banking accounts are drained of resources.

OUCH! Now we have a real life problem with stressors overwhelming that our nerves should be shot by now. Let us see how prepared this family could be in the event stress is overwhelming. Now, we all know that we are a subject to unemployment and identity theft.

Where is the backup plan? If the husband was prepared and planned, he would know immediately what he needed to do to deal with the legal process of identity theft and unemployment. Now we know he had a stress management plan when he believed his savings would protect the family in case he lost his job, but we see that his mind is blown when he hangs up the phone with his bank.

I am not going to finish this story, since I am the type of person that likes to promote thinking. Now I am leaving it up to you to find out the ending of the story, and search your mind to find a stress management plan that works best for you.