Ten Stress Busters for Your Soul

Posted on August 7, 2023 by Elizabeth Welte in Freedom Fighters

Anxiety is at an all-time high, and I recently connected with a new friend who has been struggling with anxiety. I wrote this Freedom Fighter in 2015. Hopefully, this will help someone.

What I am trying to do here is get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. – Matthew 6:31-33 (The Message)

Stress. Stress. Stress. We all have it. We all face it daily. And it is eating us alive, and for some, it’s actually killing us.

One doctor wrote: “ … on-going stress leads to lingering effects on our souls. Physical exhaustion, inability to sleep, nightmares, depression, change in eating habits, irritability, anger explosions, withdrawing from meaningful conversation, a feeling of emptiness, sexual dysfunction, and escapist thinking all manifest in the soul!”

Stephen W. Smith says that “when stress is not dealt with properly, we can do bizarre, crazy, and never-before-considered things to relieve the pressures we feel. When the dam of unresolved stress bursts, we tend to act out, sometimes doing the unimaginable.”

In his book, Soul Custody: Choosing the Care for the One and Only You (David C. Cook), Smith gives ten practical stress busters for our souls:

1. Practice the spiritual discipline of SLOWING DOWN.
2. Seek to explore WHAT is contributing to your stress.
3. Park in the parking place that is FURTHEST from your destination, not the closest. PRAY as you walk. TALK IT OUT with the Lord.
4. How can you incorporate HUMOR into your life?
5. Decide to join what is called the SLOW FOOD movement.
6. Go to bed 30 MINUTES EARLIER every night for a month and evaluate how you feel.
7. Do something that gives you LIFE every day.
8. Choose ONE DAY A WEEK, perhaps your Sabbath, not to check voice mail, e-mail, or use any form of technology. Give ALL ELECTRONICS a rest.
9. Become LESS AVAILABLE to people’s demands and more available to choices that lead to caring for your soul.
10. WALK thirty minutes FIVE days a week at a steady pace and monitor how you feel after thirty days of practicing this.

Now go back and read Matthew 6:31-33 at the top of the page. How are you doing with the stress in your life? I confess I struggle with anxiety. And you know what? Stress can be very addictive!!! Will you join me in working on at least three of the ten this week? I dare you – I double dog dare you!!!

How does stress affect you? How do you deal with the stress in your life?

 

Dr. Bill Welte

President/CEO of America’s Keswick

 

Written by Bill Welte: President/CEO of America’s Keswick: Bill has been married to his childhood sweetheart for 40+ years and has four married kids and 12 amazing grandkids. He loves music and is an avid reader.

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This Week’s Verse to Memorize: “Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, ¹⁸ that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.” Hebrews 6:17-18