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  • July 08, 2008
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This is an older article that may not reflect Dr. Mercola’s current view on this topic. Use our search engine to find Dr. Mercola’s latest position on any health topic.

Do your days typically feel like a whirlwind of stress, work and obligations?

In this video, physician and futurist Dr. Richard Swenson talks about exactly what happens when you try to take on too much. The emotional and physical effects can be disastrous, including sleep problems, stomach upset, headaches, depression and more. Perhaps most importantly, it can lead to your losing the things in your life that are truly important.
 
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Every one of you reading this can likely relate to the feeling of overload -- that harried uneasiness when you know you have more things to get done than there are minutes in a day.

On a short-term basis, this is completely normal. In fact, without at least some stress in your life, you would die. The trick, though, is to find that balance between no stress and too much stress -- a concept that Dr. Swenson calls “hyper stress.”

“It’s fatal to have no stress, never to trigger that upstage mechanism in your life,” Dr. Swenson says. “A low stress life, teenagers have a word for that, they call it boring and you don’t like boring any more than they do. It’s just been twenty years since you’ve been there, so you don’t remember that you don’t like boring.

But you don’t want ‘no stress,’ that’s fatal. You don’t want ‘low stress,’ that’s boring. Neither do you want ‘hyper stress.’ Hyper stress for a long period of time leads to an entirely different set of dysfunctions.”

What kind of dysfunctions? Everything from irritability and insomnia to apathy and anger.

Are You Nearing Overload?

The symptoms complex of overload is vast. You may get headaches when you’ve taken on too much, or you may simply withdrawal from your friends and family. You may already know what symptoms arise when you’ve gone over your limit. If you don’t, pay attention to what your body is telling you, and when those warning signs go off, it’s time for some major reflection.

You see, aside from the physical risks, overload can lead to dysfunction on the emotional and spiritual levels. It will cause you to become overly focused on the mundane tasks of life, while completely missing out on the deeper introspection; the deep thought that keeps you in-tune with what’s really important in your life.

Your body actually has an innate ability to lead you toward the things you most desire. I’m not referring to material things, necessarily, but deeper things like love, security and finding your true purpose. But when you’re nearing overload, you may miss out on what your body and mind are telling you.

“I think too many of us have distanced ourselves from the spiritual bedrock of our existence,” Dr. Swenson says. “I saw one survey about prayer. It said that about five percent of people who pray say that they do almost all their praying on the run. It is very hard to get a lot of spiritual depth and momentum in that setting.

So when you’re too distracted, when you have no contemplation, no meditation, no spiritual mellowness in your life, no depth or prayer life or something, then you’re handicapped about making these decisions.”

How to Break Free From Overload

If your “warning light” has come on and you feel your schedule is overloaded or saturated to the point where you don’t have time for what’s truly important, it’s time to make some changes.

One of the first ones involves what Dr. Swenson calls “margin.” Margin is actually the opposite of overload, and it refers to creating some space in your schedule. This space can be used to take advantage of unexpected opportunities that arise, or it can be used to simply do nothing.

Now you’re probably wondering, how do I create more time from my already overloaded schedule? By saying no.

“A 24 hour day is non-negotiable,” Dr. Swenson says. “And so I just want us to look at the map associated with this. And 15 years ago you had 20 things to do today. But now you’ve got 40 things. And if you wait another 10 years, you’re going to have 70 things. And that’s the way the curve is going. Believe me.

And once you have 36 hours of things to do in a 24-hour day, you can’t do that. And what I’m suggesting is that people pick the most important things to get done today and then say no to the other things.”

Dr. Swenson’s concepts on margin have provided one of the guiding principles of how I run my life and business. If you’re interested in creating time in your life for the things that are most important to you Dr. Swenson’s books Margin and Overload are essential reading.

It’s so easy to get caught up in daily tasks that before you know it a year or more has gone by. If you look back and realize that your past year went by in a flash of work and stress, it’s time to reprioritize your life. Please do this NOW, rather than later, as life is just too short to spend it on things that don’t really matter.

Also, consistent use of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) can bring about a profound sense of personal peace and freedom from overload. Those familiar with this innovative method may enjoy The EFT Personal Peace Procedure.

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