Stress Less. Achieve More.

Simple Ways to Turn Pressure into a Positive Force in Your Life

AMACOM, 2015

15 min read

10 take-aways

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To make stress work for you, turn pressure from a negative to a positive.

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Psychotherapist and aikido practitioner Aimee Bernstein teaches how to make pressure your friend. Stress can feel like an oppressive burden, but you can transform it into a vital fuel that powers your life and expands your sense of self at work and at home. Bernstein provides a step-by-step guide with helpful individual and team-based exercises that turn pressure into a positive and eliminate stress. She embraces both ancient and current notions of the body and its energetic potential. Respected business authority Peter Drucker wrote, “Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.” Bernstein approaches stress on a more Eastern path, a tack familiar to anyone who practices yoga or Pilates or receives acupuncture treatments. She combines her rigor as a psychotherapist with her understanding of the principles of “ki” to create a meaningful, practical program of stress reduction. getAbstract recommends her methods to anyone who needs to better manage stress. Today, that includes almost everyone.

Summary

Your Essential Energy

You have a powerful bodily energy, a force the Japanese call “ki.” Wonderful things can happen when your “ki flow” connects positively with the pervasive “energy field” around you. You want to unite your personal ki to this universal energy field, a coming together that will sustain you and make you whole. Everyone can experience this connection and a “full mind/body/energy” state. At that point, you will become confident, peaceful, empowered and free of stress. Albert Einstein explained the concept this way: “Everything is energy, and that’s all there is to it.” Quantum physics says that “humans are energy beings living in a sea of energy,” which is “an electromagnetic vibration that composes and connects all life by transmitting information.”

To achieve a harmonious life, you need a strong “energy/ki” state. The power you project must be stronger than the energy the world throws at you. Without a strong energy/ki connection, you will feel “depleted, anxious, afraid or stressed.” Orators and actors harness their ki to transform the pressure of performing into a vital fuel that powers their performance. Successful athletes call this energy...

About the Author

Aimee Bernstein is president of Open Mind Adventures, a leadership and personal development consultancy. She is a psychotherapist, executive coach and organizational consultant.

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C. P. 7 years ago

While reading this article I was asking myself 'what type of person am I?' when I read the Enneagram.
This well written content reminds me of ASICS: animus sanus in corpore sanso meaning that a healthy mind is in a healthy body and vice verca, i.e. breathing techniques calm you down, but your mind also asks for such practices once you understand the concept.
Thank you for the insights.
A. A. 7 years ago

When the going gets tough, the tough get going; hence, if you are not back to school or work yet then it is possibly not the right amount of stressful yet? Does this summary really apply to such thrill-seekers?
D. W. 7 years ago

moving generally helps... to create flow and dilute/spread out...
Only it does not work in really stressful workplaces (or can you imagine s.o. at a cash desk in a supermarket do this break - or in fast food restaurant or in a hospital? this is more for office workers, freelancers,...

Aimee Bernstein