The Stress Buster Lensography

Think of this as your guide to the best of Squidoo! I have found so many great lenses on Squidoo, that I enjoy reading and recommending, that I have started this lens to showcase them on. Yes, several of the lenses here were created by me, myself, of course, however, most of the lenses on this lensography are NOT mine and were NOT created by me. Why? Well, because I just wanted to showcase them even though they aren't mine, so there! :P

So, what exactly is this lens? Well, it's a little bit of everything that brings happiness and joy and laughter into daily living and helps to drive stress far, far away. It's a lens I made for the pure and simple joy of the fun I get from making lenses like these. Nothing less and nothing more.

So, have fun, because that's what this lens is all about: having fun, learning to smile, spreading joy, and putting a little laughter in your life. If this lens has put a smile on your face or found some way to relieve even just a little bit of stress in your life, than I have accomplished what I set out to do here.

Nothing kills stress faster than laughter. Putting joy in your heart, drives out all fears and tears and pain, at least for a little while. What this world needs is a lot more laughter in it.

One of the best ways to relieve stress is to spend quality time with your loved ones. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint (also called LDS or Mormon Church) believes this to be true so much, that they require members to set aside Monday evenings as family night, called Family Home Evenings. On every single Monday night the family puts aside all non-family activities: the parents cancel all business meetings and social activities, the children refuse to attend after school sports or band practice, teens turn off their cell phones and internet. . . the outside world is totally and completely shut out: church, business, work, school, friends, all of it, for one night each week, gone. This is a tradition held dear to LDS members, a tradition that has been mandatory for Church members since the late 1800's when the practice of Family Home Evenings first began

Family Home Evening varies in practice from one family to the next, but the basic idea is for the family to get together and do something together. It could be a night of cooking together, a night of playing board games together, a night of going to Pizza Hut and the movies together, a night of reading aloud from a favorite novel, a night of spiritual studies, a night of cultural studies, a night of popcorn and DVDs, or any one of a million other things that the family enjoys doing together as a family.

The point is, not what you do, but who you do it with: your family. Spending time together with your family, doing things together, smiling and laughing, and having a good time and doing it all together as a family, is one of the greatest joys and best stress reducers the world has ever known.

Ask yourself: How much time do you spend with your family? How often does your family do things together as a family? The more you do together the happier you will be.

Making others happy, can wipe out not only their stress but your stress as well. Smiles create more smiles and laughter is contagious. What have you done to put a smile on someone's face and a laugh in their heart?

Having a hobby gives you peace of mind, boosts self esteem, and more importantly ways to relieves stress. Do you have a hobby? If not, you should start one. There are millions of hobbies for you to choose from, all you have to do is find the one that's right for you. I'll spotlight a few of them here on this lens.

No I'm not going to tell you how to start a business, I'm merely suggesting that if you have too much stress in your current career, than it may be time for you to seek other alternatives, and starting your own business is just one of many of those alternatives. A change of pace is often a good way to get rid of stress.

I can think of nothing that brings more joy and satisfaction in life than creating something from scratch. That's what's so good about hobbies, they let you free your creativity. But what if you want to go beyond a hobby? One of the biggest things any one can build from scratch is a business. Even the biggest businesses out there once started out as a home business, just look at WalMart. WalMart, the superstore giant, was once, a long time ago, a little family run shop . . . a home business, that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Granted you don't have to go the way WalMart did and turn your home business into a massive mega-corp, but starting and running your own home business can bring you great joy.

What type of home business should you start? Only you can answer that question. Ask yourself what it is you like to do. Do you sew costumes for the neighborhood kids each Halloween? Than start a costume shop! Do you paint the ocean in oils? Than open an art gallery! Do you cook pies for charity? Than start a bakery, a deli, or a soup kitchen! Do you write stories? Than start a small press publishing house! Do you like to babysit? Start a nanny service! Your options are as limitless as the stars, all you have to do is look for the thing you enjoy doing the most and find a way to turn it into a career!

There are a million different home businesses you can start, and just as many ways you could run it. My goal here is not to tell you how to start a home business or even that you should, but rather to show you that starting a home business could be your answer to getting rid of a whole lot of stress in your life, and it could be your answer to finding inner peace and the joyful freedom of being your own boss.

If you are planning to start a home business, than you could be on the road to a lot of stress. Could be, but you don't have to be. If you already run your own home business, than you may already be bogged down in stress. May be, but you can get rid of it.

Starting any home business should be fun. Should be, doesn't mean it actually is, however. Starting a home business will more likely end up becoming one of the most stressful things you will ever do. Studies show that 7 out of every 10 small or home business start-ups shut down and go out of business in less than three years! What you want to do is to be one of the 3 in 10 that stood strong and made your small or home business last for years to come.

Starting a home business is not easy. Well, it can be easy, but usually it's not. It's long hours, and scraping up pennies to make ends meet, and pulling your hair out as you try to find time to squeeze everything you need to do each day into less than 24 hours. In other words it's stress, stress, STRESS!

The most important thing you need to remember when starting a home business is this:

Take a break once in a while. Relax. Enjoy life!

Your business is not your life. You must control the business. Do not let it control you. Remember to give yourself time off. Don't trap yourself into working 7 days a week, when you really only need to work 4 days a week. Don't work 15 hours a day when you only need to work 6. Do not push yourself to the limits. Stop. Smile. Smell the roses. Kiss the babies. Take your family out to McDonald's and a movie at least once a month. Relax. Breath. Read a book. Watch the sunset. Give yourself time away from your business. Do not let the stress of running your own business take over your life, and you will find yourself running your business 10, 20, ever 30 years down the road.

The true secret to business success is to love what you do, and don't let what you do control you.

Growing flowers can kill stress quicker than anything else. Why? Think about it: you are outside getting fresh air flowing through your lungs and filling your being with living energy. You are listening to songbirds singing you soothing songs to relax your heart. You a smelling the sweet aromatherapy that comes from freshly churned soil and blossoming flowers. It's better than going to a spa! And if you garden veggies, than you also get the added satisfaction of being able to eat what you grew!

Growing a garden is touching a little piece of heaven.

The best thing about gardening is you can do it anywhere. For those of you in city apartments, you can easily bring a garden indoors. All you need are a few plant pots and a sunny window, and before you know it, you have a tiny garden in your own home!

Pets are a wonderful comfort and one of the best things you can do to get rid of stress is to have a wonderful loving pet.


Animals Pictured here are:
My blind Siamese cat "Topie" and his pet budgie "Velvet Goldmine", and my 13 year old Cocker Spaniel "Buddy".

A healthy lifestyle goes a long way to ridding your body of stress. Things you can do too stay healthy include:

Eating lots of fruits and veggies.
Drinking lots of water and juice.
Eating enough, but not eating too much.
Exercise, such as walking, martial arts, gym work outs, swimming, or dancing.

You know the drill, the basic, eat right, stay fit, stay healthy thing. Not hard to do really, and staying healthy means your body can fight off stress that much faster!

A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs.

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

"That's nice," she thinks, "but I want more."

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.

"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

The Stress Buster Lens is also the homepage of The Happiness Club! The Top 100 Lenses in the Group get featured here on this lens!

The Happiness Club is a group seeking lenses to help you bring laughter and joy into your life.

On one of my other lenses I was talking about getting rid of work place stress and it got me to thinking about ways to fill your life with happiness and joy, which in turn resulted in the creation of The Stress Buster Lensography, a lens devoted to finding ways to be happy.

The motto of this group is: A happy life is a healthy life!

We seek all lenses that promote a happy, healthy lifestyle, ways to free yourself from the binds of stress, and funny things to make you laugh. Here on this group we believe that laughter is the best medicine. If that sounds like your lens, than sign it up as our next member!

Enjoy!