Hi All,

Just wanted to get some opinions and views on stress.

I would describe myself as sometimes being highly strung. I don't cope with stress in my life too well. Right now, things aren't as great in my personal life as I would like them to be, mainly pertaining to my marriage and it bothers me. Bit of background: I moved from the UK to the USA 3 years ago.

When I get stressed or have a particularly bad day I shut down. All I want to do is go home, crawl into bed or onto the couch and forget that day ever happened. I lose all motiviation to exercise. Like yesterday for example. Yesterday was awful, I got in a small car accident, had a bad day at work, fought with the husband and developed a huge headache that lasted all day. The last thing I wanted to do was go work out. So I didn't.

I'm compensating for last night by going to the gym tonight.

What I want to know is, are there any other people out there who feel this way. Do you lose all motivation to do anything when you get stressed? I really want to stop behaving like this, it's sad. It's almost like when I have a bad day it feels so bad that I just want to lock myself away.

How can I motivate myself to get through the stress? How can I make my life less stress free?

I feel like such a drama queen writing this but yesterday I about drove myself up a tree, so any advice would be much, much appreciated.

I think you have to accept that you can't always depend on motivation to get you through. Somethings you just have to do because they are the right thing to do and because they will get you what you want - whether you are motivated to do them or not. Think about the other areas of you life. Aren't there plenty of things you do because you HAVE to not because you WANT to?

I go to the gym unmotivated all of the time. Sometimes I get there and I just don't have it in me to work at the same intensity and I might even cut my work out short. But, I feel better because I did SOMETHING. But, more often than not, I get there and realize that exercising is a great release and that I am really glad I made myself go. 99.9% of the time my workouts clear my head and improve my mood.

I find for me the gym helps decrease my stress. I always go to the gym early in the AM so I dont have to dewell on it all day, or make excuses not to go. I hate going, but after I am done my workout I fell 110% better, and feel good about myself. Stress is something that will always be in all of our lives, you just got to find your way around it!