Stress comes from only 2 sources. Either believing that you are not capable of performing as required, or being uncomfortable in your present surroundings.

I know there are many who will disagree with me, but bottom line is that any other explanation on cause of stress will boil down to one of these two reasons.

Knowing this gives us several options in resolving our need to eliminate stress from our lives. I'm sure you've heard that not all stress is bad, or that we need a certain amount of stress just to stay alive, and other things along these lines. The stress I'm talking about in this article is excess stress that we don't need, and that can cause problems for us.

Many of us are not aware of how much stress we are carrying around with us. There are so few people who actually have eliminated all excess stress from their lives that for all practical purposes we can say they don't exist. If you feel as though you are one of these rare people, then congratulations! But even so, examine what I'm about to cover and see if maybe you can eliminate a little more stress and reach a healthier state of being.

Let's take a look at easier of two situations, being uncomfortable with your surroundings. This could be physical discomfort, or emotional discomfort. Physical discomfort refers to being too hot, too cold, sitting on too hard a surface, and that kind of thing.

I've found that in many cases, discomfort stems from resisting situation and not accepting it. I've never liked being too cold, but when I've consciously accepted it and stopped resisting cold, then I became much more comfortable with it. The same is true in situations that are too hot for my preferences, as well as practically every other physical discomfort that I've tested this theory with. Resistance equals pain, and acceptance will eliminate much of discomfort.

Stress that results from physical discomfort can be eliminated by either accepting situation, or by changing it. The famous Serenity Prayer stems from this idea. If you can change something you don't like, then change it. If you cannot change it, then accept it.

I have seen a huge interest in hypnosis over last few weeks. I have also seen that there is limited interest in developing intelligence and creativity. Memory is still a topic with many followers, especially those trying to find a surefire method of remembering everything without effort.

The human mind has incredible powers. Our mind is capable of processing huge amounts of information at once, and is able to sort out a form of order from sensory chaos. As infants, we are placed in a world where nothing is familiar, yet we learn physics (balance, motion, cause & effect, gravity, momentum, etc.), language, some degree of psychology, and millions of details which are now processed at an unconscious level such as identifying objects from mass of visual information fed into our brain (something our highly developed computers still struggle with).

Not only this, but our minds have powers which are still being discovered. Only in last century has psychic perception been accepted as a scientific fact. Prayer itself has been scientifically tested and found to be a statistically valid exercise. While science has not found out why these abilities exist and what makes them work, it is agreed that process is, at least in part, a mental one.

There is still much research being done. How does one develop these abilities to a point of being reliable? Which techniques are best to use? What are factors that influence a person's ability to use these mental skills? Are genetic factors involved? Are environmental factors important? How powerful can one mind become?