Possibly the most misunderstood part of stress management is your role in it.

Those who respond to life with negativity or anxiety as most likely to deal with the physical affects of anger, guilt, nervousness, frustration and fear.

These emotions can cause hypertension and high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. Other complications include ulcers, arthritis, asthma, high cholesterol and kidney disease.

People who tend to focus on themselves as the controller of their fate - in fact 'self-motivated' - are more likely to feel a sense of control when stressors affect them. Instead of blaming something or someone else they have the motivation to deal with a problem and look for a reasonable solution.

This may have to do with how you organize the images in your brain. Basically your brain records all your senses all the time. Since your vision is important imagery is a very important part of how your brain thinks.

So the brain thinks in images. Our memories are collections of images. The interesting thing is, we actually have the power to control or change those images. By changing our images we can change/control our states.

Think of a time when you felt some stress. Make this memory as vivid as you can. If you can imagine a time when you were stressed and feel those feelings now. You are 'hallucinating' as that situation exists in the past, not now. You have to recreate or 'hallucinate' the conditions to feel stressed.

Hallucination is normal. We do it all the time. When you think of that situation with an ex that happened 5 years ago and get angry or recall or memory that makes you all mushy. You are vividly recreating an event that has ceased to exist. In other words you are hallucinating in a controlled manner.

Ask yourself, "How can I use this knowledge about hallucination for stress management?"

Think of a time when you felt challenged but confident that you will succeed. Pick even a small event and hallucinate in vividly. Feel the feelings you felt then, now.

Here's the fun part. Go back to the time you felt stressed and notice what details your mind is focused on. Particularly what you saw, heard, felt etc. in detail. Do the same for the time you felt good and notice how these hallucinations are different from each other.

Maybe in the stress hallucination you feel pressure around you (with the world closing in) while when feeling confident you don't. Maybe you say negative thoughts to yourself while in stress and when not, you think of nice things.

Pay careful attention to these next words.

If you take the components of the stressful hallucination (size, feelings sounds etc.) and switch it with the more positive one you will feel better automatically.

This has to do with how your brain organizes your thoughts. Happy thoughts are kept in one area and sad thoughts in another. If you use the happy thoughts way of perceiving things, then that's how you will feel.

It can take you up to 5 minutes to get the feel for the process. Once you know how to change your stressful hallucinations to positive ones you can do it anytime anywhere.

The ability to choose our thoughts, to think what we want, is what gives us the power to determine our attitude and perspective when approaching a problem.

If we allow stress, anger and frustration to consume us, it can be like a runaway train gathering steam and threatening to derail. All you got to do is stop fueling the fire and the train will slow down.