This the 6th installment of the healthy habits for writers series.

The following are general life areas that very important. And they can bring to bear, a great deal of negative stress. Negative stress is the chronic, debilitating stress that threatens to block your productivity.

Stresses have threatened and succeeded in impeding my work on occasion. Still there are ways to manage them that can shorten their stay.

1. Health: Most of us get sick from time to time. But if you start to notice the same minor illnesses popping in often, it may be an indicator that you need to change some things.

Often times poor health is a result of missing your sleep, worry, and of poor diet. It may have been okay to lose sleep for days on end when you were young, in school, playing, but for work being sleepy can make you punchy and destroy your focus.

So, to help put off chronic, minor health issues, to think clearly and work most effectively, it’s important to get your proper rest and sleep. Worry can be alleviated by sleep, which points up how circular this situation can be. Worry can also be alleviated by keeping a journal, #7 below.

2. Diet: A healthy diet can affect your work day. There are many options to choose from and dietary suggestions are all over the internet, if you’re healthy enough to eat what you want. If not, consult your health care provider. Here are some suggestions that I followed that help me.

1. Eat fruit for breakfast.
2. Let your first drink of the day be water.
3. Eat light lunch to fuel your body without over filling.
4. Between meal snacks should be brain foods.
5. Dinner should be nutrition packed and not too heavy. If you eat before an evening workout, allow for that drain by having a healthy snack or juice after.

3. Tools: I have simple equipment to do my work. My tools need to work. Computer, external drives, scanner, phone. And I get a little bent out of shape when they don’t work.

When my external hard drive is really behaving oddly. It turns on and off as it pleases. Once for 2 days I fiddled with the thing, the outlets and the connections. I was about to pull it apart when I moved it to a different outlet on my surge protector, (again). A few seconds later, I heard the familiar whir letting me know it was booting up. Finally I called in because it made no sense. From my detailed description of my experiences and experiments, I was diagnosed with needing a new power cord. Since I replaced that I’ve had no more trouble.

Needless to say the experience of possibly losing my external drive gave me a lot of stress.

1. It’s not just backup, it’s also primary storage for many files
2. It’s larger than my internal drive, so it’s not like I could move it back to my computer at all
3. It was giving my problems at a time when I really wanted to focus on the project I was in the middle of

Make sure your tools are current and in good working order. Learn all you can about the tools you use, so that you can use them efficiently, without having to learn every time you use them.

Make sure you have the proper backup system for your needs. If you don’t have a backup system and you don’t worry about it, it may be because you never lost critical data. In that case, preempting such an experience will save you more than you know.

4. Family: My family will make demands from time to time, with no regard to my work or my plans. They make noise, ask questions, make plans, and assume I’m available.

Most times it’s light-weight stuff that I can easily counter. However, there are those times when the pressure to accommodate and comply is stepped up. You know when you can be available. When you can’t protect your space like your income depends on it—because it does.

Over time teach your family that your work and activities matter, even if it is work at home. Some people take it less seriously when you’re at home.

1. Keep a schedule that allows time for family and activities—unless that’s not part of your reason for working at home.
2. Have your boundaries of space and time set clearly for family members to see.
3. Leave home sometimes when there are unavoidable schedule conflicts. You don’t want to miss deadlines if you can help it.

5. Friends: My friends pressures are far different from my family. It’s passive rather than active, like with my family. They invite me to things, and the enticement takes on a life of it’s own. Once the invitation is received and the phone is hung up, I spend my time trying to make happen, whatever was asked.

I get caught up in the vacillation. Yes, I can go. No. I better not. But if I move this and hurry that, then I might just make it. But, wait! I can’t rush that; I’ll miss something.

If none of this sounds familiar, never mind. But, if you’re like me and have great friends that don’t push you into anything, only try to include you, then you know the pressure inherent in being included in fun stuff. This is just another area where self-discipline can see you through. You don’t have to be perfect, just good.

1. Schedule in fun activities when you’re not working.
2. Put your work first. If you can finish it, so much the better. If not, be aware of how much time you’ll need to get the job done and take that time.
3. Reschedule with your friends, if you have to. Friends will understand.

6. Community: We are social creatures. That means we require some measure of social interaction. If you work alone all day, and all night when you’re pressed, you need to find social interactions. It takes more than staying abreast of things by reading the news listening to the radio. Social interaction is how you keep your finger on the pulse of humanity. And isn’t that what you draw on to write whatever you write?

While this is less obvious for people who live with families, it can be a problem for them too. If you’re a writer, (1) you need to be able to communicate with an audience of at least one; (2) you need to be aware of topics and trends that proliferate the airwaves if you write time specific pieces; and (3) you need to network to get your ideas shared.

1. Talk to people online via social networking.
2. Get out and connect with friends and family.
3. Read blogs on topics that interest you and leave useful comments.

Find the fun side of participating. As people who write out of passion and drive, we do have a tendency to want to isolate. Often we feel that this is our more natural state and participation is purely an effort. (Maybe I’m just telling on myself.) In either case, it’s important to make that effort. Finding common ground with others can be a major source of positive reinforcement and knowledge. You’d be surprised at the many things you can learn from people.

7. Writing: It’s not just for work. Writing helps you to work things out, the list out your concerns before they become worries. Keep a personal journal for writing out your random thoughts. It can help you to organize your thoughts. Eliminating the chaos in your thoughts can make you much less stressful throughout your day.

1. Write in a notebook. The physical action of writing can help you connect more deeply to your quiet, nagging thoughts.
2. Write in private where you are free to be fully uncensored, and don’t censor yourself.
3. Think about the fact that you’re not writing solutions, but problems concerns and observations. Often the solutions will come.
4. Keeping a journal can also help you to be prepared for other eventualities that upset your balance.

So that’s it for these seven stress areas. I hope you got something out of some of them. There are other areas that can stress you, putting you out of balance, and making productivity very slow. Be vigilant and be pro-active to counter the effects of stress.

If you have stress areas, how do you deal with them?