Planning your wedding does include meeting many deadlines, negotiating with many different personalities, and juggling numerous relationships successfully. While this does not necessarily have to be stressful, it can be if you feel overwhelmed, particularly if you are also managing a full-time career. If you feel frequently rushed or pressured and feel overwhelmed by this, you let small frustrations get to you, or you find it hard to forget your worries and relax, tackling your stress is likely to improve your health and enhance your success with your shape-up program. At the same time, you can certainly make your life more enjoyable, at least for you and your future spouse.

Other types of stress are not caused by your attitude, but are rather the product of a busy life. For example, if you are driving in heavy traffic and someone quickly cuts in front of you, that might be a stressful situation. You have a legitimate fear for your safety because a car accident could result. Your reaction, however, does not require you to burn off any physical energy. Rather, you remain seated in your car. You're likely to tighten your muscles and experience feelings of tension and anxiety as your body undergoes the physiological and biochemical changes associated with the fight or flight response.

Determining Causes

One of the first steps to learning how to manage stress effectively is to identify the individual pressures — the types of things in your life that cause you stress. The next time you start to feel overwhelmed and stressed out, explore these feelings in greater depth. Ask yourself the following questions to determine what is causing you to feel this way:

• Am I overcommitted?

• Am I taking care of others and neglecting my own self-care?

• Am I trying to accomplish everything on my own without asking for any support from anyone else?

• Are my expectations unrealistic?

• What is going on in my life right now that gives me a sense of struggle?

If you're keeping a journal, try to record things that trigger your stress. You can include these items with the other information that is relevant to your workout progress. Write down the stressful event that happened, what you were thinking or feeling, and how you reacted physically. This can give you valuable insight into the cumulative triggers you face throughout the day.

Identifying Priorities

When people feel stressed out, they often also feel frustrated — as if they're not able to accomplish the things that they feel are important to them. The following is a valuable exercise to help you get in touch with what you want to achieve and how you are actually spending your time. First, write down the top five things that you want to accomplish in your life these days and how they relate to your overall values. For example, one of your top priorities may be to manage all of your wedding preparations to create an unforgettable experience that will memorialize the celebration of your love and your life together with your fiancé. This relates to the value that you place on your personal life and your relationships with friends and family.

Next, write down how you spend your waking hours during a typical day on a percentage basis. For example, if you sleep eight hours a day, then you have sixteen hours remaining. Each hour represents approximately 6 percent of your day. So, if you spend three hours per day eating, that is 18 percent of your day. And, if you spend two hours per day commuting, that is 12 percent of your day. Work on this breakdown until you can get to an accounting of approximately 100 percent of how you spend your time on a typical day.

Most people discover that they are not spending any time whatsoever on items that they have identified as important to them, such as being active on a regular basis. Many people realize they have not allocated any time at all to self-care. If you want to achieve certain goals in your life, you need to make time for them in your schedule. Doing this exercise helps you to be aware of why you may not be achieving some of the things that you want. Now, you can start the brainstorming process to see how you can be more efficient with your time and how you can strategize so that each day brings you closer to your particular goals such as good health, fitness, and well-being.