While I was writing my book on how to overcome fear, worry and stress, I myself went through the process of suffering all of this. So what I share here is not mere theory. It is my own experience.
Don’t you feel stressed out? Why? It is because the mind is drilling you and killing you with toxic, negative, poisonous thoughts. You don’t get stressed out with happy thoughts. When you are joyous, there is no stress, and when you are stressed out, you just can’t be happy.
Stress is not a rare disorder. In fact, it has become a very common disease, even more common than a cough and cold. Many people have stress for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If they don’t have a meal of stress, they become hungry for it!
Look at our workplaces today. In May 2026, a study of Indian employees found that almost every second one of them lives with high stress. One in four is caught in exhausting 12-hour days. And among women, 72% reported elevated tension, against 54% of men. Stress is no longer an occasional guest. It has moved in.
Look at the Word S T R E S S
What is stress made of? Look at the word S T R E S S carefully. It is a combination of:
S — Sad thoughts
T — Toxic thoughts
R — Repetitive thoughts
E — Exhausting thoughts
S — Suffocating thoughts
S — Sadistic thoughts
When all our thoughts are poisonous, how can our life be joyous?
A Hundred Worries in One Day
In my book, How to Overcome Fear, Worry, Stress, Anxiety and Depression, I have shared the story of a woman who was always stressed. She was stressed about her maid, whether she would come or not, whether she would cook or not and whether she would clean or not. Then she was stressed about her work, how she would complete her tasks. She was stressed about the people around her and what they thought about her or spoke about her. She was stressed about her performance, her career, her growth. She was, at the same time, stressed about what her children were doing in school, their food, their studies and their wellbeing.
Her stress was never-ending, and so she was always stressed out. She had no time to live. All her time was spent in worry and fear. She was nervous about everything. This robbed her of her confidence and courage. It affected her efficiency and stole her peace and joy. Is this the way to live?
Many of us are like her. Our life is filled with stress. What does it mean? It means our life is filled with toxic thoughts.
What the Research Says About Repetitive Thoughts
Look again at the R in STRESS. Yale psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema spent her life studying what she called rumination, going over the same negative thoughts again and again. What did she find? Those who ruminate stay distressed for longer and are more likely to slide into anxiety and depression. She also found that women tend to ruminate more than men.
Is it any surprise, then, that more women report tension at work? When a thought is repeated, it becomes a habit. And once stress becomes a habit, we lose control of our bliss.
How Do We Get Out of This Mess?
It is quite simple. It is realizing the cause. It is our own mind, a mind that we cannot find. It is our own thoughts, thoughts in which we are caught.
It’s all about thought. As long as we have control of our thinking, there will be no stress. When thoughts pour like rain, they push us down the drain. We imagine fears and we rehearse problems. We create fictitious dangers and needlessly become nervous and anxious.
If only the intellect could discriminate stressful thoughts, there would be no stress. But unfortunately, when stress envelops us, the intellect is deactivated. We become puppets and are controlled by strings of negative thoughts, and we dance to the tunes of our mind’s music.
Stress is nothing but negative, fictitious and imaginary thinking. If we overcome the mind and its toxic thoughts, we will automatically overcome stress.
Shoot Down One Thought at a Time
In my book, 12 Steps to Find Peace of Mind and Become the Master of Your Thoughts, I have shared how the mind attacks us. The mind has an armour of weapons that it uses to enter our Consciousness and then block our intellect. First, it creates fear. If the mind doesn’t succeed, it uses worry, and we hurry in our head. It repeats the fear and makes us rehearse the problem, and we lose our peace. But the mind doesn’t stop. It bombards us with STRESS: Sad, Toxic, Repetitive, Exhausting, Sadistic and Suffocating thoughts.
We must shoot down every attack, just as modern-day warfare has defence mechanisms that automatically shoot down missiles and drone attacks that could otherwise be deadly. In Consciousness, the intellect shoots down all these thoughts one by one, as we live with the truth. Thus, there is no stress, no mess, only bliss and happiness.
The one who is established in Truth Consciousness will mind the mind, grind the mind, bind the mind and be at peace.
When we take charge of our life, then we take charge of our thoughts. We still our mind. Then the mind ceases to exist. So does stress. It disappears.
Would you Choose Stress and make your life a Mess?
Or rather Choose to fill your life with Peace and Happiness?
— HAPPPY AiR, How to Overcome Fear, Worry, Stress, Anxiety and Depression
Take the next step, free: Flip Over from Mind to Consciousness: From NEP to PEP. Download the book
About HAPPPY AiR — Atman in Ravi
The Happpiness Ambassador, is a transformational author of over 110 books, a TEDx speaker, lyricist and singer of more than 1,500 life songs, a philanthropist for over three decades, and an Awakened Soul on a mission to Touch, Trigger and Transform lives, and to make this a Happpy world.
The Happpy AiR Movement led by him is a movement to inspire people to discover true, lasting Happpiness through the 3P Happpiness philosophy, and spread Happpiness to others. The movement encourages people to go beyond temporary Pleasure and discover the deeper joy and fulfillment of Peace and Purpose. Pleasure, Peace and Purpose are the 3 Ps, the 3 keys to Eternal Happpiness.
