So many people I encounter are under the direct burden of stress.

Levels of general anxiety in the population today are as high as at any other time in the history of the world. And yet, as you read this you might be like much of the world, living in comparative luxury compared to others who cannot read this, and there are those historically who have faced much harder realities than we do today, yet possibly experienced less general anxiety.

These below are just four items on what would be a long list:

The Infection of Information

We are infected in this day with a plethora of information that has the impact of burdening us more than we are able to cope with. Information is killing us. And it isn’t even as if it’s a case of discerning what information is good from what isn’t good, it is just the flood of information that creates stress and manifests as anxiety.

Don’t just think about the ills of comparison through excess time spent on social media (though envy is a stressor). The problem is much more complex than that. It’s literally keeping up with the flow of information coming in that has an effect on our relationships with real people. Information as a priority, unfortunately, tends to trump people. The more tools and techniques we use to try and simplify our lives in this day the more our lives become complicated.

It’s because we have so much that we want so much.

There is a new addiction in our age, and it’s called the Fear of Missing out. And it isn’t just young people who are addicted; indeed, it is an irony that it is the over 40s who are most entrenched with Facebook these days.

But it’s not just the infection of information that burdens us with stress that overwhelms our capacity to relate with people.

Honesty with Ourselves and with God

This is a stressor that many people cannot stomach let alone reconcile. Even some espoused Christian individuals, particularly those who major on doctrines (information, again, over people!), cannot have an honest relationship with themselves or God, because they lack the courage of vulnerability to be truthful with themselves. They may bend out of context Jesus’ words, ‘the truth will set you free’ all the while refusing the Holy Spirit’s power that would heal them of their pride by giving them a continual awareness of it.

God blesses the obedient; those who will honestly journey with Him; those who have the capacity to fervently repent of their wrongful attitudes, for we all have them. I have found that the way God works with me is, my pride that refuses to be honest becomes a curse against the peace I could otherwise have in my heart.

If we cannot be honest with ourselves and with God, we will be severely limited in our relationships, and because we are not being honest about getting the log out of our own eye, it’s only a matter of time before some relationships shatter through conflict. Some relationships suffer such damage they become irreparable.

When we are honest with ourselves and with God, we see our pride, and how we are tempted to elevate the issues we argue about over the person, and completely miss the will of God.

When we’re honest with ourselves and God, God gives us the capacity to repent of our pride.

Being Aware of Emotional Indicators

Stress has an impact on us at a psychological level affecting the way we think and feel. Like all of what I talk about in this article, awareness is the key. As we recognise the feeling of stress and anxiety within us, we can choose to talk calmly to ourselves, to allow God to comfort us, even as we hope beyond the stressful present moment – ‘This, too, shall pass’.

This kind of stress is manifest in a particularly strong way when we are interacting with people, especially when we cannot control the situation, because we all like a modicum of control. And when we are stressed, more than ever, we demand control. If we hear God saying to us, ‘it’s okay, surrender your need of control to Me’ we can simply do something active in the interaction itself to surrender control. None of this is rocket science.

Getting the Balance Right between Activity and Being

Possibly the final frontier in reconciling stress is how far we skew the balance in our lives regarding activity versus being.

There is just so much to do in life. We often accept that without challenging it. Nobody is making us do this or that.

Many things that we choose to do we don’t have to do.

Very often the wisdom path is in saying no, which in the moment of saying it feels awkward and uncomfortable, but is the best remedy for busyness.

As we fight for the peace we could have in life we reduce our burden and deal with our stress.

Not enough being evokes anxiety; too much doing is stressful.

Whether you are an individual or a corporate body planning your investments ahead is of at most importance. As planning your investments means planning your future financial status and meeting unforeseen with ease and confidence it has become life blood that makes your path of hardships a bed of roses. Planning your finances involve planning your inflows and outflows i.e., In short managing the entire flow of funds during a certain course of time.

Thus, it is a must for anyone to plan your investments well in hand so; that your future will be safe and you can encounter any issue with ease and comfort. A proper investment planning would make your financial distress also a bliss as you always have a surplus reserve for different unforeseen of life. The reasons for financial distress could be multitudinous but the survival rate is higher and quicker for those who are financially planned when compared to those who are not. For having a proper investment planning you must follow few but regular steps which will save you at the eleventh hour. Let us look at few steps that you must follow to cushion yourself financially and to get a tag of well investment planner.

• The first and foremost step in investment planning is to assess your income. Asses all your inflows, which must include any sort of long term or annual cash inflows that you are expecting.

• Once you assessed your cash inflows, the next major step is to set a goal that could be any specific aspect that you would like to achieve with the money you are going to save from this year onwards.

• Once you set forth your goals and assess your inflows the next step is to plan your savings. The other way planning your investments. To plan your investments well you must know what your risk coefficient is and how much profits you want to make out of your little investments. To know this you must look at variety of financial and demographic and socio- economic factors that affect you and your family’s lifestyle.

• Once you are done with the assessment of your risk coefficients and return expectations the next big leap is to set an investment strategy. Under this, you will choose among different investment alternatives that are available to you based on your risk and profit margins.

• Once you choose a basket of investment options, go with the ones that are convenient for you in terms of time horizon, maturity period and return margins and so on. Having a clear investment strategy would not only make you a good investment planner but also a supersaver to your own self and to your family at times of emergencies.

Stress is one of those ever-present concepts among college students, a feeling of unease and discomfort that many students accept as a given and don’t even try to manage or eliminate. Most of the stress college students feel does nothing to improve the quality, quantity or timeliness of their work and as such is nothing more than a drain which makes their already difficult jobs all the more impossible. Read on and learn a good primer for getting started managing the stress in your life.

Is All Stress Bad?

The first thing you need to understand is the fact not all stress is bad for you. We tend to think of stress as a unidirectional thing, as a concept with no possible positive connotations or effects and this just isn’t the case. The truth is there are two different forms of stress out there. While you certainly want to avoid and minimize one of these types of stress it’s a good idea to maximize the other. The two types of stress are:

1. Distress. This is the kind of stress you want to avoid. This is the stress that comes from damaging mental and environmental states and which drains your time and energy and causes you to feel bad about yourself, your work and your life in general. This is the form of stress most college students are accustomed to and it can be caused by everything from negative friends and relationships, overloads of unnecessary work, malicious professors, unsupportive family members or constant work performed which is neither important nor meaningful (to name a few). This form of stress needs to be avoided, minimized and hopefully eliminated from your life at all costs.

2. Eustress. This is a form of stress that is talked about so rarely that few college students are even aware it exists. Eustress is the kind of stress which propels you to work hard on projects and assignments you consider to be important and worthwhile. Eustress doesn’t drain energy, it energizes you and makes you feel better about yourself and your life. Projects which cause eustress may be tiring because they require a lot of work but they never feel draining in the same way as stressful projects. Positive people (friends, family, faculty) and large, ambitious projects which are meaningful to you are common sources of Eustress.

What Stress Management is Really About

Now that you better understand exactly what stress is all about and the fact there are two different forms of stress out there the whole idea of stress management should take on a whole new light. The point of stress management is two fold

1. To eliminate Distress from your life.

2. To maximize Eustress in your life.

Why Most Stress Management Doesn’t Work

The reason most stress management systems or techniques is simple- they simply aim at eliminating distress without attempting to maximize eustress. Eliminating distress is good, it’s great, it’s necessary even. But if you remove distress from your life you’re just going to create a vacuum in your life which you will unconsciously fill with either the same distress you previously pushed aside or from some other negative source of pressure. By actively working to produce eustress, by clearly defining what you’re going to focus on after you get rid of the distress in your life you won’t have to worry about defaulting to negative feelings and drained energy when you find yourself with some free time.

Eliminating distress from your life by cutting out the problem at its source while simultaneously increasing eustress in your life by maximizing its sources isn’t something we’re taught in school so it might take a little practice. Thankfully all you need to do is sit down and write down what and who make you feel distress and then write down what and who makes you feel excited.

When you have your list it’s a simple matter of cutting the one list from your life while focusing on the other. It’s a little easier to say than to actually do, it may be simple but it’s not easy, but above all it is necessary work and the only effective form of stress management out there.

Stress has often been misunderstood to be negative, with few people acknowledging the importance and usefulness of positive stress. In our everyday lives, stress is everywhere and definitely unavoidable; hence our emphasis should be on differentiating between what is good stress, and what is bad. This will help us to learn to cope with negative stress, and harness the power of positive stress to help us achieve more.

There are 4 main categories of stress, namely eustress, distress, hyper-stress and hypo-stress. Negative stress can cause many physical and psychological problems, whilst positive stress can be very helpful for us. Here’s how we differentiate between them.

Eustress

This is a positive form of stress, which prepares your mind and body for the imminent challenges that it has perceived. Eustress is a natural physical reaction by your body which increases blood flow to your muscles, resulting in a higher heart rate. Athletes before a competition or perhaps a manager before a major presentation would do well with eustress, allowing them to derive the inspiration and strength that is needed.

Distress

We are familiar with this word, and know that it is a negative form of stress. This occurs when the mind and body is unable to cope with changes, and usually occurs when there are deviations from the norm. They can be categorized into acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is intense, but does not last for long. On the other hand, chronic stress persists over a long period of time. Trigger events for distress can be a change in job scope or routine that the person is unable to handle or cope with.

Hyper-stress

This is another form of negative stress that occurs when the individual is unable to cope with the workload. Examples include highly stressful jobs, which require longer working hours than the individual can handle. If you suspect that you are suffering from hyper-stress, you are likely to have sudden emotional breakdowns over insignificant issues, the proverbial straws that broke the camel’s back. It is important for you to recognize that your body needs a break, or you may end up with severe and chronic physical and psychological reactions.

Hypo-stress

Lastly, hypo-stress occurs when a person has nothing to do with his time and feels constantly bored and unmotivated. This is due to an insufficient amount of stress; hence some stress is inevitable and helpful to us. Companies should avoid having workers who experience hypo-stress as this will cause productivity and mindfulness to fall. If the job scope is boring and repetitive, it would be a good idea to implement some form of job rotation so that there is always something new to learn.

If you find cracked walls, bulging and cracked floors, and poor fitting windows or doors, it could indicate a foundation settlement. Most often foundation settlement issues result in structural damages to the buildings. Having it repaired on time will save you from spending on costly repairs and also save your foundation from being demolished to create a new one. Having a foundation in distress will cause bowing walls, sinking foundation, sagging crawl spaces, and so forth.

Common causes of foundation distress are:

• Building the foundation on expansive clay
• Improperly compacted backfill soil
• Bad foundation construction

Range of Services

The severity of the damage has to be diagnosed in order to formulate a foundation repair plan. Foundation repair contractors do an on-site inspection to verify the damages, if any, and to understand the present condition of the foundation. Serious symptoms of foundation distress will lead to foundation replacement which is a time consuming process. In other cases, the repair will be complete in one or two days. Push piers and helical piers can be used to temporarily raise the concrete foundation and support them until the repair is complete. Once piering is done, the contractors use mud-jacking or slab-jacking to reinforce the ground beneath the foundation with a ground mixture for strong support.

For an effective solution, you must think of straightening the damages caused inside like installing waterproofing systems and to remove mold or mildew that could cause allergic reactions to the occupants of the dwelling.

Costs Involved

The cost of undertaking a foundation repair depends upon certain variables. The time taken to complete the repair, the tools and products used, the number of workers required, the size of the foundation, the condition of soil around the foundation and the way in which the house is designed are all taken into consideration. The foundation repair experts, while doing a site assessment, analyze the depth of the damages and work with you to customize a solution to repair the damages. Site inspection, customization of the solution, and cost estimates are generally done free of cost.

Foundation repair will include the cost of the products and services provided. Foundation contractors are very cost-effective in almost all cases. Since the companies employ licensed contractors and technicians, and certified and quality products, you can be certain that your foundation is well supported and can withstand the unmanageable forces of nature and time. The services come with a warranty, and a follow-up visit to ensure you are satisfied with the services and the damages have not reoccurred.

A Complex & Heavy Project

This is not a project that you can handle over a weekend with a 12 pack and some buddies. You are not changing a rear differential, or axel, in your truck here. This is way beyond moving an orange tree from the front to the back yard for instance. Experts will be needed on the job. Ultimately, you will be content to have established an effective and permanent solution to your foundation’s distress.

The IRS offers taxpayers a way to solve their tax problems because of a provable hardship without having to go through a more formal and lengthy appeal or offer in compromise. A Taxpayer Assistance Order was designed to aid taxpayers that have suffered a hardship that is directly related to the way the tax law relates to them.

No matter the specifics of your IRS problem, the Taxpayer Assistance Order covers them all. This specific program allows an IRS employee to have full control over your case. They can release a lien, stops a levy, free wage garnishments and much more. If you believe you have suffered an economic hardship because of a tax liability, you can apply for this program by letter or phone.

Do I Qualify?

To be eligible for this program you need to have suffered a serious hardship that is directly related to the tax law that applies to you. If your hardship is only mildly severe you probably don’t qualify. This is important because the IRS is very picky when determining how much distress you are in.

Some of the qualifications for this program include:

1. There is immediate threat to your wellbeing.

2. You will suffer from long term injury or long term distress if your tax problem is not relieved.

3. Your tax issue has been delayed from being resolved for 30 or more days.

4. You will be required to pay large fees for professional help if the IRS does not grant you relief.

Other factors the IRS will consider are whether you will lose your job, suffer a loss of basic essentials needed to live, accrue negative marks against your credit score, or suffer serious distress caused to your physical or emotional wellbeing.

Examples of theoretical situations that would qualify the taxpayer for a Taxpayer Assistance Order include:

1. In a situation where your property has a federal tax lien against it and you have successfully negotiated with the bank to refinance the property to a lower payment you can afford, the IRS will subordinate the federal tax lien.

2. If the IRS is claiming your business owes employment taxes that you claim were not applied correctly for more than a year, then it may require the use of an expensive accountant to fix the misunderstanding. This cost may cause significant hardship and would require the IRS to provide relief.

3. According to the IRS regulations, the IRS must respond to your case when they say they are going to. If you have something pending that the IRS promised to follow up on subject to a certain date, this date must be respected. If they do not respond to you on the date they said they would and a hardship results, you are eligible for the Taxpayers Assistance Order.

4. If you are subject to a levy that takes money out of your bank account and is needed immediately for a medical procedure sometime in the near future. This can be extended to other expenditures that are of high priority in the near future.

What Can This Program Do For Me?

If you qualify for this program the IRS is granted power to do anything necessary under the law that will allow you to receive relief immediately.

Examples of actions that could be taken include:

1. Require the examination division of the IRS to reconsider your case.

2. Force the IRS to act in regard to a tax return, notice, request or any other document that was given to the taxpayer.

3. Release property that has been levied, including wage garnishments.

4. Require the IRS to consider transferring your case to another office.

5. Force the IRS to review your financial information that would favor an installment agreement or other types of relief.

The last thing to keep in mind before applying with the IRS to receive relief through the Taxpayer Assistance Program is that if you are subject to an ongoing criminal investigation you do not qualify.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive behavioral treatment which combines cognitive-behavioral theory and methods with eastern meditative principles and practices. Dialectical Behavior therapy was developed by psychologist Marsha Linehan.

Who Benefits from DBT Skills Training?

DBT can be useful for Borderline Personality Disorder, Substance Abuse, self-injury, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and depression.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training

Usually, DBT includes a combination of group skills training and individual psychotherapy. There are four main types of skills that are focus in DBT.

Mindfulness techniques

Mindfulness is cornerstone in DBT. Mindfulness is an open, accepting, non-judgmental awareness. It helps individuals for accepting and tolerating the strong emotions. Therefore mindfulness considered “core” skill, because is essential to implement the other DBT skills successfully. When you’re mindful, you observe your behaviors, emotions and thoughts from outside, without judging and labeling.

The goals of teaching mindfulness skills in Dialectical Behavior Therapy are:

• Fully observing without judgment
• Describing without judgmental statements
• Participating in the activity with fully focus

Distress Tolerance

Distress tolerance skill is an ability for accepting and tolerating painful events and emotions when, there is no way to solve the problem or get rid of the stressful situation.

Individuals who have low distress tolerance do self destructive behaviors for escaping from severe emotional pain. Self destructive behaviors destroy oneself, one’s family and causes emotional crisis for the long term. Self destructive behaviors include three categories:

1. Self harm.

2. Drug abuse.

3. Suicide.

There are four categories of distress tolerance skills in Dialectical Behavior Therapy:

1. Distraction.

2. Self-Soothing.

3. Improving the moment.

4. Focusing on the pros and cons.

Distress tolerance skills help individuals for tolerating stressful situations and managing difficult emotional states without using Self destructive behaviors.

Emotion Regulation

Individuals with borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and suicidal individuals suffer from uncontrolled emotions such as depression, mania, anger and anxiety. Learning to regulate our emotions enables us to manage our emotions instead of being managed by them.

Emotion Regulation skills include three stages:

1. understand what you’re feeling
2. reduce your vulnerability
3. Decrease emotional suffering.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Our interactions with other people can generate stress. Stress can also lead to self destructive behaviors. On the other hand, our relationships are the effective tools for coping with stress. Interpersonal response patterns taught in Dialectical Behavior Therapy include effective strategies for asking for what you want.

DBT help people improve their relationships and manage conflict more effectively.

Give your new Adirondack chair a distressed finish. The distressed look is a way of imparting a sense of age and use to a piece of wood furniture. Why would you want to make new furniture look old? Some people enjoy the sense of comfort and history this look brings with it, but they don’t want to spend money on expensive genuine antiques. Others enjoy the look but just can’t find what they want in stores, so they take new furniture and customize it according to their tastes. If you want to try the distressed look on your Adirondack chair, you will need paint, sandpaper, and a clear sealant for the top coat. Steer away from a gloss finish, though, as this will only make your chair look new.

Start by applying a light sanding to your Adirondack chair so the paint will adhere better to its surface. Wipe the chair down with a clean cloth to remove dust. You can use a primer first, if you wish. Paint the entire chair with your selected shade of flat paint. Darker colors look especially good with a distressed finish. Allow the paint to dry partially between coats. After you have applied the final layer of paint, allow it to dry completely. If the air is humid, allow more time.

Once you’re sure the chair has dried completely, grab a fresh piece of sandpaper. You will sand in the same direction as the wood’s grain, but you will not sand the entire chair. Sand only the areas that are usually the first to show signs of wear. On your Adirondack chair, this might be the edges of the armrests, the feet, and so forth. If you need additional guidance, examine pictures of distressed furniture to get a feel for where you might sand.

Don’t sand too hard. You’re not trying to gouge out wood or remove a whole section of paint. Sand lightly, just enough to give your Adirondack chair the appearance that it’s been used. You should take off a little paint as you sand. When you have finished this step, get another clean cloth and wipe the whole chair down to remove dust that your sanding may have caused.

Apply your clear sealant according to the manufacturer’s directions. This top coat should help to preserve your calculated appearance of gentle use from degrading into an actual all-over look of harsh use.

You’re done. You have sanded your chair, primed or painted it with the necessary number of coats, and allowed it to dry. Next, you have used sandpaper to distress key areas and edges of your chair-the same areas that would normally be the first to show signs of wear. Then you have wiped down the chair to remove dust and finished by applying a clear top coat. Once the top coat has dried, you should be able to use your Adirondack chair with its distressed finish. Now what’s your next project? A matching side table? Perhaps an ottoman?

Flooring trends come and go. For a while, parquet flooring was highly requested, but that product has since waned. Presently, hand-scraped, or distressed, hardwoods are growing in demand, available for all domestic and exotic species and also in unfinished and prefinished solid and engineered flooring. But, with products labeled “hand-scraped” and “distressed,” is there any difference between them?

Essentially, no. Distressed flooring is characterized by texture, either a smooth sculpted appearance or roughness like just-sawn wood. According to popular hardwood manufacturer Armstrong, distressed flooring has grown in popularity because of texture, which is now considered just as important as color. Texture, Armstrong states, stimulates the sense of touch and sight with the floor.

Two basic styles of distressed flooring are available: classic, which is characterized by a sculpted look, and rustic, which displays more character marks like knots, mineral streaks, and graining. For the flooring to get the distressed appearance, however, the hardwood is altered through scraping (Wire Brushed, Hand-Sculpted, or Hand Hewn and Rough Sawn), Finish (French Bleed or Pegged), or Aging (Time Worn Aged or Antique). In many cases, multiple methods may be applied to distress the hardwood.

Those looking for an even more distressed look are recommended to get a custom job, in which a professional comes in to hand-scrape an unfinished wood floor. He or she uses bleaching, pickeling, beating with chains, or fastening with antique nails to achieve this look.

Nevertheless, no matter if flooring is hand-scraped after installation or before, all techniques are traditionally done by hand by a trained craftsman, such as an Amish wood worker. In fact, certain distressed flooring is labeled as “Amish hand-scraped hardwood.” Yet, certain products labeled “distressed” aren’t actually worn by hand. Rather, the hardwood is distressed by machine, which presses a pattern into the surface of unfinished hardwood. The result is a distressed hardwood floor that has a repetitive look to it.

In terms of adding a distressed or hand-scraped product to your home, decide how long you will want this look for your floors and how great of an area it will cover. If it needs to blend in with existing flooring, consider purchasing an unfinished variety, one that can be stained. If, on the other hand, a full floor is being made to look rustic, opt for prefinished: it takes less installation time and no staining is necessary. On the other hand, if you plan to have a rustic character for only a few years, consider going with a product that can easily be replaced, such as thinner engineered flooring, or hardwood that can be sanded down, such as solid or a thicker engineered product.

There are many different ways that you can change the appearance of the furniture that you have, or of any other object. One of the ways is to do distressed wood finishing. When you do distressed wood finishing, you are really giving yourself a chance to have an amazing piece of furniture come to life before your very eyes. Distressing is a way of making something that is made out of wood, or out of almost any other material, look like it is older and more aged. It is usually considered to be a decorative art, because you are changing the way that the item looks, in order to make it more pleasing to your own eye. Also, distressed wood finishing is looked at as a finishing technique, because it is something that you do that leads to the final design of the piece of furniture. Even though it is called distressed wood finishing, it is really the opposite of finishing, because you are taking a final product that looks brand new, and doing things to it to make it look older and more distressed.

When you distress a piece of wood, you are deliberately making it look older. This might mean that you destroy or manipulate the current finishing on the object, in order to make it look less than perfect. You can do this with sandpaper, and also with something like a paint stripper. Sometimes, you might take off some of the layers of paint, but not all of it, so there might still be layers of paint that are visible over a wood grain that is underneath. After you have distressed the item, you will have a finished product.

In many ways, distressing has become an art form, and a way to decorate furniture and other items in a popular and stylish way. Distressing is meant to give an item a vintage or one-of-a-kind look, which is usually supposed to be old and rustic.

Antiquing is another type of distressing for wood furniture. When someone does antiquing, they are not only trying to make a piece look older, but they are also trying to make the piece look like it is an antique. There are several different ways that this can be done. First of all, the finish is often distressed, meaning that sanders are used to take off some of the paint and to make the entire thing look like it is older. Secondly, the artisan often applies historically accurate paint colors, and puts on an antique-like faux finish. Sometimes, crackle varnishes are used. Sometimes, in order to complete the antiquing method of distressing, the artisan applies accent details that were only found in that particular period of time, like knobs on dresser drawers, or other details that would make the piece appear to be an antique. Sometimes, glazes are used. With glazing, after distressing, the colors blend into the crevices, and give it an older or antique appearance. Many times, if a person wants to continue the distressing in order to achieve the antique look, it is a process that is going to take a long time, and one that might end up being a lot of work.

Another aspect of distressing is putting in things that are made to look natural. For instance, distressing often includes putting in fake woodworm holes. These are holes in the piece that look like they were made by woodworms.

There are many ways to actually distress an item, whether the artisan is doing antiquing or just distressing. First of all, they might sand the finish off of the actual wood item. They might do this by hand or with an electric sander. Also, they might purposefully dent and scrape the object, in order to make it look like it has a lengthy history and has been moved around a lot.

Sometimes, wood is hammered in order to make it softer, and sometimes it is hammered to give it a dimpled appearance. It can also be bleached, stained, pickled, or repainted with paints and varnishes that crackle. These will then crack after drying, making it appear that the paint or varnish has cracked due to age.

Sometimes, antique paints and varnishes are used, which also add to the appearance of an older, wooden item. Another technique includes watering down regular paint, so that it appears to be faded and thinner than it would new. This allows other layers of paint, or the wood itself, to show through the paint layer. Another distressing technique calls for the pain or varnish to be layered on using sponges, which will create an uneven pattern. When an area is painted, the corners and edges are often painted lighter, or sanded down, so that the item appears to be worn.

The goal of all of these different methods of distressing is the same – for the object to appear as if it is older than it is, and for the object to appear as if it has been worn down and is not in as great of shape as a newer item. Distressed wood furniture is often preferred because it appears to have more character and to look like it has a story and history behind it. Therefore, distressed wood furniture is actually quite popular – even if it is something that a person makes for themselves. One can take a regular piece of furniture and distress it so that it looks even better.