The impact that stress and the resulting stress responses have on your life can be attributed to four things:
1. Sleep well and find a regular sleeping routine. Sleep is the original deliberate rest. While you sleep your brain is consolidating memories, repairing physical damage and generating dreams. When we fall asleep, our bodies shift into maintenance mode and devote themselves to storing energy, fixing or replacing damaged cells, and growing, while our brains clean out toxins, process the day’s experiences, and sometimes work on problems that have been occupying our waking minds. And your life depends on it.
Sleep deprivation has immediate effects on your ability to focus, make good judgement, perform under pressure and be creative. Long-term sleep deprivation can affect your mental health and physical condition.
According to Ayurveda, going to bed and waking up around the same time every day helps settle the mind. Create a night-time routine and take time to wind down and relax for an hour before you go bed. During that time avoid active and stimulating activities (TV, computers, smartphones, work) and opt for quiet and relaxing activities (meditation, gentle breathing exercises, etc.). Avoid drinking alcohol or caffeine before bed.
2. Naps are a wonderful way for maintaining mental balance, renew energy and revive your spirits. They increase alertness and decrease fatigue – a short 20-minute nap boosts your mental clarity and ability to concentrate by giving your body a chance to restore depleted energy. Sleep scientists have found that even a short nap can be effective in recharging your mental batteries. Naps can even provide an opportunity to have new ideas. Their work shows that you can learn to time your nap to increase the creative boost that it provides, make it more physically restorative, or probe the traffic between the conscious mind and unconscious. Regular napping can even improve memory and performance on perceptual tasks.
3. Eat nourishing food in moderation and take time for yourself when you eat (e.g. avoid eating in front of the computer). As a golden rule, I nourish myself with one home-cooked meal a day. If I don’t have time for that, I know it’s time to reassess my routine and priorities.
4. Get regular physical activity and engage in activities that reduce your chronic stress and ultimately help you feel relaxed, rested and happy. This could be yoga or meditation, but it could also be any other activity that you enjoy and find relaxing: walking, running, surfing, fishing, boating, painting, reading a book, listening to music, dancing, singing, etc. Aim to find active ways to manage your stress. Inactive ways to manage stress – such as watching television, surfing the internet or playing video games – may seem relaxing, but they may increase your stress long-term.
5. Practise relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, tai chi or massage.
6. Seek connection and spend time with family, friends or your community.
7. Keep a sense of humour and give yourself permission to laugh. Laughter really is the best medicine – it decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies. Laughter also triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals, and can therefore promote an overall sense of wellbeing.
It is important to find what works for you and then to do it consistently. Consistency may be more important than intensity. For example, going for a walk on a frequent and regular basis for reasonable amounts of time will almost certainly be better than jogging as fast as you can once every few weeks. Genuine support from friends and family, and having someone you can truly talk to, can also be an effective chronic stress buster.
The Stress Management Planner can help you keep track of the stress factors in your life and how you tend to respond. It can also help you to choose tools and resources so you can manage your stress levels day-to-day more effectively.
Be well.
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For most of us, we begin our yoga practice on the yoga mat with poses and breathing. We focus on the body by working to open it and become more comfortable with being in the physical body. However, a simple scan of the Yoga Sutra and Bhagavad Gita will cast the body in a very dim light. Even the most liberal yogis see the body as an illusion.
It is important to note that yoga does not view the body as bad; it simply helps us to realise that we are not the body. How could we be – the body is changing all the time, however deep within us, there is an unchangeable essence. The body is an expression of a deeper truth.
Prana (life energy or life force) is the one thing and the state of our consciousness that will dictate what our experience of that life is like. Prana is flowing through you right now, and it is being guided, for better or worse, by your consciousness. If your health, your relationships, your emotional state, or any other aspect of your life is not where you want it to be, you have a choice. You can sit around and complain, making yourself a victim or you can start to reshape the banks of your river.
Practitioners of energy medicine believe that the human energy (prana) field contains and reflects each individual’s energy. It surrounds us and carries with us the emotional energy created by our internal and external experiences – both positive and negative. This emotional force influences the physical tissue within our bodies. In this way, your biography –that is, the experiences that make up your life- become your biology.
Experiences that carry emotional energy in our energy systems include past and present relationships, both personal and professional; profound or traumatic experiences and memories; and belief patterns and attitudes, including all spiritual and superstitious beliefs.
As neurobiologist Dr. Candace Pert has proven, neuropeptides -the chemicals triggered by emotions- are thought converters into matter. Our emotions reside physically in our bodies and interact with our cells and tissues. In fact, Dr. Pert says, we can no longer separate the mind from the body, because the same kind of cells that manufacture and receive emotional chemistry in the brain are present throughout the body.
So, we are all living history books. Our bodies contain our histories – every chapter, line and verse of every event and relationship in our lives. As our lives unfold, our biological health becomes a living, breathing biographical statement that conveys our strengths, weaknesses, hopes and fears.
Find out more during my Body Soul workshops and retreats – I would love to see you there!
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Each of your stress responses have a purpose – at least your body thinks so – and are beneficial to your overall wellbeing. However, if your body constantly moves back into a stress response, such as when you re-experience a childhood trauma, this pattern can keep you stuck and have a significant impact on your life in the present.
The best way to ‘outsmart’ yourself is to become aware. It’s not an easy task at all, but it’s one of the most effective ways to change the circumstances and direction of your life.
The key to reducing long-term stress-related impacts on your health and wellbeing is to practise the Relaxation Response, which can be found when you are in your green zone. The term Relaxation Response was popularised by Dr Herbert Benson in 1975. In his book The Relaxation Response he describes the opposite of the Fight or Flight response and the way the body returns to baseline after a stressful event. Dr Benson describes the Relaxation Response as a physical state of deep relaxation, which engages the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).
It is important to find what works for you and then to do it consistently. Consistency may be more important than intensity. For example, going for a walk on a frequent and regular basis for reasonable amounts of time will almost certainly be better than jogging as fast as you can once every few weeks. Genuine support from friends and family, and having someone you can truly talk to, can also be an effective chronic stress buster.
Also, be mindful of your external environment and begin to make choices that support your wellbeing. Who are the people you spend time with? What are the conversations you engage in? How do you choose to fill your time? How does your work and the environment you work in make you feel?
The Stress Management Planner can help you keep track of the stress factors in your life and how you tend to respond. It can also help you to choose tools and resources so you can manage your stress levels day-to-day more effectively. Good luck!
If you would like to learn more, join me for my next Body Soul Workshop | Release & Reset on Saturday, 11 May 2019 from 2:30-5:00pm. We will look at and release some of the patterns that stress can manifest in body and mind and reset both. This session will be of great benefit to anyone interested in learning more about how our mindset and patterns can keep us stuck and small.
For more details head here: http://www.qiyoga.net/events/body-soul-workshop-release-reset/.
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Sometimes it seems stress is all everyone talks about. Plenty of us experience it as a normal part of life, but it can become a major problem when it starts to take over and rule certain parts of your life.
When that happens, it can truly become debilitating, affecting the way you experience or move through life. It might even be the root cause of an array of symptoms you can be experiencing, ranging from physical to emotional.
The severity and longevity of stress you experience can range from something as simple as being frustrated with peak-hour traffic or being late to an appointment through to losing a job or experiencing separation or divorce. All of us have experienced it in one form or other and all of us know it can be a daunting experience.
How do we avoid stress without avoiding meaning, growth, purpose and development? There are a number of coping mechanisms that together, not in isolation, can work as effective strategies in response to stress. Surprisingly, one of them is to befriend your stress.
In her Ted Talk, health psychologist Kelly McGonigal shares a fascinating idea: that the harmful effects of stress may be a consequence of our perception that it is bad for our health.
“Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier? Here the science says ‘yes’,” says McGonigal. “Your heart might be pounding, you may be breathing faster… but what if you viewed them as signs that your body was energised and it’s preparing you to meet this challenge.”
Understanding this was a game-changer for me. I recognised that when my body is under stress and presenting me with severe stress responses, that those responses weren’t the enemy – they were my friend. I became aware that my body adopted them to support me through the challenges before me and ensure I’m equipped with what I need to meet and overcome those challenges.
With that knowledge I was able to change the way I responded to stress. Instead of resenting or trying to stop the stress responses within my body, I began to acknowledge and appreciate them.
If you would like to learn more about the tools to effectively manage stress and its impact on your life, join me this Saturday for my Body Soul Workshop at Qi Yoga in Freshwater.
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