Stress is good?
I often hear people saying 'I'm so stressed' it happens almost every day. Is that necessarily bad though? In the days when we lived in caves and speared wild boars for our diner stress often saved our life. The body's response to stress is to produce adrenaline and prepare us to fight..... or run for it, so in those days we caught our boar or escaped from the saber tooth tiger that was chasing us for his diner! The bust of energy was used up either by flight or fight.
These days however our stress levels are raised by very different things, a certain amount of stress can be good as it gives us a burst of energy and keep us focused on the task ahead , such as taking your driving test or going to and interview for example. However prolonged stress can be caused by life events such as workload, money difficulties, moving house, marriage, divorce etc. Often the problem we have though is the stress has nowhere to go, we don't need to have a physical fight or to run for it , we actually have to stay put and deal with our stressors in other ways!
Here are few simple tips on things you can do easily to help to cope with stress.
1. Learn to breathe!
When we get pressured or stressed our breathing tends to become faster and more shallow, try sitting quietly for a few minutes and changing your breathing.... the idea is to take longer to breathe out than to breathe in, so as you breathe in deeply through your nose counting to 5 slowly, then breathe out slowly through your mouth to the count of 7 , the aim is eventually to make your exhalation breath take twice as long as your inhalation breath, keep this up for approximately 3 minutes to start with and then return to breathing normally.
2. Go outside!
Take a little step outside your front door, breath the air, even if its rainy and cloudy just seeing natural daylight can raise your spirits and a brief walk can really help to lift your mood, just 5 or 10 minutes a day can really help.
3. Get in touch with nature
Even in the centre of the city we can watch the squirrels jumping about from branch to branch or the birds flying above the buildings, take two minutes to look and see what you can see, I bet you notice much more than you think you will, try this exercise... find a patch of grass , in a local park or in your garden if you have one, take of your shoes and stand in your bare feet, feel how the earth feels, just for two minutes, feel your connection with the planet we live on! Go on I dare you ... feel better ?
4. Relaxation
How do you relax? Exercise, read, listen to music, dance ? It really doesn't matter what you do, just that it works, find your joy and devote 5 minutes a day indulging yourself!
5. Baby steps
Sometimes things are so scary we put them off and end up with a great big pile of stressful stuff that we just have no idea where to start with so we avoid dealing with any of it, even going to the extent of tackling tasks we really don't enjoy just to avoid the scary pile of stuff we have built up. Don't attempt it all at once, make a list, choose the most important thing on it, and do that one thing, just one, not all, and when you have done it tick it off and give yourself a reward allow your self to relax before you attempt to cross another thing off your list!
6. Talk
Spend time with friends, connect and communicate with people, often when we are stressed and busy we neglect our social life and isolate ourselves, brooding and worrying alone, make time for a 5 minute chat with a friend, each day, share !
Hope these simple tips help I will blog some more later but for now.... I am off to relax!
©JaneHeron2013
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