Going a million miles an hour- Stress 101
When it comes to stress, as humans we all experience stress is like a normal thing. But what like the dangers of stress and how much is too much stress?
We want to be aware of it, but you want to basically prepare yourself. You want to give yourself tools to be able to manage stress. That’s the biggest thing because stress is inevitable. We’re going to have experiences in our lives that are going to induce some stress. There is stress that is a productive kind of stress… Like if you’re thinking about a pilot who is like zoomed in and you’ve got to focus. So there’s this level of stress where maybe it can help you to be really attentive.
But when it gets too much, it could be really detrimental. If you’re really stressed, then that can really negatively impact your focus. It can negatively impact your performance, negatively impact your health. It’s going to be individual. Talking to your health care provider can help if you feel you are worried about your stress levels this is just informational and educational.
One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to every single day repeatedly do things to calm down our nervous systems, to counteract those more stressful situations. Because when you do get stressed cortisol gets released, brain patterns can shift. Fight or flight mode is activated, so you want to then calm down your nervous system and activate your parasympathetic nervous system and that can take a little bit of effort, especially if you’re somebody who is like, go, go, go all day.
If you find yourself getting your coffee and you’re on your phone and you’re doing a million things. It’s important to take breaks and it doesn’t have to be huge breaks. But even like doing a breathing exercise midday, taking a walk out in nature, even doing like a guided imagery exercise for a few minutes. There’s so many different things you can do to help calm down your nervous system. Everybody needs to have their toolbox filled with with different tips to help manage stress.
In addition, awareness is everything. So if you’re not aware of something, you’re not aware of something… it could be happening, but it’s just not on your radar.
So, the first level is awareness. Mindfulness is great for that. It’s just having awareness of what’s happening with your thoughts, what’s going on without judgement and really anchoring into the present moment.
Having awareness of things like “that’s interesting that I’m feeling this way right now” or “I’m feeling really overwhelmed right now” or whatever it is you’re experiencing. But it’s that first step is awareness of it. And then when you create space between whatever experience you’re having and who you really are, you can then choose, OK, do I need to do something about this? Maybe I need to go for a walk again. Maybe I need to do that breathing exercise. Maybe I need to take a break from my phone.
A lot of us are going through the motions and we’re not fully awake in what’s going on or so stuck in our heads that we’re missing a lot. We’re very habitual beings. Human beings are set in their ways of habits.
Having a sense of curiosity. And so not not judging yourself. But just be curious. Maybe you need to do something a little differently here or there. So you are not repeating the same pattern over and over and over again, which is not serving you.
Stress definitely can manifest with physical health. Kristel Bauer says “I’ve had that like when I was working in integrative psychiatry and I was seeing people who were really intense cases. And plus I was going to some of my mom’s doctor’s appointments, which a lot of stress you’re waiting for results. And I would feel really tired or I get heart palpitations. So I actually went and got my heart checked out. What’s going on? It was stress for me. But you have to understand stress can definitely have a negative impact on your physical health for sure.”
The mind body connection is really powerful. So, what’s happening in our mind, our mindset that impacts our bodies and it impacts our actions and a lot of different things. It is key to have tools to help optimise your mindset, integrative approaches to optimising mental health. We sometimes forget that simple things, like optimising your diet, eating more plant based foods, having some sort of practise, maybe meditation or mindfulness, things like that can make a world a world of difference.
One practice to take with you is checking in with yourself. When certain things are going on in you life, you are going to be probably cranking up certain self care practises. Loving yourself and taking the time to really just value yourself, take care of yourself and and be excited about your life. Remembering what gets you excited, remembering what you’re passionate about, remembering your core values. Taking all of that and bringing it into your life and direction. And when you have something you really value in your life and you value yourself, it makes it easier to do this health care practise.
If people are looking for guidance and insights, counselling could be really helpful, too.
Everybody’s going to have their own opinion and you don’t want to live your life based on other people’s opinions if it’s not making you happy. So it’s coming back to yourself and checking in with yourself. What do you love to do? And maybe you’ve lost maybe somebody, lost that spark for whatever reason, but you can always get it back. So it’s knowing you can always find that and reignite it.