Effects of stress.
I recently read the book, ‘You are the Placebo’ by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He described how stress knocks your body out of balance. It causes physical, chemical & emotional effects. Stress activates our fight or flight instinct, including elevating your heart rate and blood pressure. These effects are necessary for emergencies so our body is capable of returning us to safety by literally fighting the danger or fleeing from it. After the stressor is eliminated, our body returns to normal once we are no longer in danger. Unfortunately in our current state of life we deal with constant stressors and our body is consistently feeling these effects. Being in that heightened level due to stress, leaves us with less energy for growing and healing.
What Can We Do to Reduce Stress?
1. Forgive yourself easily
Often we place the stressors on ourselves. We have high expectations for ourselves which is great at times. Push yourself to achieve more. But also give yourself grace if you don’t accomplish it all or if it turns out different than you originally expected. Beating yourself up is not going to help a thing.
2. Meditation
Finding even just 5 minutes in your day to devote to stillness and calm is extremely beneficial. Physiologically it helps your body by bringing that heart rate and blood pressure back down. And mentally it gives you a chance to build up your serenity, so you can handle the chaotic times throughout the day.
3. Deep Breathing
This is a great tool to use on the go during stressful situations. Take some deep breathes, get the oxygen flowing and let out the stress.
4. Journaling
We often feel overwhelmed and stressed with situations and we may not even truly know why. You have feelings and thoughts but it’s jumbled and you can’t communicate or act on it. Journaling is very helpful to release your emotions and make sense of them. It feels therapeutic and it’s enlightening as well. (yes, I truly believe this works if you type it instead of hand write as well).
5. Movement
Take a walk outdoors if you can. Keep this one simple. Move however you can, whenever you can. Let that dopamine release and you WILL feel better.
6. Hugs
Hug a loved one or get a weighted blanket. This one again will release that dopamine AND literally decrease the stress hormone (cortisol) in your body. Out and about and feeling stressed, give yourself a hug – it does the trick.
7. Sleep
Take care of yourself and get sleep. I recently heard Mel Robbins on a podcast suggest to put your phone on the charger across the room. The original thought it to be able to get up at the hour I planned for productivity purposes. I also found that this has eliminated the mindless scrolling on social media past the time I wanted to sleep. I am getting up earlier, but ultimately getting more sleep. Listen to your body and get extra sleep time in when you need it.
When you free yourself from the burden of stress, you’re able to focus on better things in life. You can feel more happiness. You can put energy towards accomplishing goals you have in mind. It’s easy to get stuck in the endless cycle of being stressed and not having the energy to get yourself out of the stressful situations. This is exactly why I wrote this article. Refer to it and choose one option to incorporate. It will break up the regular cycle and help you break free. It’s not easy, but give it a try. I’m not saying you will be stress-free, but it is possible that the stress will be less. Much less. Which makes room for more.
