You know that feeling. The one where your heart starts to race a little, your muscles begin to tense up, your breaths become short and shallow, your chest tightens and it takes a huge amount of willpower to supress an explosion. Take a deep breath. Exhale.
Do you suffer from stress? Do you simply ‘manage’ it because it’s just the way of the world? Well, let me tell you something and you need to listen to this because it’s really important – you don’t have to.
It has been found that approximately 80% of all visits to the doctor have stress as a major contributing factor. Stress affects us physically, causing high blood pressure, heart issues and a suppressed immune system; and psychologically by causing depression, memory loss and poor decision making. And of course, stress doesn’t help us get a good night’s sleep either.
Here’s how it works. Back in the day, when we lived in caves, our bodies were programmed to set off our stress response when we encountered such things as the sabre tooth tiger. Huge amounts of adrenaline were pumped through our systems enabling us to determine whether we should fight or fly. Once the danger had been averted, the body ceased to produce the stress hormones and everything would return to normal. Unfortunately, these days though, our bodies seem to think we’re fighting sabre tooth tigers constantly. We have such great imaginations that not only are we responding to real stresses but also to the ones we make up! And here’s the problem – when our bodies initiate the stress response, they restrict energy from other systems, diverting it to the limbs so the arms and legs can do the crucial job of survival more effectively. Digestion, excretion, immune function, growth and replacement of old cells are all compromised. So, imagine if you’re stressed most of the time you’re not going to digest food properly, you won’t fight disease effectively and your old worn out cells won’t be restored.
It’s time to stop thinking that it’s normal to be stressed. Just because everyone’s doing it, doesn’t mean you have to. You certainly don’t need to and your body wasn’t designed to be stressed so often. Imagine now how different your life would be if you stressed less? Would you get more done in a day? Would your relationships be more fulfilling? What emotions would you feel more often instead?
So, how do you kick the habit of being stressed? Here’s some tips for daily practice:
1. When you encounter a stressful situation, ask yourself “Is this a real stress? Or simply an imagined one?” If you realise it’s imagined, let it go, don’t give it any more energy and reassure yourself that if it does become real, you’ll deal with it then.
2. When you realise that you’re stressed, ask yourself, is this a good use of my adrenal system? Is this stress worth compromising my health for? Will adrenaline help me in this situation or hinder me?
3. Take deep breaths, regularly. Even when you’re not stressed, just do it whenever you think of it (together with your pelvic floor exercises perhaps?!) because it has a huge impact on keeping you calm and avoiding a stress response in the first place. Prevention, after all, is better than a cure.
4. Begin a practise of meditation. Download the app “Smiling Minds” or read a book called “Into the Magic Shop” by James R Doty MD. Regular meditation allows you to access your unconscious resources more easily. Things such as confidence, humour, imagination, clarity, memory and problem solving, which in a stressful situation are actually extremely useful. It protects your heart, boosts you immune system, reduces the chance of stroke, prevents depression, and increases your memory and decision making abilities.
5. Love conquers Fear. A number of recent studies have confirmed that love supresses the stress response and that people who are in loving relationships or have strong community support recover from stressful experiences more rapidly. Here’s a great reason to ensure that the relationships in your life are nothing less than extraordinary.
For assistance with eliminating the stress in your life, implementing a regular meditation practise or improving your relationships, please contact me now to arrange a FREE initial consultation. racheljakobi@live.com