Stress – Destress: take it easy

Little by little, slowly, slowly …

Stress can kill you, from the inside out, and we often don’t even realize we’re stressed until it’s too late. So what can we do? How can we identify stress? And most importantly, how can we eliminate it?

As easy as the initial answers may sound or as easy as we wish they were: they are not. Everyone experiences stress to some degree, on some level, at some point. However, when stress becomes that truly dangerous part of your life where it is most literally “eating away” at you, that’s where we need to start focusing. It also happens quite often that others will alert us to our stress level while we are not realizing it or are already really denying it.

For example, I clearly remember one afternoon when I was sitting at home; Years ago and my voice got louder, much louder than I normally speak, and I actually saw and felt it yelling at my cat. This was such a shock and wake-up call for me that I immediately realized that I had to act, I had to reflect and find out what exactly was going on. It may seem silly to some readers, but part of recognizing your own stress level, as I was able to do in this example, is really getting to know yourself and knowing a few other things, like: is it the object of your stress reaction too? the cause?

Let me share with you some thoughts, tips, and advice that have worked for many people I work with. Please note, however, that this is only a brief overview of a variety of issues that often require much more in-depth investigation on your part and mine.

The first step is to be able to identify some stressors (indicators of stress) and these can simply be things like muscle tension that continues for a long period of time, bad mood, constant fatigue where no stimulant can help you, feeling of forgetting simple procedures. or steps you have been doing or taking for years, continuously falling ill, falling asleep and not being aware of it, overeating or binge eating, and using drugs (this includes alcoholic beverages, legal and illegal drugs) to keep going.

Once you identify that you are stressed or realize that someone else you know is clearly stressed but unaware of the danger they are in (hopefully you are the angel helping them at this point), you move on to it. stress management and eventually toward removing stress from your life. Easy right? Incorrect. It is not necessarily easy because we are often so immersed in a cycle of stress or negativity that we cannot dig ourselves up and need help. But sometimes we can or do get the help we need. If you’re not sure how stressed you are, I invite you to take some tests that address individual stress levels. I especially recommend “The Stress Relief Personality Test” or the “Stress Index” from the Canadian Mental Health Association. This will help you get started.

From there, you need to identify your stressors: personal or professional. Again, I highly recommend working on this with someone you trust. You may not do that in the first step, but absolutely for the purpose of reflection. You have to look at these two scenarios and even little things like redness or increased sweating or indigestion and these are the symptoms of physical stress. Your trusted friends may point out other things, such as your sudden inability to make decisions, lack of clarity of thought, constant doubts, low productivity, etc. These may be behaviors that you haven’t really noticed because you are naturally trapped, for lack of a better term, in them.

The biggest concern is that excessive or chronic stress has been directly linked to cardiovascular disease and depression. It can be extremely difficult to get out of both once you have entered the vicious cycle of an unhealthy life. This can mean a heart attack in the first case or clinical depression which, if left untreated, leads to suicide in about 15% of all cases. These are proven numbers and you don’t want to be part of any of this group, you don’t want an ulcer to grow, get addicted to some kind of drug (legal or illegal) as all that happens is a constant veil of cause principal. Which then brings us back to doing the work of identifying your stressors and your reaction. We are all different, so your reaction to stress may be to overeat while mine does not. This means that you need to know yourself! Again, this may sound easy, but it is not. Most of us know the person we let the world see or the person we want to be, but truly knowing ourselves is not necessarily present at the beginning of this journey. However, this early stage is quick and the more you start to know yourself, the more you start to understand and love yourself, and both are key components of a stress-free and healthy life.

Why is it so important for you to know yourself if you are trying to identify, manage, and eliminate stress? It’s crucial because if you don’t know yourself, you may be choosing a strategy that helps others, possibly thousands of people, but may not work for you because it is YOU. For some of the people I work with, physical exercise is the answer to stress relief. They go to the gym or ride their bikes. Others go to the shooting range. These are great options as they activate adrenaline (one of your body’s physical reactions to stress) and therefore eliminate stress immediately. However, the results may only be temporary and I have seen people who have become almost obsessed with physical exercise as a way of not feeling stress, so they really only cover the root cause in their own way; which means that they avoid the real problem, which most of the time is based on the fear of knowing themselves.

For me, once I realized that I was stressed to a point where it could possibly kill me, I made a very important decision: take the time to get to know myself or better: get to know myself again. I’d get up every day 30 minutes early, and I’m not an early riser, to practice light yoga and a nice cup of Coffee Latte. These 30 minutes proved to be my life changer and my lifeline (in addition to my cat, which is the one that alerts me to my stress level, of course). I did strenuous yoga: NO. Did I always do 30 minutes? NO. But I took these 30 minutes every morning, thus starting the morning in harmony and long enough. Some people may call this meditation to some extent. From this first step I began to change my diet. This was a more subconscious change because my body suddenly no longer craved many of the bad foods while paying enough attention to my body and soul each morning. Then I also started to have more time for myself; like not checking all the bills in the mail immediately after returning home, but spending time with the cat first or changing my clothes to get rid of whatever happened during the day. Then I started meditating and things naturally evolved from there. I provide this example because it highlights possible steps for you, but also because it illustrates that we all need to find our own paths, our own strategies, and if you’re not sure what might work for you, a trusted coach, counselor, or friend may have. some suggestions.

From here, you need to identify the “Ws”: When do you feel stressed? Where do you feel stressed? Why are you feeling stressed? This leads to “what” causes me stress. Very often, ironically, it is you who is causing yourself stress because you are disconnected from someone else’s preferences, be it in your personal or professional life. What this means is that your preferences for handling a situation, spending the night, organizing a meeting can be very different depending on your personality than what you are encountering. This is normal, but what you may be doing is blaming the other person or people for your preferences when they are really out of your power. Let’s face it: we can’t change someone else unless they want to, and even then we can only help. So if a friend wants to see a zombie movie and you don’t, there’s no need for stress. Instead, both of you can agree to disagree and watch a different movie, not watch the movie, or watch the movies separately. There is no need for stress, but we often get stressed out by these seemingly simple items, don’t we?

What I’m trying to get you to see here is that you won’t change your friend’s preference for a specific type of movie. You also won’t be able to change the fact that most offices and businesses open at the same time, which is probably why you’re stuck in traffic every morning, so all you can do is one thing: change your reaction.

In other words, when I teach about stress management I mean a seemingly simple formula:

A + B = C.

A is all that is NOT within your reach and doesn’t really have any intrinsic meaning to you.

B is everything in your power, such as your reaction to an event, situation, or person; which means that you must first stop and think about being rational about the situation. This can be done by simply taking a few deep breaths; then you need to move on to controlling the internal dialogue within yourself, avoiding blaming another for your stress or discomfort (the blame game, which means that you are giving away your power to the other person or the event) and keeping perspective of how What is important about this question is what it means to you and what you can do now.

C is the consequence. This is completely in your hands: you determine your attitude and therefore your altitude.

Yes, it is that easy and yes, it is that difficult but more importantly: you can distress your life, slowly and deliberately, according to who you are. This means that you are slowly turning the tide of the silent killer: stress.

I wish you the best and I know it can be done because I did it and many others do it: just remember that you may need to ask for help and that is the first sign of courage and strength on your way to determining your own stress. -Free life.

Natalie’s Forest
Super Focus Mentor
https://www.life-transforming.com
© 11/2013