STRESS: Awareness & Control
Stress has a bad rep… well really, more chronic stress. See there’s two types of stress: Acute (immediate) or Chronic (long term). What would happen if a bear was right in front of you? Would you flight, fight, freeze or fawn? In immediate situations like that, we would classify it as acute stress, when your brain tells you HEY! TIME TO MOVE BUDDY! Your brain will release epinephrine and norepinephrine into the bloodstream and then our heart rate increases, blood pressure increases, it slows digestion down, your hair on your skin shoots up. thats all because of cortisol levels drawn into the bloodstream, allowing you to fight back! But what happens when stress happens over a long period of time, such as working in a hostile work environment or living in an area that isn’t doesn’t have good quality air, enough resources to eat healthy, or nearby transportation for you to take. Then we shift into chronic stress, where our body begins to live with the stressors you hold onto, and overtime that could lead to a tight muscles, chronic health conditions that is the leading cause of death in the United States, unhealthy behaviors and coping mechanisms. If chronic stress is not dealt with, it could lead to a deeper rabbit hole of health issues.
So what do you do if you are in that rabbit hole?
Well first if you’ve recognized where you currently are and are not happy with the results its lead you too, nice job. There are countless people living, who do not know how to manage their stress, who do not know what its like not living in stress, and those who do not know how to listen to their body.
Next, building awareness into what is going right and what is making you stressed.
Once you’ve figured that out, its coming up with a game plan. Somethings to know with stress, it usually comes with anxiety, doubt, depression, and just not truly yourself, so if you are planning on making a big change from your current lifestyle, don’t forget that this is about you.
Step three, set a timeline, goals and write out what you can control and not control.
whether it be our jobs or the relationship you are in, your the circumstances that you are in are causing stress, what do you have control over? We tend to look at the easy things, like exercise or food, or sleep. But what about the little things? When was the last time you stayed consistent at a task or hobby of yours? When was the last time you did a check in? How much time do you dedicate to yourself?
These are all questions that you want to ask yourself before committing to a lifestyle change plan. If you need help with this consult a coach! or have an accountability buddy! Once you’ve figured out your controllables , then you need to figure out a timeline, and lastly some goals.
When it comes to stress, and reducing stress, setting yourself up for failure by overloading change at the beginning is another stressor. CHANGE IS A STRESSOR. You are essentially uprooting all the behaviors you’ve been doing for the past three months, or 1 year, or past decade. So don’t expect perfection immediately. Take one step at a time. You have a lifetime to change. When you can change one thing at a time, you can do anything :)
Lastly, what are some goals or outcomes you want from this change? Instead of thinking superficially, like I want to lose weight, or look a certain way. Think DEEPER, when we set subjective outcomes, such as I want to feel great in the mornings, or I want to have energy to workout, or I want to be consistent in daily movement. Or we can think in objectives outcomes such as I want to sleep 8 hours, or I want to have a lower resting heart rate in the mornings, or even I want better body composition. When we chase goals we can actually measure, by journaling or pictures or metrics from a watch, it gives us the ability to know if what we are doing is working.
So I leave you with this amazing Infograph on stress. It’s designed to help you understand stress and how to find your sweet spot! Save it, download it, print it out!
Here’s the download link Stress Infograph Download
Good Luck!
