Dealing with and Understanding Stress

Part 1 - Understanding Stress

The experience of stress is a topic that everyone can relate to. We all experience it from time to time. Many of us experience it frequently.

Tens of millions of people have stress-related illnesses such as chronic fatigue, body pain, and autoimmune diseases. Stress can result in addictions, anxiety, insomnia, and depression which happens to be ten times as widespread as it was just a generation ago. Our nervous systems aren't built for the stressors of the 21st Century. Between work, family, and finances we have constant deadlines and demands.

For many people, chronic stress is so common it has become a way of life. The feeling of anxiety, being overwhelmed, and depression has been normalized. We look around and everyone is stressed so we don't view it as a problem but it is. When we're under stress, hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are released which rouse the body for emergency action.

We can feel stress in our bodies, our heart pounds faster, our muscles tighten, our blood pressure rises, our senses feel sharper. Ultimately, this fight-or-flight stress response is our body's way of protecting us. In emergency situations, stress can actually save our lives by making us alert when we need to slam our foot on the brakes or quickly swerve out of the way to avoid an accident so you can see how stress can be useful but it's the opposite of useful when our fight-or-flight response is stuck in the on position and that's the case for many of us.

The stress we experience in our mind not only impacts our physical body but it alters the way we think, feel, and relate. The good news is that we literally have the power to rewire our own brain and even though our brains, bodies, and nervous systems have been exposed to stress, mindfulness can significantly contribute to healing that damage.

Much of our stress is caused by problems that feel out of our control or inconvenience us and we have this idea that if we just fixed each problem everything would be okay. The thing is when we fix one problem, it doesn't take long before another appears. Our problems change as we do. If we're poor, we deal with poor people's problems. If we're rich, we deal with rich people's problems. If we're single, we deal with single people's problems. If we're married, we deal with married people's problems.

Problems never disappear and we can't change that but we can change how we perceive those problems and respond to them.

The approach you take in any situation, determines the outcome.

Part 2

As you read this, try and relax your body and mind.

Unfortunately, we are always going to experience stress. Be it at work, our home, romantic life and relationships, it’s a way of life.

Example: You’re on your way to work and experience bumper to bumper traffic, whether you’re behind the wheel of a car, on a bus, sitting on a train that isn’t moving and knowing you’re going to be late for work and there is nothing you can do about it. Its nerve racking. What you might not notice is the impact stress can have on the physical body. As you etch the clock ticking, you may be unaware your breathing has become rapid or irregular, perhaps your body temperature, heart rate or blood pressure rises, or your neck muscles tense up. Even though we are only stuck in traffic, our body can still react as though we are facing a life or death situation, that’s because our autonomic nervous can not always distinguish between basic stress and life-threatening events. We often don’t notice our physical reactions because our focus is on the cause of our stress and not on how it impacts us.

Whenever you experience stress it can be noticed somewhere in the body and because mindfulness helps you tune in to what’s going on within, once you have an awareness of how stress is affecting you in the body, you can make efforts to relieve that stress and tension.

It’s important to make a healthy structure for how you plan and deal with the stresses that life can bring you and do so in the healthiest fashion possible.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the last time you experienced stress. It could be work, family, health, a fear of takin risk, making a change or facing a disappointment. Just bring one scenario to mind and realize how it really felt to experience.

Now let go of that thought and notice how your body feels. Let it all go.

You might find this weird but its only when we can recognize how stress impacts our body and life when we can make a plan a to fix it.

Part 3

Try and take just a moment while you read this, to let yourself relax. Blow out the world for a moment and just be in this moment to focus on you and how you feel.

In part 2 we were talking about how stress stores in the body as physical sensation. In this part we are going to look at what happens when we tune into our emotions. Many of us find the strong emotions that surface in times of stress to be overwhelming. Growing up many of us were told that we should not feel scared or sad, so when we did, we learned to suppress or deny our emotions. We learned how to eradicate our pain, not explore it or invite it in. As you probably noticed, ignoring stress does not work.

Emotions are meant to come and go so when we repress and ignore them stress builds in all kinds of ways until our symptoms become impossible to ignore. Our pain roots deeper and grows stronger. facing strong emotion as it surfaces is not easy. But the holding back and running from our emotion prevents us from recognizing how much stress we are holding. Stress can be helpful because it's an informer it tells us when we need to make a change. when we face our pain, we are offered opportunities to learn and grow and potentially alter the circumstances that are creating our distress.

Take a moment to take inventory of what your body is feeling right now. Allow your attention to reflect on what emotion might be lingering just under the surface. Take time to breath and clear your mind. Give yourself time to be aware of your senses. Some emotions might be strong or too much to deal with. You do not have to tackle it all right now. Just be aware of it.

Stress is manageable; however, it requires a calm structure that does not create more tension.

Part 4

Today we are going to look at ways that we exacerbate our own stress. we do this with our thoughts and our language all the time without realizing it. Things happen that we do not like, and we blame ourselves or others. Today we will focus specifically on the negative ways that we talk to ourselves. We all can intensify stress by being harder on her selves. Use language that we have never used when talking to others. When something does not work out and we feel the slightest bit responsible it makes us feel useless.

We call ourselves a loser or a failure and all that does is intensify the stress itself. The reason why this happens is because when we become stressed and anxious, we begin to view things in a distorted lens. And as our distorted and negative thoughts arise, they hook us, release in, and we believe them, and it reels us in. We believe them without thinking twice. If someone breaks up with us and we tell ourselves that we are worthless, that we are a loser, is that kind of thinking going to serve us or is it going to create more stress. More importantly is that thought even true. Are we worthless or are we just not a good fit with that person? Instead of berating ourselves we could instead offer ourselves compassion the way that we would with a friend. Think about how that could alleviate your stress.

Think about how that would alleviate our stress. What is important to understand here is that we have these thoughts in stressful moments, and it is like our vision is blurred. We fall into habitual negative self-talk almost immediately. So, we want to be able to view these thoughts as events that happen in our mind. Passing events that come and go. When a negative thought arises think of it as a cloud passing the Sky just step back watch it calm and watch it go and do not attach to the thought. you can even say to yourself there's a negative thought and I acknowledge it but I refuse to get swept away by it in this state. It is temporary it will come, and it will go.

If you are having a hard time getting your mind to be still and if your thoughts are active and your mind keeps wandering, just notice if there's frustration or impatience. When thoughts like this arise notice how it makes you feel opposed to gentle compassionate thoughts where you congratulate yourself for taking the moment to just breathe to just blow it out.

Each time you notice thoughts that are harsh or judgmental, simply treat them as passing events that come and go.

Sometimes mindfulness is described as seeing clearly. it allows us to see how stress creates filtered thinking. We can notice how we fall into old storylines that do not service. In this scene allows us to be mindful as to which thoughts to give weight to.

So, as you move to the day try this practice to observe yourself talk. And notice when your thoughts are negative. And when you notice that see if it's possible to retrain yourself to view those thoughts as passing events and simply let them come and let them go.

Just because you have thoughts does not mean it is true.

Part 5

In our last segment, we explored how negative thoughts we have about ourselves exacerbate stress. Hopefully, you have an understanding now of how it can benefit us to view thoughts as passing ideas, rather than absolute truths. Well the same goes in the way that we interpret events. When we feel anxious or stressed, we tend to fall into a Habitual way of thinking where we exaggerate situations, discount the positive and mind read.

Let us use the example of getting fired, a legitimate thing to feel stressed about but as our panic grows, we begin to exaggerate and distort the situation. We tell ourselves that because of the job market or our age we will be unemployed for years. We exaggerate the negative and discount the positive ignoring our strengths, talent and experience. The result, we endure stress that is based on an assumption. We also mind read. Let’s say we hand in a report to our boss and don’t hear back from her. We assume that she hates it. We spend the next two days obsessing about what we did wrong. Eventually she gets back to us letting us know she has been busy and it’s great. In the meantime, we have experienced stress that was totally unfounded.

Another example is when we catastrophize. imagine we put a lot of time effort and money into starting our own business. AS we get close to launching our stress grows. WE become anxious about all the things that could go wrong. Or, we decide that because we’ve had past failures, this venture will result in failure too.

We have no idea how it will play out. But in the meantime, our beliefs are bound to impact our productivity our confidence and our wellbeing. So how we tackle events directly impacts our stress level. We create all these stories about the future that intensifies our anxiety. However, if we can mindfully observe how we are interpreting events, we have the power to question it, challenge it, and alter it.

In the same way that we practiced viewing negative thoughts about herself as temporary ideas and not as absolute truth, this is how we want to practice viewing all our thoughts and beliefs. If we can change our thoughts about the situation our experience of the situation changes.

Moving forward, try to observe when you are viewing your circumstances with filters and assumptions. Notice when you exaggerate or magnify situations, or when view with a mental filter as opposed to seeing the big picture. One of the gifts that comes from awareness is the opportunity to question our thoughts, the way we think about things affects whether we are exacerbating or de-escalating our stress. We make mountains out of molehills again and again. But we do not have to.

Do your best to observe how you are interpreting the events in your life. Make efforts to drop the stories. let go of assumptions and the belief that all thoughts are true. With a balanced perspective, stress begin to soften, and we can make calm and clear judgments that best serve us.

Be happy and healthy my friends.