The Stress Series: Part II

In this release, we provide you with practical, wellness-enhancing, stress-relieving, perspective-building activities to integrate into your day-to-day.  

In the first part of this series we broke the news that you can’t manage stress by taking a pill or completing an amazing three-day-stress-detox-juice-cleanse that a friend recommended.

Setting yourself up better cope with chronic stress, and to productively respond to acute stress, requires you to invest time into quite simple, daily things that most people are generally capable of and should be prioritising for their wellbeing anyway.  

Unfortunately, though, us humans have dug ourselves into a bit of a hole with our busy-ness, hedonism and need for instant gratification. We often forget to prioritise the little things that truly do affect a higher baseline level of wellbeing so you are set up to better tolerate life, manage stress and navigate adversity, setbacks or strain (a.k.a. be resilient).

WARNING: The following list may feel overwhelming (ironic?) or make it feel like you need to become the most boring person on the planet to combat everyday stress. You don’t. Like everything else in life, this is all about balance.  If you aren’t doing any of these things, try introducing just a few of these positive changes and then try to keep slowly building from there.

+ Practise Gratitude

The act of consciously expressing appreciation for what you have - recognising value independent of monetary worth.

Gratitude comes to some of us easily but is also an emotion that can be practised and cultivated.

It has many physical and mental benefits, including:

• increasing mood
• lowering stress levels
• strengthening the immune system
• lowering blood pressure
• enhancing social connection (which itself has this whole host of positive benefits).

There are many different ways you can practise gratitude. Do whatever is manageable and comfortable for you but try to do something that constitutes gratitude at least a few times day:

• Thank someone.
• Praise someone - practising positive feedback reinforces good behaviour, creates a positive environment around you, but also releases your internal trifecta of ‘happy’ hormones - dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, bringing you pleasure.
• Stop to appreciate something positive around you or about your life.
• Quietly think to yourself “how lucky am I that I [fill in the blank]”.
• Express this same sentiment verbally to someone who will appreciate it.
• Keep a journal, or take a moment to write down three things you are grateful for each day.

+ Savour

The act of ‘stepping out’ of an experience to review and really appreciate it, while it's happening.

Savouring boosts our mood by working against our hedonic adaptation and reminding us what’s good in life. It reduces mind-wandering and multi-tasking, i.e. not really living in the moment, and increases gratitude.

It intensifies and lengthens the positive emotions that come with doing something you love.

To savour:

• During a positive experience you have at home or at work, stop to savour it during that experience. Take a second to notice how you're feeling and recognise why it makes you happy. Remember it later.
• At the end of the day (I do this in bed with my kids at night) reflect on what you savoured today, and why. This imprints the emotions in your memory to strengthen and reinforce them over time.

+ Sleep

Get at least 7 hours per night.

Sleep deprivation reduces your ability to cope with stress and is also a stress inducer for the body so working to maximise both the quality and quantity of your sleep is in your best interests.

Consistently good sleep relies on the body’s inner functions working to a cyclical rhythm, which means your quality of sleep reduces when your sleep-wake cycles are disrupted or inconsistent.

Try to make your sleep patterns as routine as possible - like going to bed and waking up at similar times each day, even through the weekend - your internal body clock and hormonal rhythms will sync better which in turn helps you to fall asleep easier, sleep more soundly, and wake up feeling more refreshed.

Practise good sleep hygiene - give yourself a bedtime routine (at least loosely), like you would do for your kids:

• Minimise device use after dinner - especially those emitting blue light. At least turn ‘Night Shift’ on your phone if you’re too addicted to put it down.
• Stop working at least an hour before bed to still the mind, ready for sleep.
• Limit alcohol intake during the evening and re-hydrate well in advance of bed so you’re not getting up through the night (‘SOS’ or re-hydrate electrolyte sachets are a good trick if you’ve over-indulged but still want a good night’s sleep).

+ Hydrate

Keep yourself well hydrated with water. Not energy drinks, soft drink or juices.

Multiply your weight in kilograms by 0.033 to determine the ideal amount of water your body needs per day (in Litres), then add another glass for every caffeinated drink and 30-minute interval of exercise you take.

I find it helpful to have a bottle with me at all times and set a goal for how many to get through each day (e.g. 3 x 750mL bottles).

+ Nourish

Eat real food, while you are in a stable mood state.

Fuel yourself predominantly with colourful food produced by Mother Nature.

Crowd out processed or sugary foods and drinks with healthier alternatives. i.e.:

• Drink herbal teas or hot water with lemon instead of a second, third or fourth coffee.
• Replace packaged and over-processed foods with something you’ve made yourself.
• Cook extra at dinner so there’s enough leftover for lunch the next day.
• Add something green to as many meals as you can - this could be herbs, green vegetables or leafy greens.
• Fill up on the healthy portion of the plate before you devour the nutritionless calories.

Avoid eating foods that have numbers or ingredients on the label that you don’t recognise.

Make time and space for eating. Stop working, spend time preparing or gathering something truly nourishing and take time to sit down to eat it in peace, not doing three other things at the same time.

Take three slow belly-breaths to put yourself in a calm ‘rest and digest’ state. Interestingly the emotional state we consume food in affects the way our body processes that food and consequently the nutrients we are able to extract from it.

+ Move

Get your blood flowing and increase your heart rate. Anything will do!

Exercise releases feel-good chemicals that improve your mood, state of mind, body and heart health. It also reduces the incidence of disease.

It’s a fantastic way to blow off some mental cobwebs - to stimulate cognition and provide space for you to process problems.

Prioritise the time for exercise and make it a manageable part of your week. 10 minutes a day is better than nothing!

Find ways to increase physical activity in your life - remember it’s about progress, not perfection.

• Start by allowing yourself to take an active 10-15 minute break from your day every 2-3 hours. Take a short walk around the block or do ten minutes of cardio in the living room - this is the perfect way to refresh the mind and avoid that afternoon slump.
• Find something you genuinely enjoy and build it into your weekly routine.
• Remember exercise doesn't need to be an hour of high intensity, sweat-dripping, heart-racing vigour. Anything that raises your heart rate will do.
• Take the stairs, bike to work, walk, run, register for a social sport, practise yoga, do pilates, play frisbee with the kids.

Exercise is best when it’s in balance too.

• Look at the nature of your life - is it high octane, stress- or adrenaline-fuelled?
• If so, take exercise that moves you out of your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) state (fight or flight mode) and back into the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).
• Try yoga or a walk outdoors once or twice a week instead of fuelling your SNS even more with high intensity cardio and huge weights (you can still do this if you want but remember to give your nervous system a rest too!).

+ Connect

We need to love, feel loved and to belong.

Humans are inherently and profoundly social creatures. Our drive to connect with others is embedded in our biology and evolutionary history.

Not only are our brains wired to drive us to connect with others but when we do, we experience the same happy-hormone release as we would through physical pleasure. Dopamine, Seratonin and Oxytocin are all major players in the happiness cycle.

Connection is vital to everyday mental wellness, but your bonds and relationships with others are also critical to coping with periods of high stress or crisis. Investing in your relationships is one of your best weapons for ensuring that people will be there for you when you need them. And there's no doubt you will.

Contrary to many people's ideas about to connection, it should be about giving, not receiving. And you should do so altruistically, expecting nothing in return.

Here are some easy ways to connect, even when you're feeling isolated or too busy:

• Call someone you haven't spoken to for a while.
• Go for a walk with a friend or family member.
• Organise a dinner date with a loved one.
• Help someone in need - take dinner to a friend who's especially busy or visit an elderly relative, assist a stranger on the street.
• Open up to someone about a struggle you're having.
• Smile and say hello to strangers when you're out and about.

These seven things, done regularly enough (not necessarily all the time - let’s be realistic here) promote balance and help to reduce your baseline stress load, creating a stronger foundation that you can leverage when things get really tough.  

The trick is doing your best to do at least some of these things most of the time to induce the cyclical, reinforcing effect they have on one-another. Ultimately, this is what really makes a difference to your overall sense of joy, happiness, and mental and physical wellness.

You are a complex system of chemical reactions that are impacted by what is happening to you, but this system can also be influenced by the choices you make, how you think and what you do to reclaim control and reinstate equilibrium when things are getting out of balance.  

Don’t feel bad if you really struggle to make positive change that sticks in this area - we all do. It’s a constant inner dialogue and often an uphill battle to just find the time (or energy) to fit this stuff in. Sometimes having others to guide you, reflect with you and hold you accountable can be just the trick and here at LifeWork we are always happy to support you with this. Drop us a line if this is you.

Stay tuned for our next part of this series - tips for staying upright when things feel really overwhelming.