Stress is a natural (and normal) response to the demands, pressures, and competing priorities in daily life.
Not all stress is bad. A little bit of stress can be motivating and help keep you focused on your priorities and achieving your goals. But too much stress, or stress carried for too long, can activate your “fight or flight” response, which, if left unchecked, can cause physical problems, like pain, disease, and illness, and will likely affect your ability to function in one or more areas of your life.
In order to manage your stress, you first need to understand your stress.
Please consider this scale:
- Low stress – Feeling calm and comfortable in your surroundings
- Getting stressed – Slightly irritable, a little agitated and uncomfortable
- Stressed – Hyper focused on what you can control, agitated by EVERYTHING
- Losing control – Paralyzed, or energized, by anger and anxiety
- Toxic stress –Serious, ongoing life stressors and pressure combined with an absence of support
The goal isn’t to try to get rid of all stress. Instead, the goal is to learn how to respond well to stress. After all, the only thing you really have control over is your reaction.
One reason to understand where you are on a stress scale is to increase your ability to choose a behavior that can break your stress. If you are in the Losing Control or Toxic Stress zones, sitting down to meditate is not going to help. You’re too worked up and need something physical to break the cycle, or risk adding even more pressure to the situation when your stress reduction technique doesn’t work.
When you are feeling somewhere between a 5-10 on the scale, your system most needs to mobilize to get the energy out, try something movement based.
Movement-based Stress Reduction Techniques:
- Shaking
- Dancing freely
- Going on a brisk walk/run
- Walking with your bare feet on the earth
- Making sounds from your body – humming, yelling, singing
- Unloading the dishwasher, doing laundry, or another activity, especially one that will give you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment
- Snapping a twig in half, utilizing your muscles to lift something, punching a pillow
When you are feeling somewhere between a 0-4 on the scale, grounding exercises can be helpful.
Grounding Exercises:
- Breathing techniques, like the 4-7-8 technique: breathe in 4 seconds, hold 7 seconds, breathe out 8 seconds
- Meditation or visualization exercise
- Reciting a mantra, like “I handle stress with ease”
- Activate your senses with a 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste
Find one object and focus on it, identifying the shape, how it feels, where it came from, etc.