Dealing with Stress

stressed out woman This week’s theme is stress – if you don’t have any, feel free to skip this post!

Stress, as such, is not necessarily a bad thing. If we don’t have a certain amount of stress, we will never grow. This is true both physically (we stress our muscles in the gym so that their repair process will result in stronger muscles), and emotionally – many people thrive on challenges, finding them exciting and a great opportunity for personal growth. Ice wine is made when the vines in southern Ontario are stressed by frost – frozen grapes are the sweetest, as the plant produces extra sugar to protect its fruit.

Such beneficial stress is known as eustress. The usual lists of situations leading to eustress are getting a promotion or new job, getting married, having a baby, or taking on any kind of exciting challenge that is not perceived as being outside our abilities.

When people talk about stress, however, they are usually talking about distress, the kind of stress that can lead to physical and emotional problems.

As a life coach who has dealt with many people experiencing distress, I have observed that the main characteristic of distress, at least among humans, is a story of helplessness and victimhood. The stressor is perceived as being outside of our control, something imposed from the outside that is making our lives miserable. Whether the stressor is our boss, our spouse, or our schedule, we perceive it as something that we can’t control.

It is entirely true that we can’t control other people, although many of us spend altogether too much time trying to do just that. This does not mean, however, that we are at their mercy in terms of how we process their behaviour and allow it to cause us distress. There are many things that we can choose to do to alleviate that distress, and only one of them involves the external circumstances we are blaming.

Yesterday I went to my Facebook community and asked them for their best tips for alleviating stress. I was honoured with many responses, and I was able to see some patterns.

1. The number one tip that many people mentioned was breathing. When we are stressed and go into our fight-or-flight response, our breathing becomes shallow. Just a couple of minutes of mindful deep breathing can signal to our bodies that there is no physical emergency, so those stress hormones can come down again and our “inner Labrador“, as Dave Asprey calls it, can settle down.

2. Another popular stress buster is exercise – whether walking, running or any other form of physical movement. It is fascinating to see how eustress of the body can lead to a reduction of distress in the mind. According to studies, this physical exertion leads to the release of calming endorphins in the brain.

3. Now we come to my favourite – thought management. People mentioned making a deliberate decision not to worry about the stressor – proving that most of us can change our thought patterns if we so choose. Note that I didn’t claim that it was easy – that’s what life coaches and therapists are for. But it is possible to step out of that helpless, victim mentality and take control of what is going on inside your own head.

4. Since our body produces stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol in reaction to the perceived stress, there are physical substances that can help us bring them down and regulate them more easily. People mentioned CBD oil, copaiba essential oil (one of my favourites!) and of course, adaptogens. While marijuana is now legal in Canada, none of my respondents mentioned it as an option. I’m sure it can be very helpful in the same way – regulating cortisol is key to good sleep, for one thing.

5. Another important way to reduce distress is by employing the power of community. Many people mentioned talking with friends or family about the circumstance they perceived as causing their stress, and that that helped relieve their distress.

6. The last major mechanism for reducing distress actually involves reducing the work load or otherwise changing the circumstance that was perceived as the problem. I found it quite fascinating that most of the methods that people employed were internal – managing their own mind, rather than trying to change the external factors. Sometimes that is a reflection of their perceived reality – that the stressor was something that was outside their ability to change, so they didn’t even try. On the other hand, it might be a recognition of the fact that the true source of the stress is inside their own mind – one person’s source of distress might be another’s eustress.

In closing, stress is a part of life – positive and negative, and in our modern times, there seems to be more of the latter than ever. There are many ways to reduce distress and improve the quality of our lives every day. Give it a try.

If you’ve found value in this post, I would love it if you would comment and share it. My huge thanks and appreciation to all who contributed their experience!

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