Lately I’ve been listening to Louise Hay as I run, and I was really struck by her statement that stress is a form of fear. 

If you stop and think about it, it’s true – if we are feeling stress, it is highly likely that we are dealing with some sort of fear. 

If it is work stress, we may be fearful of missing a deadline or of being judged to have failed at a task. 

If it is health stress (and who doesn’t have some form of health stress in the middle of a global pandemic?), we may be afraid that someone we love, or we ourselves, might get sick and die or be disabled. 

So what can we do about it?

First of all, BREATHE. Seriously. Of course we all breathe all the time, but it’s important to stop and pay attention to your breathing. Is it deep or shallow? Can you feel your diaphragm rising and falling? Just spend a minute or so breathing deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth. You will find that this simple exercise calms you down.

Secondly, consider whether you have taken every reasonable action to improve the likelihood of the outcome you want. Have you done the work, spoken to the doctor, taken the shot, put on your mask? If you’ve done everything a reasonable person can do, you just have to let go and trust that it will have to be enough. Your best is always your best, but it is not always the same. Once you’ve done your best at that moment, you have to let it go.

Finally, guard yourself from catastrophizing – see my message from a couple of weeks ago. Every situation has an infinity of possible outcomes, and the worst that you can imagine is by no means the most likely. Making yourself crazy by imagining the worst is not going to improve matters for you. Take some more deep breaths. Take some adaptogens. Get some exercise.

What do you do in times of stress? I’d love to know!