From Overwhelmed to Empowered: Mastering Stress Management
Let’s talk about stress…
Stress is a normal part of our lives. From keeping up with our schedules, taking care of our family and friends, working long hours, grieving…the list goes on. But at what point does it become too much? At what point does stress take so much toll on our minds and bodies that it starts causing long-term impacts?
It’s ok, and even healthy, for us to have some stress - it’s how our bodies respond to a change or adjustment. But when it results in long-term nervous system dysregulation, or lack of perceived safety, our bodies start to take on health problems. In fact, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 60-80% of primary care visits have stress-related components. Take a moment to think about this… how much money and illness could we save if we manage our stress?
Breaking down stress
You likely recognize what it’s like to “feel stressed,” but what exactly is stress? To put it simply, stress is our body’s response to pressure. It is the natural reaction your body has when changes or challenges occur and it can result in many different physical, emotional, and behavioral responses. Stress can be external (arriving from outside the body) or internal (arriving from inside the body).
Regardless of the type of stress – actual, anticipated, or imagined – the body reacts the same way. For example, being chased by a real or fake lion causes our body to react the same. This is where the “fight or flight” response (sympathetic state) comes in. When our fight or flight response is initiated, our nervous system tells our body we are in imminent danger. This worked great back in the day when humans had to run from an actual lion or bear. But in today’s world, our body cannot tell the exact difference between imminent danger and constant exposure to modern-day stressors.
When our fight or flight response occurs, it releases stress hormones - adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones tell our bodies to preserve as much energy as possible to fight off the “threat.” This leads to shutting off blood from our digestive system and immune system, so blood pushes toward our limbs to literally fight or run away.
Daily living causes stress and too much stress can be hard on the adrenal glands - the small endocrine glands that sit atop our kidneys. These glands are key players for synthesizing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to regulate stress.
Many of us lead busy lives that leave us on high alert. This type of daily stress causes the continuous production of cortisol and adrenaline, leading to suppressing immunity, hindering proper digestion, increasing blood sugar and raising blood pressure. When our body is living in a constant state of stress, valuable functions like digestion, become second priority and lead to a higher risk of inflammation and disease. The great news is that we can teach our bodies to turn on “fight or flight” when it’s needed and turn it off when it’s not.
Stress Management techniques
It’s not realistic or necessary to remove all forms of stress in your life. As a reminder, some stress is healthy - in fact, too much of one thing (good or bad) can be a problem! If we don’t give our body a chance to expose itself to different types of stress, then we don’t give it a chance to learn resiliency. What’s amazing is that your body can build resiliency for balancing stress.
Here are ways to help your body adapt to stress and move to a “rest and repair” state when stress is high:
Breathing techniques
Mindfulness practice
Yoga
Self-care
Eat, whole nutrient-dense foods
Crowd out (reduce) refined carbohydrates
Reduce caffeine consumption and drink plenty of fresh, filtered water
Get adequate sleep
Consider adaptogens
Daily physical activity
Connect to creativity, joy, and play
Work with a health coach to find the root causes of your stress and determine what helps you return to the “rest and repair” state
Stress affects people differently. Therefore, managing stress is bio-individual. Whether taking some deep breaths, going for a walk or putting on a funny movie and laughing out loud, it’s essential to find what’s calming for you.
Finding support for stress
Working with a health coach can be instrumental in helping you discover underlying patterns to your stress. No more band-aid approaches - at New Heights we believe in sitting with you, guiding, educating and being a safe space for you to find healing. We go far beyond goal setting - our expert approach allows you to uncover the root causes of the challenges you face. With this deeper understanding, we create a personalized and effective plan to lead to meaningful, lasting improvements in your overall quality of life.
New Heights Certified Health Coaches help you connect the dots, so you can remove yourself from the “60-80% of primary care stress-related visits” statistic and start giving your body the rest and repair it needs. Let the expertise of our health coaches help you manage your stress.
Work with our health coach experts: newheightspt.janeapp.com
