Stress Less
Stress can affect your mood, your behavior and your body in various negative ways. Your body can experience fatigue, headaches, chest pain, stomach upset and disturbed sleep, among many other uncomfortable or life interrupting symptoms. Long term physical ailments can be experienced as well like heart disease, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Obviously these discomforts can affect our moods. I’m not sure about you, but one headache can throw off my entire day, not to mention a permanent one. Stress causes anxiety, irritability, anger, lack of motivation, depression and so many other feelings that people often wouldn’t choose to experience if they had the choice. These feelings can then cause substance misuse, overeating, social withdrawal and angry outbursts. Ugh, so many lists, but so important to see the poor effects of stress on our overall well being.
Now let’s talk about triggers. These are very personal and only we can identify our own triggers effectively. For me, chest tightening is an automatic pre-anxiety sign; I’ve obviously been introduced to something stressful and so my body is reacting before my brain is even aware. I try to lean into that tightening, to really take a moment to check in and identify what caused it. Breathe. Let that breath fill up my lungs and really take stock of that moment to clarify my feelings. Then I let my rational brain and my emotional brain have a conversation. This allows me a moment to cool off and acknowledge that this too shall pass. Make sure to listen to your body, your body will help you identify what triggers it. Taking note of this will help you catch stress at its roots and rip those suckers out.
The most important piece of managing this stress is movement. Movement is medicine. Inactive stress management techniques such as endless phone scrolling, binging television and couch potato-ing, have been proven to actually increase stress over time. Activities as simple as walking, laughing, deep breathing and spending time with loved ones can be excellent ways to prevent and work through stress. Regular aerobic activity is the real key. This can be your best defense for the negative hormones produced by stress. Exercise has been proven to reduce these negative hormones and produce positive hormones in their place. You can literally trade the bad for the good, so why not?
by Catie Zimmerman