Stress – it’s everywhere.
From the good stress that motivates you and gets you working towards your goals, to the distress that holds you back and creates those self-sabotaging behaviours.
And unfortunately, stress isn’t going anywhere – so why not improve your relationship with it?
Below, I will give you three simple techniques to use when you’re stressed to help you process instead of ignoring it, but first, let me explain why this is so important.
Stress is directly linked to your nervous system, and how your nervous system responds will impact your digestion, hormones, immunity, sleep, energy, breath and muscle tension.
This then impacts your behaviours, your thoughts and the story you tell yourself about the particular situation, which, as you may have guessed, can create more stress.
Welcome to the stress cycle.
When stress builds up and you don’t process it, it’s like a bucket filled to the brim with water.
There’s no capacity to hold more water; the water in the bucket isn’t going anywhere. It’s stagnant and stale, and that’s a true representation of what happens with stress in your body.
Chemicals and hormones become stagnant in your body, causing aches, pains and niggles which over time become disease and illness.
Now, imagine we drill a tiny hole in the bottom of that bucket.
Stress (water) will still be coming in because we can’t fully eliminate stress, but the water can flow out.
Over time, there is more capacity to hold more water.
Over time, you have more capacity to hold more stress. You’re more resilient because you changed your relationship with stress and let it flow through you, and you have resources to support yourself when your bucket starts to fill up.
It can be simple.
3 simple tools to help with stress
1. Shake your body
Put your favourite song on and have a boogie.
I know, I know, we don’t usually dance now unless we have had a glass of wine or two, but movement really is medicine.
When the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol have been released, your body thinks there’s a tiger chasing you, so it’s giving you energy to move.
Moving your body means you’re using up these stress hormones, and they are not going to sit stagnant in your fascia (tissue).
Animals in the wild do this. Take a look at this video showing an impala shaking its body after nearly being killed.
2. Take a deep breath
That thing you’ve been doing your whole life can be the best tool to support you with stress.
The faster you breathe, the more you keep your body in a stress response, so start to slow down that breath.
Inhale through the nose, allow your belly to fill up, bring that breath into the chest and let it out with a big sigh. Do this three times
3. Orientation
This is magical, and yes you might feel like a goldfish in a tank, but your body will begin to feel safe, and that is the aim.
Look around the space that you are in and notice the colours, the textures and the brightness. Notice what you can hear, smell and touch.
Here we are using external cues to let your body know it is safe.
As you can see, it’s not about eliminating stress, reducing stress or pushing through (because you may end up never leaving your house), it’s about building the capacity, creating the resources and improving your relationship with stress.
If changing your relationship with stress feels overwhelming, remember this phrase.
Your body will always choose familiar hell over unfamiliar peace…
Meaning that your body would rather stay stressed, chaotic and overwhelmed than create change – it’s not that you’re weak, you’re wired for familiarity.
When you choose to create a change, your body might resist.
It may feel uncomfortable; that’s just physiology doing its thing.
Stress with nowhere to go isn’t going to disappear; it’s slowly building and will eventually flood your body, resulting in burnout.
But remember that overflowing bucket, it doesn’t have to keep overflowing.
You have the power to drill the hole.