Is getting stressed out bad for us? Not really. We are designed to cope with stress and getting stressed is actually good for us; it presents a learning opportunity. When we’re stressed, we’re really paying attention and are busy working out ways of avoiding this stress in the future.
There are two problems arising from stress, the first being how to deal with the aftermath and the second is are we getting over stressed about the small stuff?
If we get really stressed out about something, our brain prepares us for action by ramping up the blood pressure, heart rate, and immune system, and diverting blood from the guts to the limbs. These days, it is rare to be able to do something physical about the stress – running around the office screaming will only result in even greater stress as you get marked out as a complete nutjob. However, after the stress event is over, doing any kind of meaningful exercise will help blow away the built up tension. The exercise session doesn’t have to be long, just enough to take you out of your comfort zone; you’ll know you’ve hit the spot when you are either moving so fast you’re deffo being chased by a crocodile or you’ll feel as if you could shove the gym over.
If stuck in a bit of long term stress – like an unexpected bill needing to be paid, then it really will help to do something physical every day to keep discharging the build up of tension for action.
Another thing that will help is contracting muscles. When preparing to fight for our lives, our muscles instinctively tense up and giving them a good hard squeeze and then release will help reset the muscle tone.
The simplest way is just tense every muscle possible: grip your feet and hands, tense your legs, fists and biceps, grip your guts and buttocks, lock down your ribs and grit your teeth; squeeze hard then let it all go. Do this a couple of times. Then try shaking – shake in any way that feels good to you.
More specifically you can tense up your shoulders: first bring your shoulder blades towards each other, lift them up keeping them near your spine and slightly look up; squeeze hard. Then calmly let it all go. If needed, repeat a couple of times. Then slightly pull your shoulders back, lift them into your ears – up, up, up – pulling the top of the shoulder blades in and the bottom of the blades widen; again slightly look up. Then calmly let it all go. Lovely.
When we get stressed, it messes up our breathing – in the moment we tend to hold our breath and then start to breathe shallowly. To break this unpleasant pattern you could try either humming or gargling – the latter being the most effective. Just hum or gargle away, relaxing the rib cage and feeling the abs slightly contract; when you breathe in, keep the shoulders low and relaxed. Prolong each hum or gargle and keep going for at least 2 minutes to really get the breath moving properly again.
To reverse the shallow breathing, hold a bag without holes over your mouth and nose and breathe normally into the bag until the breath deepens and slows. This restores the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide; neither is good nor bad for us, it’s the balance between them that matters.
How to not get so stressed in the first place.
Critically, engage in applied neurology or Z-Health. To be happy, the brain needs good inputs from the body, the eyes and the ears, both sound and balance organs. Therapies of all types address one component, be that physical, mental or maybe eyes/ears; alas we are more complicated than that and to really calm down the brain and reduce base stress levels, we need to work on all three major inputs and their pathways. On top of this, if there has been trauma or we were born ‘wrong’ we will also need to calm down the limbic system and the insular lobe. Mental therapies like to address the limbic system, but rarely the insular lobe directly. The three strategies above all improve the function of the insular lobe.
This all takes time! But perseverance is king and I promise the long term reward is much greater happiness – and a less stressful life.
Other more well known methods include mindfulness. If well taught, you learn to observe your thinking and a) learn unhelpful thought patterns and b) learn that you are not your thoughts. Both these help increase stress resistance. If you’re in a state, trying to meditate will be frustrating. But meditating after blowing off the stress will be helpful.
There are a couple of apps to try if you don’t know of a class or teacher. The first is Headspace; you try 10 sessions for free with this one, and the sessions can be as short as 3 minutes. Done regularly, 3 minutes is very effective. The other app is called Insight Timer and is free: it has a cool timer and hundreds of guided meditations.
Of course, there are many other ways of relaxing, like yoga, pilates, walking in nature, swedish massage, eating very slowly and so on. It is good to engage in any of these – but they won’t help the immediate aftermath of a stressful event.
Stress is not to be feared as wrong, but if we work at it, we don’t have to get so very stressed out at getting a parking ticket.