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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Stress:
- I’ll explain what stress is and the different types of stress
- I’ll talk about how stress affects the body
- Finally, I’ll give practical tips on how to reduce stress in your life
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Stress is defined as placing pressure or tension on an object. What most people don’t realise is that there is such a thing as good stress. This is called eustress, e-u-stress, eustress. The difference between eustress and stress (or distress) is determined by our own perception of the stress. For example imagine two people riding a rollercoaster. One person experiences stress and the other experiences eustress. While one person experiences pain, anxiety, and worry the other person experiences, pleasure, joy, and excitement. Same pressure. Same tension, but different experiences different perceptions of that stress. One has distress (or stress). The other has eustress.
My point here is that everything that happens to us is not good or bad until we make the choice to make it mean good or bad. So whatever type of stress you are experiencing, keep in the back of your mind that you do have the choice to see this stress as something positive something for you, eustress, or as something negative, distress.
There are three main types of stress and many subtypes of these stressors. The three types of stress are:
- Physical
- Mental and Emotional
- Biochemical and Physiological
Examples of the subtypes of these stressors include electromagnetic stress, nutritional stress, and thermal stress.
Now these three main types of stress can be broken down into two groups. External stressors such as being out in the sun, getting injured, or being exposed to toxic chemicals. Then there’s internal stressors such as having a disease and having an imbalance in your hormones. So an example of a physical stress would be working out at the gym. Having difficult relationships would be an example of a mental and emotional stress. An example of biochemical and physiological stress would be when you come down with the cold or flu and your immune system has to battle the bugs in order to bring the inside of your body back into balance.
So those are the three main types of stress. There’s physical stress, which is normally associated with external stress. There is mental and emotional stress, which can be either external or internal. Then there’s biochemical and physiological stress, which is an internal stressor.
Your body is made up of a system of nerves and the nervous system is broken down into different types. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is the system that looks after your body automatically. It digests, it eliminates, it regulates blood flow, hormone production, temperature, etc. You don’t have to think about doing any of this stuff yourself. These are run by your ANS. Now as you live life and experience different events the ANS can go down either one of two pathways. One pathway is the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS). The other pathway is the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).
The SNS puts your body into a fight, flight, flee, or freeze state. When activated the SNS releases stress hormones which raise heart rate, blood pressure, and moves the blood from your internal organs to your muscles and limbs. These stress hormones also prevent fat mobilisation and fat metabolism. What does that mean? It means your body stops moving fat out of the fat cells, out of their homes, which means you will not be burning any fat for energy. So much for reducing your waistline hmm.
The PNS on the other hand puts you in a rest, digest, calm, and connect state. The PNS deals with growth, fat-burning, and sex hormones that help keep your heart rate and blood pressure in a healthy range and your blood remains close to your internal organs allowing for your digestion, elimination, growth, repair, and reproductive processes to function normally. Also your body becomes a fat-burning machine.
When you perceive or sense a stress your body goes into short-term breakdown mode (the SNS) in order to help you survive that stressor in that moment. When you perceive that you are safe and secure your body remains in long-term growth and repair mode (the PNS) helping you to live a happy and healthy quality of life.
Now back in the day our ancestors would have dealt with acute (short and sudden) stressors like running from a tiger, but most of their lives were pretty relaxed. Today, however, traffic jams, deadlines, exams, and difficult relationships, these are the tigers of our time. Unfortunately these are not acute experiences. These are chronic, these are ongoing so your body is in constant breakdown mode. Remember the SNS releases stress hormones to help you survive, but these stress hormones are breaking you down and causing you to store fat and when stress hormones are up your growth and sex hormones are down. If you can reduce the amount of stress that you perceive in your life the PNS can be activated more often so you can have your growth and sex hormones higher than your stress hormones. Giving you proper digestion, elimination, and repair, as well as more fat-burning.
Again be aware that any stress you encounter, whether it’s literally being chased by a tiger or being chased by your boss, your body is going to begin breaking down. Your body isn’t going to be able to digest your last meal. Your liver isn’t going to be able to detoxify your blood. Your bowels aren’t going to be able to eliminate the waste. Your mood isn’t happy. Your body isn’t growing or repairing. Your immune system isn’t able to fight off bad bugs. Your body will be storing fat instead of burning it. Your sex drive and your ability to have children is going to be pretty much zero, so no sexy time for you! But if you can reduce the stress in your life, reduce the stress hormones, increase the growth and sex hormones… sexy times are here again my friend.
So that’s how stress affects the body. It’s either going to break you down in order to help you survive or it’s going to help you grow and repair. So how much distress compared to eustress do you have in your life? Something to meditate on.
If you’ve got issues with managing your weight, digestion, elimination, getting over an illness, a nagging chronic pain, migraines, fatigue (if you’re always tired), fertility or sex issues, all of these symptoms plus much more come under too much stress, chronic stress in your life.
There are many ways to reduce stress in your life. There are whole books written on the topic. Two books I recommend are Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers and The Tapping Solution.
Personally I reduce stress in many different ways and one of them includes writing down every single perceived stress that I have in my life at the time and out of that list I pick one, just one to focus on and work on reducing its impact on my life. The one stress I pick is the one I think is the most stressing to me in that moment.
So prioritise, figure out what is your primary stressor. Write out a list of all your stresses right now and then pick the one that you think is stressing you out the most. Not the one you think you can deal to the easiest, but the one you perceive to be affecting you the most in your life right now. Highlight it, circle it, underline it, just get it in your mind’s eye. That is what you’re going to focus on.
Next thing I do is I write down all the things about that primary stress that’s actually causing me to stress. So, for example, right now I feel a lot of stress when it comes to time. I feel like there isn’t enough time. I’m unable to finish projects or to finish books that I’m reading. I don’t have enough time to prepare the food that I want to make. I’m feeling pressure and like I’m failing. So that’s what I write down. What is this stress causing me? What is it stopping me from doing that I’d like to be doing? What is it causing me to feel? The reason I do this is so I can understand exactly where I am and how I am doing in that moment. Remember this saying paraphrased from Alice in Wonderland:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
You cannot get from A to B if you don’t even know where A is. Your turn. Write down how your primary stressor is affecting you and your life. This is your A, this is where you are now.
Next thing I write down is if I didn’t have this stressor what would my life be like then. For example, if I had all the time in the world I’d finish the projects that I wanted to finish on time when I said I would finish them. I would finish the books that I wanted to read and I would have the time to prepare the food that I wanted to eat. Then I would feel awesome and accomplished. After this step I know now where I want to be and I know how I want to feel so I have a better idea of why I’m doing what I’m doing. This is giving me a why, a reason to manage myself better when it comes to time.
So write down for yourself what would your life be like and how would you feel if your primary stressor was no longer a perceived stress.
What I do next is to plan. How am I going to manage this stress practically and effectively? In terms of time it means making bookings in my Google calendar. I’m going to create separate bookings for project work, reading books, and for preparing meals. Then I have to stick to the calendar and take the necessary action when the booking comes up.
Create a plan for your particular situation. For example, if it’s trying to stick to a diet to reduce your waistline what is it that you’re not doing now that you can do in the future and what might your plan look like? Maybe it’s creating a meal plan and preparing and cooking meals in advance like cooking a whole week’s worth of meals in one day.
So in a nutshell:
- Write down all your stressors
- Identify your primary stressor
- Write down how it’s stressing you out, how it’s affecting your life, how it’s making you feel right now
- Then write down how your life would be and how you’d feel if you didn’t have this stress
- Make a plan
- Finally, be consistent and take action on that plan
[click here to download the WG-Stress Reduction.pdf worksheet]
This is one way I deal with stress and it’s just that one thing, that one stress that I focus on. When I feel like it’s no longer stressing me then it’s back to the list and creating priority number one again.
Now along with this practise you have to be living a healthy holistic lifestyle. Without the right lifestyle factors in place the technique I just mentioned is like a house of cards and it’s only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down. A healthy holistic lifestyle brings stability and strength to every aspect of your life. I’ll go into more detail about what a healthy holistic lifestyle really means in later episodes, but I’ll sum it up here:
- Get good consistent quality sleep
- Move often throughout the day
- Eat whole real foods
- Drink plenty of quality filtered water
- Breathe deep belly breaths and take time out to be with yourself and your breath, and just breathe
- Leg go of resentment in relation to yourself and others
- Get more exposure to Mother Nature especially the sun and the soil
- Dramatically reduce your exposure to toxins
That about sums up living a healthy holistic lifestyle. If you can strive to do all of these things you will successfully reduce the stress in your life long-term.
Links and Resources
- Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers — Robert M. Sapolsky
- The Tapping Solution — Nick Ortner
- Stress Reduction Worksheet
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