Five Ways to Deal with Stress Effectively
We all deal with stress, and learning to handle it will serve you in all aspects of life. A few years ago, I helped my 95-year-old mother move twice in 6 months. During this time of stress for her and me I was able to deal with it effectively by using the strategies I share with my clients. Yes, one of the strategies is “self hypnosis,” but the other five ways I retained my cool was by maintaining the most important habits of life:
- Eat a healthy diet.
- Exercise 5 days per week.
- Prioritize tasks to do the essentials.
- Focus on the things you can control.
- Get at least 7 hours of sleep and use self-hypnosis.
If you consistently practice the above habits, your stress will be within your control, which is no small thing.
Understanding the impact of stress on health can be a powerful tool. According to the American Medical Association, approximately 80% of the patients who visit an internal medicine doctor are there due to the long term effects of stress. Long term chronic stress or a person’s perception of the stress causes a great deal of physical damage and is underlying almost all disease. Symptoms like headaches, back pain, stomach problems, rapid heart rate, fatigue, nervous habits, cognitive problems and the list goes on and on. But with this understanding, you can take control and manage your stress effectively.
Our nervous system is sensitive to danger to keep us safe. It’s a complex network of nerves and cells that carry messages to and from the brain and spinal cord to various parts of the body. But the same system that helps us avoid physical danger can be the system that creates long-term chronic stress and damages our minds and bodies.
When the fight or flight response kicks in, we are sent into a focused, energetic, and alert state. This state can help you to meet challenges, make you sharp when doing presentations, and help you to react quickly in an accident or other dangerous situation. However, problems arise when we stay in this state too much or when everything goes wrong and sends us into hyperdrive. When adrenaline and cortisol are released constantly, the damage they do to the body is extreme. Over time it will damage and inflame every system of your body and this includes the brain. Things like memory problems, the inability to concentrate, seeing only the negative, and constant poor judgment are directly related to chronic or high levels of stress.
To break this pattern, it is important to take back some control. You have more control than you might think. The simple realization that you are in control of your life is the foundation of stress management. So do something that makes you feel in control, and you will feel your sense of well-being grow.
