Five Strategies To Beat Stress

Stress is a bit like salt: the right amount can be good for us, but too much can make us sick. Sadly, most of us modern humans are living with chronic stress, and this is leading to diseases [1] like hypertension, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

What Happens to Our Bodies When We’re Stressed?

While we may think stress only affects our mood, in actuality, it affects our entire body, and NOT in a good way. You may be aware that when you’re feeling particularly stressed, your muscles tense, your breathing becomes a bit more rapid and shallow, and your heart races.

But let’s look under the hood, as it were, and see what stress is really doing to our body.

The very first thing that happens when we’re stressed is our body quickly whips up a hormonal cocktail. This combination of hormones and other chemicals helps prepare us to either fight the stressor or flee from it, hence the term “fight or flight” response.

Now, although these hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, benefit us when we are running from a hungry bear or hunting to feed our tribe, they don’t do much for us when the stressor is a pile of mounting bills, a moody boss, or bad traffic.

Instead, these hormones wreak havoc on our body in the following ways:

Upset Stomach

When you feel stressed or nervous, you may feel butterflies in your stomach. But if this stress continues, these butterflies can turn into angry bees. This is because, during the fight or flight response, your body stops digesting food and blood is directed away from the stomach to other parts of your body, like the muscles of your arms and legs.

Bathroom Trouble

Chronic stress that tampers with digestion can and often does result in diarrhea or constipation, which in turn affects your body’s ability to absorb nutrients. There is also a link between stress and irritable bowel syndrome, which causes pain, bloating and gas.

Acid Reflux

Stress causes people to eat and drink too much and eat and drink the wrong things. We eat more comfort foods like fried and sugary foods and drink too much alcohol. This can lead to acid reflux and heartburn. If left untreated, acid reflux can result in painful ulcers and scar tissue.

Tension Headaches

If it seems like you’re spending too much time rubbing your temples these days, chances are you are incredibly stressed. When you’re stressed out, the muscles of your head, neck and shoulders tighten, which constricts blood flow and results in tension headaches and even migraines.

Heart Problems

When allowed to remain at high levels day after day, that cocktail of “fight or flight” hormones I mentioned earlier is bad for your heart. They can lead to high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease and stroke. They can also cause inflammation that damages blood vessels that supply blood to your heart.

Diabetes

Did you know stress can lead to the development of diabetes? Not only can we make the wrong food choices when we’re stressed, but stress causes your liver to release glucose into your blood to fuel your body to fight or flee.

“ It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.” – Hans Selye

The good news is, there are natural and effective ways to manage your stress, so it doesn’t take its toll on your body.

5 Strategies to Beat Stress

Here is how you shouldn’t deal with stress:

• Smoke (or smoke more)
• Drink alcohol (or too much of it)
• Eat comfort foods (like donuts and ice cream)
• Bottle up your emotions and do nothing at all

“ The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James

Try these 5 strategies instead:

Walking Meditation

You’ve probably heard of meditation, but what exactly is walking meditation?

In ‘regular’ meditation, the practitioner focuses on their breath. In walking meditation, you focus on your experience of walking. Oh, and you should definitely have your eyes open for it, so you can mind those cracks in the sidewalk.

The idea behind this form of meditation is to be aware of your body while in motion. Most people starting out will find this is easier than being aware of your breath while remaining still. And, to be honest, most beginning meditators fall asleep during meditation, but there’s a very small chance of that happening while walking.

While it may be more enjoyable, you don’t have to walk in nature for an hour for walking meditation to combat stress. You can do it for several minutes in a parking lot walking back to your car if that’s the only time you have. Simply be aware of nothing else but your body in motion.

Breathwork

Ancient Eastern traditions have long known the benefits of changing our breathing patterns to relieve stress and become well. The West is finally catching on.

When was the last time you felt stressed and decided to take a few slow… deep… breaths? If you’ve never tried it, you will be amazed at how calm you can feel.

In times of stress, try being more aware of your breath. Become intent on controlling your breath, making sure to take slow, deep breaths in and slow, deep breaths out.

Epsom Salt Baths

Taking a nice warm bath always feels relaxing. But it can feel even more so depending on what you add to the water. Epsom salt is a naturally occurring mineral compound of magnesium and sulfate. Both of these compounds are easily absorbed through the skin, and both play important roles in our health.

Magnesium helps reduce inflammation and allows our muscles to relax, while sulfates help to flush toxins and alleviate headaches and migraines. As an added bonus, Epsom salt baths can make your skin silky smooth.

Visualization

Why do we stop using our imaginations once we hit puberty? Sometimes the greatest escape from stress can happen in our minds.

Visualization, or guided imagery, is a technique that involves creating detailed mental pictures in your mind of peaceful settings. You might decide on your lunch break to visualize being back on your grandparent’s front porch, drinking lemonade and watching the hummingbirds dart back and forth to and from the feeder. Or you may imagine yourself on a tropical beach somewhere, a gentle ocean breeze making the palm fronds overhead sway back and forth. It’s completely up to you, just find a quiet place, let your imagination roam, and try and really see, taste, hear and smell the imagined world around you.

Visualization can help focus your mind on something other than what is stressing you out, and sense recall can help your body feel calm, happy and relaxed.

Heart Rate Variability Training

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the pattern of your heart rhythms. When your heart is beating naturally and rhythmically, as it does when you are not under stress but instead nice and relaxed, your entire body is in harmony and you have a profound sense of health and wellbeing.

When we’re stressed, however, our heart rhythms tend to be erratic. Learning to control your own heart rhythms is an incredibly beneficial practice.

Low or Negative HRV can be a sign of a weakened heart and an indicator of possible future heart disease. But through proper training, you can gently ‘persuade’ your heart back into a steady, rhythmic pattern that is good for your entire body and immune system.

This blog post would be three times as long if I tried to explain the entire practice of HRV training. A simple search online will bring you to some fantastic resources that will help you get started.

Conclusion

Stress is a part of life. In fact, not many of us will get off this ride without being faced with some pretty stressful situations.  Reducing stress is good, when possible.  For most of us, though, it’s far more practical and helpful to balance stress with some healthy strategies.  These five techniques are some of the most powerful ways to beat the effects of the stress.

“ You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin

Resources:

[1] Journal Article

Mohd. Razali Salleh, Life Event, Stress and Illness; Malays J Med Sci. 2008 Oct; 15(4): 9–18.