Cope up with stress, LIKE A BOSS!
I want to start out this post by asking you - How do you define stress?
Is it something which is entirely negative for you? Do you want to get rid of stress completely? Do you want to completely eliminate anxiety from your life?
I want you to just remember whatever your answer is, till the end of the article.
Why do we feel stressed anyway?
Maybe our employees aren't really working as we expect them to, maybe we have exams and we feel we aren't really prepared accordingly, maybe we are stressed because there's a dog chasing us (yes some people are scared of dogs..), etc.
But these are just examples of us being "stressed". It doesn't showcase the science behind stress.
Technically, stress is something which disrupts the homeostatic balance. Which simply means it is, in a way, affecting your body's equilibrium.
And then, our body copes up with that particular stress, in the form of a stress response.
This stress response gets our attention so we can cater to this stressful condition and return back to our ideal functioning state i.e Homeostasis.
A very common example of a stress response happens when we exercise.
We sweat to cool off our body's risen temperature (with the means of evaporation), our heart beats faster to let more oxygen plus nutrients to our blood for the increased energy demand, and more!
Similarly, we may feel anxious when a dog is barking at us, because our nervous system sends us a signal to run/tackle, which is a part of the "fight or flight" signal. More on this later.
With this logic, how in the world is Stress bad? In fact, stress seems important!
Scientifically speaking, it definitely is important. But here's how it can be bad.
The phrase, "moderation is the key" applies here as well. What happens is when you are stressed in situations like exercising or when a dog is chasing you, stress becomes super important. As discussed, it is your body's way to cope with a "stressful" situation.
This kind of a stress can be termed as acute stress, since this is short term and slowly fades away as the stressful situation is over.
However, when you are constantly thinking that this dog is chasing you, but it's actually your boss (yeah), that too on a regular basis, this stress becomes chronic.
You are again tricking your brain and nervous system that you need to fight or flee from that stressor i.e your boss/job, and this causes some serious physiological issues.
Let's see how this works.
The science behind stress
Whenever we feel "stressed" our body does a super simple job. It shuts off our digestive function or our "repair" function and secrets an array of hormones (adrenaline being one) which help you enter the "fight or flight" mode. Because obviously, who cares about digestion when a dog is chasing you right?
Now, what happens when this dog is your boss or any other stressor? The body again, shuts off digestion, makes you super aware and tries to enter the fight or flight mode again. Don't get me wrong here, "fight" with your boss might not literally mean FIGHT! It can even come in the form of a sarcastic comment.
This stress response can come in many forms - mental, emotional, physical, existential, environmental, to name a few. Even something like New Delhi's traffic can be a stressful event.
What happens when we are stressed to often? You guessed it! We stop the "repair" stage of our body, because again, that dog is chasing you! You don't need repair work, you need to tackle the situation!
As a result of excess "distress", along with improper lifestyle habits such as lack of exercise and bad nutrition, you're calling upon diseases like hypertension and even type-2 diabetes! YES!
Don't get rid of the dog!
Reading all this should make you feel, umm... yeah stressed, and rightly so. It's a response. But again, we can't really get rid of stress completely. However, we can manipulate it!
You must have seen many people who are scared of dogs and many who just can't live without them! I am one of them.
But okay, I'm not talking about real dogs here. Dogs are love.
You might perceive stress as a positive challenge aka Eustress or something which is just terrible and you can't handle aka Distress.
What we want to do is fit most of our stressful situations, in the "eustress category". And I can assure you, it's not a one day job.
Just like exercise, it take practice.
A very simple task you can do straight away is, creating a list of things you
Can take total control of. For example - Your actions
Can somewhat control. For example - Your husband's schedule, everyday routines
Cannot control at all - Genetics, your husband's behaviour.
Now, this doesn't really guarantee helping you feel less "stressed out". But definitely this will help you become more aware about the things you may feel were "under your control" and eventually were, stressing you out.
Sleep is BAE
For the people who think, "I'll sleep when I die", well, they'll probably die sooner and won't be able to achieve their ULTIMATE GOAL. Isn't that ironic?
I want you to imagine that day when you didn't get enough sleep. How was your day? If I can term that day as "extra stressful", would I be lying? I don't think so.
Recovery is extremely important to help our body fight stress. And what is the best way to recover? Yes, it's sleep.
For more on sleep, check out the recent video I made here.
In this video, I have covered why we need to sleep, what actually happens when we sleep and most importantly, what happens when we don't get enough of it.
For a more in depth analysis of sleep, I would definitely recommend you - Why we Sleep by Matthew Walker. It's AWESOME.
One tactic which worked for me!
Personally speaking, one tactic which has worked for me to reduce stress is Mindfulness.
Many people prefer different forms of mindfulness or commonly known as meditation to reduce stress.
Mindfulness basically works by helping you become more aware about things. In this case, it helped me becoming more about the fact that I am aware. Trippy right?
By being more aware about the fact that I am aware, I subsequently became mindful about emotions, sensations, different stressors and the fact that, all of this is just happening in consciousness. How it helps you cope up with stress is not some voodoo magic crap, it's all logic and science.
I personally feel, Waking up by Sam Harris is the best app I have used for meditation. The way Sam has beautifully explained the art of Mindfulness is truly, mind boggling.
Fun Fact - You can even perform a good mindfulness/meditation session in a room full of babies (environmental stress), or at a construction site as well. It's super fun.
Conclusion
I'd like to sum up the art of Stress management in 5 points :
Stress isn't bad till it's acute. In fact it's important for survival.
Our perception about stress is what matters for longevity of life
Use the Degree of control tactic to help you manage your stressors
Sleep is BAE
Mindfulness and/or Meditation can be a useful tool to cope up with stressors.
So again, stress ain't that bad guys. You just need to adapt and most importantly, give yourself TIME to adapt to it.
Check out our LIFESTYLE TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME where we help people achieve their Health and Fitness goals and reducing their lifestyle stressors to make sure they achieve a true, Lifestyle Transformation.