Stressed out? Here's How to Adapt to Stress
Feeling Stressed Out & Overwhelmed? Try these Habits.
Are you feeling stressed? and overwhelmed?
It’s a funny time of year with things getting back to normality but the residual overwhelm of the last few months still lingering.
But this doesn’t have to stay with you for the rest of the year. Take time for your self to reset and replenish.
Early Signs of Stress
Waking at 3 am
Losing your temper with loved ones or work colleagues
Hair loss
Heavy, painful periods
Teary outbursts
Heart palpitations
Although you have no control over people, places and things. You can change what you do in times of crisis and how your body responds So that you FEEL less stressed!
It can make all the difference.
Times, when you feel stressed, are the times you need to focus on yourself even more and play the ‘self-care card’
Adapting to stress is at the core of preventing adrenal fatigue and burnout
Rest & Digest
I wanted to share with you some simple strategies to help your body recognise you are not in danger from the stress and to enable your nervous system to switch seamlessly from fight-flight to rest and digest.
Rest and Digest is where the magic happens, the more you are in this, the better for your health and wellbeing.
Grounding
I write more about this in a blog post which can be found here. But ultimately grounding supports your nervous system by reducing inflammation associated with modern day life. It kind of helps to reset your system and allow the endorphins to balance, cortisol and adrenalin to lower. And lowers that stressed out feeling.
Eating Slowly
Slow and steady wins the race. When you settle and chew your food mindfully and slowly it sends signals to your nervous system that you are safe! No danger is imminent so you can rest and digest. By chewing your food quickly, you are telling your nervous system that you are in danger a predator is around so quick and hurry.
Deep Breathing
Breathing is one of the best ways to tell yourself you are safe. Shallow breathing means you are in fight-flight, you are scared. When you start to add in deep breathing, even for just a few breaths, this allows your nervous system to switch from lymphatic to parasympathetic. Blood pressure comes down, and cortisol and adrenalin lower too.
Try this exercise:
Breath in through the nose to the count of 3
Hold for 3 seconds then breath out through mouth to the count fo 3
Repeat this 10 times throughout the day
Whenever you feel your self-forget to breathe or shallow breathing, just take a few deep breaths.
TRE (Trauma release exercise)
I love this to help me relax. The beauty of this is you can do it at home, any time you like, and it doesn’t cost you anything. Plus you feel immediate results.
This type of exercise is a way of getting your muscles especially your Psoas muscle that holds onto past stress and trauma and to release this stress, tension trauma via the act of shaking.
Here are 3 exercises that help you get the TREMOR
EFT / Tapping
Tapping is a wonderful tool to help you get out of your present emotional state which might be overwhelming, anxiety, despair or even anger Tapping has been shown to bring down your heart rate and reduce signs of anxiety.
The idea is to tap points on your body to help move the energy flow. There are plenty of videos on youtube.