Don’t Let Stress Gain The Upper Hand
Today I want to talk about staying calm and not letting stress gain the upper hand. One recent morning, I was listening to the radio, and there was a segment about your health. They talked about whether or not it was effective to check your blood pressure at home versus going to the doctor’s office.
The consensus was that yes, it was just as effective to get it done at home, because when many people visit the doctor their blood pressure tends to rise. It’s suggested that you check at home for that reason.
I’m married to someone who checks his blood pressure often, because he’s under a lot of stress from his job. It pains me because I know there are so many things that happen because of stress. For one thing, it’s horrific for our heart. Heart disease, obesity, the spare tire around your stomach…all of these are often indicative of stress. Not only from a health standpoint, but stress can really wear on relationships as well.
How Stress Happens
Many of you know that I’m a health, life, and business coach. To get a little technical with you, we have an autonomic nervous system inside of us. There are two branches – the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system turns on our stress response. When our bodies sense stress, the sympathetic system turns on, cortisone levels go up, and stress begins.
I’ve done some research on stress lately, because I’m always trying to help my husband a little bit. I came up with 8 things to do in stressful situations. Check them out!
Attitude of Gratitude
1. Calm people tend to live in a state of appreciation. When you have an attitude of gratitude and you live in a state of appreciation, your stress level drops. My challenge to you is to take a few minutes out of your day to stand in awe of those beautiful things that are around you.
Look out the window. Look at your sleeping babies. Think of the wonderful blessings in your life. Reach for the joy. Be delighted. Know you belong. Appreciate the little things. Just get into a state of appreciation.
Quite often at this time of year, people will begin gratitude journals and document throughout the whole month what they’re thankful and grateful for. I think this is such a wonderful thing to start!
Positive Mentalities
2. Calm people avoid the “sky is falling” mentality. They know those types of thoughts get them nowhere. They avoid using words like never, always, everyone, and no one, because those are exaggerated words that do not help anyone.
3. Calm people often find the bright side. They are ready to make lemonade out of lemons in their life. They recognize when things are going downhill that there’s always a bright side and a silver lining.
My family has a family text chain that we are constantly communicating through. Every night, I text my kids on that chain and I ask them what they need prayers for the next day. I also ask them to tell us all about one great thing that happened to them that day. We take the time to share with each other the positive moments from our day in order to find the bright side and the silver lining.
Enough Is Enough
4. Calm people tend to put technology away at different times through the day. They know that they’re not open 24/7. They have “office hours.” They know to disconnect from technology and don’t take it with them on walks, they don’t take it to the gym, they refuse to answer texts or emails at certain points. Calm people know when enough is enough and they set their technology aside.
5. Calm people get enough sleep. I sure love to sleep! When we get enough sleep, we’re more alert, more attentive, our memory is better, we make better decisions…so therefore we won’t stress out as much.
6. Calm people refuse to let the negative committee inside their heads take over. No more negative mindset, no more negative self-talk…they refuse to let negativity gain any power over them. When negativity has power, stress moves in.
Iron Sharpens Iron
7. Calm people designate a part of their day to get quiet. In this age of technology and immediate gratification, we need to slow down our bodies and our minds. Quiet time is set aside to just breathe. They may pray and truly listen to what He has to say to them.
8. Calm people know that iron sharpens iron. What does that mean exactly? It means that friends sharpen us. Calm people know that when they’re at their weakest, or when they’re stressed out, they can turn to their friends to be strengthened. They’re also OK with their weaknesses, because they know they can find strength from their friends.
Introspection Is Key
I came up with these stress relieving techniques by doing some introspection. Some of them are things that I do personally to combat stress, so I can attest that they do work. If you’re stressed or overwhelmed, revisit these 8 things. If you can’t do them all, that’s OK! Just try one or two. But do revisit them often, do some introspection, and I promise you that they will help relieve your stress.
If you got any value out of this, please pay it forward and share it with someone who may be stressed at the moment. I love paying it forward and sharing what helps me with others. The world would be a better place if we all payed it forward on a daily basis, wouldn’t it?
