Learning to Manage Stress

shutterstock_yoga woman grass Learning to Manage Stress

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

Learning stress managment is an important skill.

Stress can burdeon your body, your immune system, mind, your spirit, and deplete your hormones. It can affect your sleep, your moods, your digestion, and your relationships.

In summary: stress, when left unmanaged, can be damaging to your health, your quality of life, how well you age.

Stress doesn’t just go away, and sometimes it can’t be removed, changed, or ignored–it can part of our journey. It just can’t Consume you.

And in these cases, learning skills to manage stress is your best option. You can teach your body to Perceive stress differently–to recognize it, bundle it, package it, and work through it differently–but it is a skill that you need to practice daily in order for it to work for you. It becomes a mind-over-matter + self-care = balanced stress management “equation.”

A few of my stress management skills that I have learned to help me with cope with persistent stress include:
Making self-care a priority–simple daily practices like:

Beginning the day with my intentions: goal setting, a mantra, reviewing my vision board,

Beginning with the end in mind: I prioritize my time, my tasks, and keep to my schedule,

Taking a few minutes to meditate, pray, and read something uplifting that boosts my spirit before I start my day,

Exercising daily–moving my body everyday: whether it is running, going for a walk, stretching, yoga or rebounding on my rebound tramp,

Closing my eyes and breathing slowly in–then out- for 1-2 minutes every few hours,

Drinking a warm tea–dandelion tea, kava kava tea, and chamomille teas are my favorites for stress,

Walking away from the computer or desk, walking for a few minutes and stretching every hour,

Drinking a green juice in the afternoon to boost my body with antioxidants when it begins to feel tired from the day,

Practicing daily gratitude–I keep a gratitude journal and write in it every night before bed,

Focusing on what is going good,

Letting go of what doesn’t serve me, boost me, or build me,

Focusing on what makes me happy, and what/who I love–and finding something that makes me laugh.

Keeping a long term perspective, seeing past the stress,

Keeping a good betime routine–and protecting that routine,

Taking a probiotic daily, and eating 1/4 c fermented food daily to maintain a healthy gut,

Detoxing every 6 months, to help support my body in its healing and cleansing efforts,

Maintaining my “adrenal health” by resting daily for 15-20 minutes between 2-4pm; I reboot my adrenals simply by just lie flat on my back on the floor (even in my office), and assume the Corpse-pose of yoga (supine, head midline, palms up and open to the universe, legs uncrossed and straight) and take deep breaths in my nose and out my mouth, breathing deeping, and only thinking good, positive thoughts during this time–again, this takes practice because the mind wanders often to your “to-do list”,

All of these things help me manage stress better.

They don’t make the stress stop, but they helps mind and body recognize and perceive stress better. and that is an important skill to learn–and practice–daily.

I hope you see a few things here that you could add to your daily routine to help you better manage your stress.

Live Life Optimally,

Kristie
www.KristieRosser.com