When Stress Comes Knocking

This week celebrating one of my monumental birthdays was the day chosen for us to participate in my fathers’ orientation to the nursing home.

To have to place someone in a home is a gut wrenching experience and if you had to do this task for a loved one,

I send you my heartfelt adoration.

This event has the markings of a stress tornado, sending you into an emotional upheaval.

I thought this was a great opportunity to share with you my stress controllers,

as well as having some great people share how they handle stress in their lives.

Stress can do many nasty things to us including, having chest pains, lack of motivation, taking drugs, alcohol or smoking,

Leaving you feeling tired, overwhelmed, change of sex drive, feelings of anger, stomach issues,

have you socially withdraw, sadness or depression may creep in and we may loose motivation to do the things we love, like exercising.

So what do we do when we find ourselves in this situation?

The first step is to recognize it, and know your triggers.

Having ready available stress de escalators at your fingertips is important for you to recover quickly.

What are you telling yourself?

Are you constantly saying, “I am stressed, or this stresses me, etc.?

In actuality our brain believes what we tell it.

Did you know that stress and excitement elicit common responses,

like sweaty palms, sleepless nights, and upset stomach (think of butterflies).

We can actually trick our brain into thinking we are excited about something instead of stressing about it.

For example, if you are heading for a job interview, you could tell yourself you are excited about the opportunity for the interview,

you would be great in the position, etc.

Getting yourself excited instead of stressing yourself out with negative self-talk is one strategy,

that I use to control the stress that I choose to allow in my life.

But for many reasons, this strategy was not the best one when placing dad in a nursing home,

so I turned to one of my other favourite stress controllers which is to breathe and bring my focus back to the moment.

Take a deep breath in, say for a count of five seconds and let it out slowly for about 8 seconds.

Continue this practice until you feel your body and mind relax.

As you exhale, your heart rate slows.

Repeated deep breaths will naturally bring your heart rate more in sync with your breath.

This leads your brain to release endorphins, which are chemicals that have a natural calming effect;

So during our orientation meeting when I was feeling I was falling apart and the instructor’s words came out,

like an episode of Charlie Brown, “wah, wah, woh, wah, wah.”

I went to the breath, and focused on the minute, as I breathed I checked out the clock,

Focused to the presentation slides, practiced attentive listening, but didn’t let my mind wander.

My mind wandering to the what if’s would have taken me down to a dark place,

and I am sure I would have been sobbing uncontrollably during the presentation,

but I focused on the breath and stayed in the present, which enabled me to take in the information and think clearly.

Yes there will be times for me to allow my emotions to release, but this wasn’t the time.

I needed to be present to understand what was happening and to be the support for my family.

The above are a couple of my favourite strategies.

I have a whole array of strategies that I use for a variety of different stressors.

I know having a variety of strategies at your fingertips when you feel stress coming on is very important,

so I have invited a few people to contribute their practices of dealing with their life stresses.

Jade Deryck nurse and creator of JDxpresssions has shared that her job as a nurse working in the frontlines has been very stressful.

One of her favourite stress relievers is to indulge in her skin care routine.

Long showers allow her to visualize the stress melting away.

Jade takes time to do a gua sha facial massage, which can help to relieve tension from the face,

relax the muscles and help to drain lymphatic fluid.

Recently my friend Les Taylor had some health issues within her family that could certainly cause stress.

When I asked Les how she has been dealing with it, she conveyed that she doesn’t tell her brain she is stressed;

she calls them challenges that she is able to conquer.

Staying focused to each day and not dwelling in future or past worry.

She states that each day is a gift and the way you look at something determines the outcome for you emotionally.

Les’ self-care strategies include turning to gratitude for the many wonderful people in her life,

and that alone brings her such comfort and peace.

Another great tip she offered was to picture a treasure chest in your mind and put all your stress in that chest and pull out one at a time;

allowing you to focus on one thing and not an over abundance of stressful thoughts.

Jay Forbes, Head Fitness Coach at the Underground Fit Club at Life by Design,

says growing up he didn’t learn to deal with stress,

he bottled it up until it manifested with a diagnosis of depression, anxiety and signs of bipolar.

He was prescribed a variety of medications, which he found was just a band aide because in fact he didn’t understand his stress,

and didn’t know what to do with it.

Finally he knew he had had enough when the medications where taking over his life.

He decided to develop daily healthy habits that could take the place of his medication.

Jay started mindfulness and self-awareness practices;

allowing him to understand his stress and how his body deals with it.

Each night Jay reflects on his day and applauds what went well and sets goals for what can be better next time.

He does not delve into the negative of a situation but uses it as an opportunity to reflect upon how he can improve next time.

He shared, stress is everywhere and stressful situations just don’t disappear, but we can learn strategies to help us deal with them.

Learning to control our thoughts, our breathing, our energy,

and knowing that we have control over how we want to feel emotionally can help you manage your stress in the craziest of times.

Jay shared that he has had to deal with being a first responder in a homicide,

has dealt with financial and relationship stress, daily stress of car issues, home floods, theft,

and the suicide of his brother and others that he loves.

Jay continues to use many tools to help him with his stress levels including exercise,

and allowing his artistic side to come out in his drawings.

Allowing his stress to be released in constructive ways.

Stress is inevitable.

Things always come up and we can help manage stress by getting to know ourselves better and understanding how we deal with stress.

The more we understand the better able we are to address it.

Learning strategies and teaching these skills to our children are important steps to reducing negative harmful reactions

to the stressors in our lives and our children’s lives.