Do you ever feel like your life just stresses you out? No matter what you are doing, it seems like everything creates stress. Well, you are not alone. More than 40% of people say they live with daily stress. And on any given day, everywhere you turn or everything you attempt to do, you are met by a roadblock. At that point you have a choice. You can either respond or react to it. Reaction looks like anger and a feeling of overwhelm. A response looks like taking a step back to gain perspective. So when somebody comes to me and says, "I am just stressed out by life," there's some perspective that needs to be gained. It's important to understand the specifics of what is causing the stress, because it's not everything, although it feels like it's everything.
When you take a step back and you really look at it and examine it, you can point a finger at, it and identify what is causing the stress. After you gain that perspective then you can make the choice to utilize some specific strategies so you can feel less stressed and bring down the overwhelm. What are some strategies you can choose? Here are two of my favorite. There are more...
Deep belly breathing - by breathing you slow down your amygdala. The part of the brain which activates fight, flight or freeze. By doing this, you are able to gain some understanding and possibly identify what the thing is that is causing the stress. You start to feel like you can "think" clearly again.
Take a walk - a brisk 10 minute walk. It lowers your stress response. It reduces the stress hormones which have been dumped in your body. Again, you can start to think again.
Once you are able to think clearly, you can make choices which serve you, which in turn keeps the stress under control. Imagine if you only did those two strategies, breathe and walk. Do they sound too simple to work? If they do, it's because you have been conditioned to believe that it takes some difficult process to alleviate your stress. I used to be there until I read the research and started walking to help me manage my post traumatic stress symptoms. I started walking for 10 minutes and then I increased it and then every day I was out walking, watching the sunrise. It creates a sense of calm, a sense of peace, a sense of organization, a sense of nothing's going to overwhelm me. Imagine starting you day that way. You can smile now... :) The choice is yours. What would it be worth if you lost that sense of life is stress? I bet it would be priceless.
Looking for more strategies, tactics and tools to beat the stress in your life? visit SamanthaHorwitz.com and click on free training. You can also follow me on social media. I'm @TheSam Horwitz on FB, Twitter & Instagram and @Samantha Horwitz on YouTube.