Identify Stress Triggers & Take Action

Throughout my work with individuals and groups as a Meditation and Stress Therapist, I see first hand how little the general public are aware of the physical symptoms of their stress. This is such a terrible shame seeing as stress is the number ONE underlying cause of ALL modern illness and disease!

SHOCKING!

Stress has become the go-to word to describe a myriad of emotions, feelings and situations in our lives. How many times have you heard someone say:

How many times have you said these statements?

We all suffer from various symptoms of stress but how often are you actually aware of yours?

When we’re feeling stressed and low, we’re often living in our head and feeling sorry for ourselves, and certainly in no mindset to pay attention to our bodies or consider that we CAN and WILL overcome our challenges.

Stress can actually be positive or negative.

Eustress (positive) is when we’re challenged and excited to test our limits, discover our strengths, set new personal bests and overcome our fears.

The Stress Response (negative) is when we feel a physical, emotional or mental strain on our ability to cope. This type of stress is an inbuilt protective mechanism that kicks our mind and body into action whenever we experience fear, discomfort or a loss of control. Ever heard of the fight-or-flight response?

Unfortunately, modern lifestyles and demands place an additional burden on our already overworked nervous system. The dominant sympathetic nervous system responsible for the stress response is being activated for non-life threatening situations like running late for work, arguing with a friend or worrying about paying the bills.

Our brain and adrenal glands can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality, so this only spells trouble for our escalating stress levels the more we focus on life not going our way.

The parasympathetic branch of the nervous system is the exact opposite. It activates our Relaxation Response, and promotes our natural self-repair mechanisms to help the body to heal itself.

Healing hormones such as Oxytocin, Dopamine and Endorphins are released when we slow down, breathe and let go. The trouble is, these self-repair mechanisms and healing hormones only work when the central nervous system is relaxed!

Are you relaxed most of the time?

To enable our bodies to let go of stress hormones and bathe in the beauty of our healing hormones, we need to practice relaxation techniques on a daily basis to REDUCE our stress responses.

This doesn’t just mean eating well, getting more sleep and exercising regularly.

This means looking at ways to create healthy responses and attitudes in ALL areas of your life.

We all experience dis-stress. But when we don’t ATTEND to or TAKE ACTION to counter our stress, it becomes persistent, prolonged and chronic and our health begins to suffer, inviting illness and disease.

Making time to attend to your stress and take action to resolve, release and respond in a healthier way is paramount to returning the body to inner balance and allowing ourselves to relax and repair.

Taking action to feel empowered creates a stronger resilience to the effects of stress.

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