Beating Stress

Most of what you are stressing about will not matter in 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months, 5 years. Stress is bad for business. Anything emotionally taxing is truly just that, taxing. Stress is bad for your health and it hinders creativity. When we are presented with a problem and we start to stress about it we now have two problems, the original issue combined with the stress. As functioning people,  we should have a sense of urgency when dealing with issues/problems. When dealing, we shouldn't allow that sense of urgency to morph into stress.

Stress hinders your creativity. When we are consumed by stress, we are less likely to figure the solution for our problem. This reason being when we are in a state of stress, we focus on only the problem and less on the possible solutions.

Do not beat yourself up if the situation seems stagnant. Not every problem has a solution and some issues will be lose-lose. In this instance it may seem like stressing out about the outcome would be appropriate, but I promise you, it's not. Regardless of the outcome, you have to deal with the consequences. Stressing out about the losing scenario will only make it more difficult to deal with.

It's easy to tell people not to stress out, but the difficulty lies in actually learning how to not stress out. Stress is a normal human reaction,  It is our body's way of dealing with unknown factors. While it is Natural we do have to learn to deal with stress, so we are not in a constant state of stress or distress.

One way to deal with stress is to exercise. Exercising is an excellent & healthy way to relieve stress. When you exercise your body releases a hormone called endorphins, which is the “body's natural pain killer and mood elevator” (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax).

Exercise also reduces the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones are two of the body's stress hormones.  When They are reduced, the body's physiological symptoms of stress such as high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, weight gain, insomnia are reduced.

Meditation is another way to reduce stress. Meditation is a great way to reduce stress because you can do it anywhere, it does not require any equipment, and you can fit it into any Schedule. Meditating daily trains your body and mind to go into the relaxation response mode.

The relaxation response was coined by Dr. Benson, a Harvard doctor.  It is a technique that elicits the opposite response of stress or fight or flight. By practicing reaching this relaxed state, we are conditioning our bodies and mind to stay relaxed instead of stressing out when a problem occurs. (https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/meditation-natural-remedy-for-insomnia)

Stress is a natural, but chronic stress can hurt you or hinder your performance. If you want to be successful and healthy you must learn to deal with daily stress and extremely stressful situations. The two techniques mentioned in this blog can help you deal with stress. Both exercises and meditation are excellent tools that you can utilize to maintain a state of calmness when problems arise.