Try This 4 Step Process When Feeling Stressed Out

Roughly two-thirds of Americans say they need help for stress in their lives. Having said that, it’s important to remember that stress itself is not the problem (it’s ever-present). Instead, it’s how we relate to stress. The stress response (Fight/Flight/Freeze) is critical to our survival and it is instinctual. Of course, most of us don’t experience life-or-death threats all that often. We usually experience stress reactions in response to thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations. If we’re actively engaged in worry about whether we can put food on the table or pass the final exam, the stress reaction activates and all the bodily systems involved in the process turn on. If the bodily systems involved in stress don’t slow down and normalize, the effects can be severe on our mind and body (high blood pressure, muscle tension, anxiety, insomnia, chronic inflammation/pain, gastrointestinal issues, and a suppressed immune system).

Giving yourself space in your day to stop, coming down from the worried mind, and orienting yourself to the present moment has been shown to be enormously helpful in lessening the negative effects of our stress response. When we come back to the present, we’re more likely to gain perspective and see that we have the power to regulate our response to pressure.

So you might be wondering why the STOP sign? Here’s a short practice you can use at times throughout your day to step into that space between stimulus and response.

Sometimes understanding and practicing mindfulness can seem difficult at first. If you would like some guidance and gain a deeper understanding of how it can help you, consider reaching out and scheduling an appointment. You can contact me at (717) 288-5064 / gregghammond@restoringbalancelancaster.com and we can work together to bring you back to the best place to be… the present!

Is Change in Your Life Bringing Up Anxiety in You?

We choose to quit jobs, get married, move to a new home, adopt a pet, but, of course, there are many life events we don’t choose—being laid off at a job, flooding, disease, an accidental pregnancy, or the death of a loved one. Yet we can still choose how we deal with and react to these occurrences in our lives.

During very tough times, our emotions run the gamut: denial, anger, rage, despair, numbness, isolation, desperation. In order to heal, we must feel. But we have a say in what we do with our feelings. There are no right or wrong reactions, only what serves us and what doesn’t.

It may feel helpful for you to be angry and express your rage; it may feel helpful to be alone for some time. What is crucial when moving through a crisis is maintaining your self-awareness.

Check in with yourself daily, possibly through meditation or journaling, and ask yourself:

“Where am I today? Is this helping me?” This act alone can bring about anxiety as it causes use to sit with emotions that we do our best to avoid, because they cause discomfort, but again, growth comes from moving through discomfort.

I think one of the best examples of how discomfort allows for growth and strength comes from an experiment run in the early 1990’s that was called Biosphere 2 (not to be confused with the Pauly Shore movie “Bio-Dome”!!) in which there was an attempt to determine if a closed ecological system could support and maintain human life in outer space. Researchers couldn’t determine why the trees that were growing in the system were limp and laying over on their sides… eventually, they figured out that, because there was no wind in the sphere, the trees remained limber and limp, because they did not have to resist pressure and adversity, which leads to them growing strong in our environment. Adversity leads to strength.  

Whether we like the situation or not doesn’t really matter—life-altering events will change us, in one way or another. Instead of tuning out to avoid the pain, dealing with and even embracing misfortune and its consequences gives us an active role in guiding our own change and growth.

Transitions from misfortune to growth can be alternately exhilarating and difficult, but it  will bring beautiful changes into our lives.

What change are you dealing with now, and how are you responding to it?

Post a comment (click on the blog title to enter a comment): How have you grown from a difficult experience? What was your biggest lesson?

Your challenge: Consider a difficult period in your life. List the ways you grew as a person or how people came together to help you. Can you feel some gratitude for that difficult experience for making you a stronger person today?

Navigating through change can be daunting and sometimes seem impossible. If you’re struggling to move through the anxiety of change, consider talking to someone.

For anxiety counseling, please contact me at (717) 288-5064 / gregghammond@restoringbalancelancaster.com and take the opportunity to make change a lot more comfortable!!