Dealing & Releasing Stress
Dealing & Releasing Stress - Episode 83
Everybody deals with stress at some point in their lives. Itâs one of those inevitable things that come with being alive. Thankfully some stress can be beneficial and help us become better. But there is the other side to that coin. Thatâs the side many people struggle with and thatâs the side we will be chatting about today.
As I mentioned, there are two different kinds of stress. The first type is good stress, the other type is bad stress. Good stress comes from things like working out, breath work, and other things that put your body under stress with purpose, in order to grow and be better in some way. They are short term stresses on your body that encourage it to grow and improve. On the opposite end is bad stress that comes from things like work and struggling finances which are not good for you. Bad stress is something that is long term and that we need to release and get rid of in our lives. Specifically, we are going to talk about mental and emotional stress that we can feel. I have five strategies for how to release that stress from your life.
My first strategy is take time for you! Do things that you love to do! Chase your passions and enjoy life! Whatever those things are, do what you enjoy. It can be big like taking a few hours to go fishing or it can just be thirty seconds to look out the window and listen to the birds. Get away from the stressors and things that are bothering you, even if itâs just for a moment.
The second strategy for releasing toxic stress from your life is to breathe. Take time to breathe, it is a physical connection between your mind and body, and it can calm both down. Just a few breaths can help you find your inner peace again. You could find a specific pattern that works for you or just take some deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
The third thing that you can do is count down from five. This strategy is actually taken from a book called The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins, which I highly recommend. The idea is that you count down from five which will relax your mind and prep you so that youâre good to go. It lowers the pressure and the steam building up inside you and will really help you so that you can keep moving on. I pair this up with my breath as well.
My fourth strategy is come back to being present, be mindful. Be aware of whatâs going on within you and around you. If your mind is racing with âwhat ifsâ, âshould havesâ, and âwould havesâ, release those and come back to the present moment. Itâs too late to change anything so let it go. Donât let those stressors carry you off, once youâve calmed down you can look at the problem and see what you can do about it.
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My final strategy to help you release your stress is to meditate. I used to hate meditation, I thought it was ridiculous until I heard the benefits and people that I know started talking about those benefits. When I started, I stunk at it, I couldnât focus for that long and thought I was a failure. I kept going and after about a month I managed to work up to around ten minutes, and now I can go for somewhere around ten to twenty minutes. When you meditate you calm down your heart rate, relax your mind and body, and come to the present moment. In one of my favorite meditations, I like to imagine myself at a train station. The trains arenât going anywhere, theyâre just there, and each train car is one of my thoughts or emotions. I can walk onto the train car and explore it, and if I start getting emotionally attached to it or it starts stressing me out, I can leave that train car and go back to the station. It really helps me to dive deeper into things Iâm thinking about or things that Iâm feeling. It takes time to get to that point, but if you keep working at it you can get there. Stress doesnât need to run your life. It happens and itâs part of life, but we donât need to hold onto it and let it affect us.
I would love to hear what you think about Dealing and Releasing Stress! Please send me a message on social media @Jonesinfor or email me at spencer@spencermjones.com.
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