The world looks very different today than it did a few weeks ago. We are all doing our best to adjust to the changes in our routines and surroundings. With lay-offs and closings, those who have to keep working, health uncertainties and difficulty finding a place to buy essentials, we are experiencing a lot of stress.
Our routines are off, and for many our homes have become schools and workplaces. The things we used to do to relax may not seem as effective, or we may have difficulty finding the time or motivation to do them.
And all that stress is zapping our resources, both physically and emotionally, leaving us tired and feeling worn out. Things are going to be different for a while, and we’ll need all the resources we can get our hands on. There are some easy methods you can use to lower your stress level in seconds. When used regularly, they will lower your overall stress and allow you to feel better more often.
That stress is a normal and natural response to anything we perceive as threatening, and it’s useful in small doses as a motivator that spurs us into action. Too much stress interferes with our ability to function the way we’d like to. Continued stress uses up our energy and our body’s resources, making us tired and more vulnerable to illness.
We may feel tired, irritable, depressed, or anxious. We might have trouble sleeping, or turn to comfort foods for a quick fix. We may have trouble concentrating or focusing our attention, and it may seem more difficult to relax.
There are some easy things you can do to decrease your stress and start feeling better right away. Taking a few minutes to de-stress each day can lower that stress response and help to restore us to natural functioning.
What Stress Is
To get a better understanding of what’s happening, let’s talk about what stress is, and what it isn’t.
Stress is not the thing or situation that’s bothering you - it isn’t the job, or the virus, or the uncertainty. The stress response, or “fight or flight” response is the emergency reaction system of the body. It is there to keep you safe in emergencies. The stress response includes physical and emotional responses to your perception of various situations. When the stress response is turned on, you are programmed to respond in certain ways to situations that are viewed as challenging or threatening.
The stress response can work against you. You can turn it on when you don’t really need it, like when you perceive something as an emergency when it’s really not. It can turn on when you are just thinking about past or future events, and even when you’re thinking about things that may or may not happen. Chronic conditions that are typically harmless can be intensified when the stress response is activated too often, with too much intensity, or for too long. This overreaction puts a strain on the body, weakening the immune system.
As the initial surge of the stress response subsides, the second component of the stress response system, known as the HPA axis begins. This network consists of the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands. During this second phase of the stress response, hormones signal the HPA axis to keep the sympathetic nervous system — the "gas pedal" — pressed down as long as the subconscious continues to perceive something as dangerous.
When the threat passes, the parasympathetic nervous system applies the brakes, and dampens the stress response.
Many people have a difficult time finding a way to put the brakes on stress. Chronic low-level stress keeps the HPA axis activated, like a motor that is idling too high for too long. After a while, this has an effect on the body that contributes to the health problems associated with chronic stress. Your behaviors and thinking can keep your body’s natural relaxation response from operating at its best.
Now that we have a better understanding of what’s happening in your body, I’ll teach you a simple and easy way to engage the parasympathetic nervous system to break out of that cycle of stress.
How Breathing Can Decrease Stress
Getting your body to relax on a daily basis for even brief periods can help decrease unpleasant stress responses. can help your body’s natural relaxation system be more effective.
The vagus nerve is the longest of the cranial nerves and governs the parasympathetic nervous system. Stimulating the vagus nerve releases acetylcholine that turns off the stress response. One of the easiest ways to stimulate the vagus nerve is by using abdominal breathing.
Sit up and push your abdominal muscles - push your belly out - that’s right. Did you notice that as you did that you took a breath in? That’s because when you push the abdominal muscles out, your diaphragm drops, allowing your lungs to expand.
Now, do it again, and this time, as you push your abdomen out, fill our lungs as deep as you can, as if you’re filling them from the bottom all the way up to the top - that’s right. Now hold it for just a brief second, and let it out nice and easy.
Good. That is an abdominal breath, and it will trigger a parasympathetic - a relaxing response - from the vagus nerve.
Now you can use that abdominal breath in a pattern called square breathing. Square breathing does two things. It uses a deep abdominal breath, triggering the vagus nerve that turns down stress, and it shifts your focus from whatever you’re thinking or worried about to pay attention to your breathing.
Click this link to get the Abdominal Breathing for Stress Relief Guide, including the Square Breathing exercise emailed to you:
https://zfrmz.com/KuWL6RM1fRmcpiQlasJi
Karen Gray is a Certified Hypnotist, a Registered Nurse, and the director of Green Mountain Hypnosis in Lebanon, New Hampshire. For more information on how you can use hypnosis to change your life, visit www.greenmountainhypnosis.com, email Karen at karengray@greenmountainhypnosis.com, or call (802) 566-0464.
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