Should we be trying to live a stress-free life? We think not...
Our bodies are strange and beautiful things. When stress happens, it responds in equally strange ways. If you're curious about how your body reacts to stress, here are some things you should know.
Not all stress is bad.
It's a myth to think that we can (and should) live completely free of stress.
We all have some level of stress in our everyday life. However, stress/anxiety can often help us get things done. It's the body's natural defence against predators and danger - commonly referred to as the fight or flight response from way back when we were all cave people.
A distress signal is sent from the amygdala before we comprehend what's happening. For example, when someone experiences a stressful event, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus.
This area of the brain functions as a command center and communicates with the rest of the body through the nervous system so the person has the energy to fight or flee. Then our adrenal glands pump, and adrenaline releases into our bloodstream.
The brain is trying to keep you safe, but sometimes that doesn’t work in our favour.
Our brain was and always will work to keep us safe. However, if the brain continues to perceive something as dangerous, another part of the body will release cortisol and stay on high alert.
When we feel like the threat has passed, we take our foot off the brake, but we find that hard to do. Because it feels like the threat is constant, if the brain thinks you are in danger, it will keep all those hormones pumping around your body if you need to run a million miles an hour to get away from the lion.
It's not like back in the day when there was a threat of being eaten by a lion, this situation would happen, and then things would go back to 'normal,' but we live in a world where things surround us that could cause us stress and make us feel overwhelmed.
It's essential to pay attention to your stress levels.
If you don't, it will have a detrimental effect on everything - mood, sleep, mental health, relationships, work, and the list goes on! If we can't get a handle on our stress levels, it can feel like everything we do is stressful and can leave us feeling overwhelmed with the simplest of tasks, and we don't want to live like that, right?!
Here are five ways you could pay attention to your stress levels:
Become more aware of what situations you get stressed in - get specific. That way, you can look at how to address dealing with stress in those areas.
Define what stress looks like for you. For example, being busy and doing 'too much' might not make you stressed; you might thrive. Instead, you're listening to what society says about stress and what is 'good and bad.'
Set time aside for yourself. If you're rushing around from one thing to the next, you're always going to be on high alert.
Take baby steps. Don't try to do everything all at once and make all the changes today - it will only make you more stressed.
Check-in with your mindset. Are you approaching things with a fixed or a growth mindset? This could be impacting your stress levels.
