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Welcome to episode 22...Are you stressed?
Who isn't stressed? Stress is part of life. Life is busy and we feel it in our shoulders and chest. Deep breaths!
Kristen noticed stress and tension in her cheeks at the start of the show today and says that your body gives you signals about how you are doing and we often ignore our bodies. It really does tell you what it needs.
Sometimes we don't even know that stress is even affecting us.
Living with no stress is not realistic. A certain level of stress is actually good for us. Broken down, stress is the body's response to challenge or demand. Like when you work a muscle, it breaks down and then is repaired and rebuilds even stronger.
So, stress isn't the bad guy here. It's the thoughts about it and what we make it mean and how it takes over our lives that are bad. All of a sudden we are eating poorly, not sleeping, not exercising, in our heads too much, and beating ourselves up.
Even saying the word "stress" makes our shoulders rise up and makes us feel bad.
Too much stress can affect you mentally and physically.
The mind, body, and soul connection is important in life and everything is connected, so if you're experiencing health problems, there's a good chance that there are some false beliefs about yourself going on. The trauma you may have experienced can also be a factor in how you are feeling and thinking about yourself today as well.
Rooting these things out and healing them can have a profound effect on your current state of health overall. The chronic stress you may be experiencing now can be dealt with a little better once we release some of the emotional baggage.
Your job being hard and kids doing this and that--the daily stressors--we can't really eliminate all that, but we can talk about how we can deal with the chaos a little better and be more at ease while we're in the middle of the storm.
This kind of stress can create a lot of downstream health problems. Being stressed makes your heart rate go up, your blood pressure goes up, you may feel fear or anger. You just notice it in your body, especially the more stressed you get, the more it shows on your face, you're not yourself and you're irritable.
Good stressors like having a baby and getting a promotion at work are positive but still considered stressful because they do change your life in a way.
If your stress is manageable --you're being spurred to action and you feel a bit overwhelmed but overall still okay, that's fine. But if it's too much stress and it's is affecting you all the time, then you might want to ask yourself what thoughts are leading you to this state. What are you telling yourself? What are you making this mean? If you don't get your to-do list done, are you okay with it or are you using that to beat yourself up? This leads to more stress and then you are already stressed the moment you wake up.
Get between the thoughts and the stress, slow it all down, take deep breaths, asking yourself what's going on.
When Becky was sick with Covid and a sinus infection recently, she rested and did not feel stressed. She listened to her body and read, watched TV, slept a lot, allowed herself to just be sick. Back to real life after being sick, that relaxation state is long gone. So, she had to ask herself what she is making this mean, why does she live like this? She can't live like she is on vacation all the time and drop all her responsibilities, but she also doesn't have to live so stressed out all the time.
There is a balance one can have between being too busy and finding relaxation. When we take time to relax it actually helps us to be more productive later. Also, when life is very...
