Is Your Life Stressing You Out?

Photo credit pexels-karolina grabowsk Woman with dark hair and glasses wearing a green shirt and cream jacket. She is sitting at a desk with one hand on her face. There are three people standing round her with their faces out of shot. They are holding their hands out and pointing as if arguing.

Why do you feel stressed out?

We all have a natural survival instinct, it’s called a ‘fight or flight’ response.

A mixture of hormones is released which allows us to react quickly to dangerous situations. Modern life can produce stressful situations where this ‘fight or flight’ response is triggered even when we aren’t in danger. Small amounts of stress aren’t a problem, some people feel motivated by it. However, long term stress can cause many other health problems if not treated.

Having hearing loss can cause stress in many different situations. Having to explain to strangers why you can’t hear them and being uncertain of their reaction. Worry about missing conversations. Worry about speaking out of turn because you misheard what what being said. People asking you questions and not understanding them. Getting lost and having to ask for directions. Not hearing travel announcements and getting on the wrong train. Being hypervigilant in case someone speaks to you, or the fire alarm goes off.

All this just adds another layer of stress to all the other things going on in your life. Such as life changes, moving house, bereavement, divorce, money or work problems.

Or internal stressors such as worry about work, health or finances, anxiety about the future and concern about things going on in your own life or that of someone close to you.

Stress can be caused by a build up of lots of different problems that, on their own, don’t seem so bad. But they build up over time and become too much to deal with, leaving you feeling overwhelmed with no direction. When there is a lot going on, it can seem an impossible task to get things back on the right track.

How to tell if you’re stressed out.

You might be suffering from stress if you regularly:-

-Have trouble sleeping.

-Feel overwhelmed.

-Get over emotional or cry easily.

-Eat too much, or not enough.

-Get angry or short tempered with those around you.

-Drink too much alcohol.

-Feel worried or frightened about the future.

-Feel that your life is out of your control.

-Have unexplained aches and pains.

-Have difficulty concentrating or finishing tasks.

-Avoid social situations.

If stress is ignored or left untreated it can lead to other health problems. Long term stress can cause:

-High blood pressure

-Heart problems

-Weight gain or weight loss

-Digestive discomfort, e.g. heartburn, irritable bowel syndrome, stomach ulcer

-Insomnia which in turn creates fatigue, memory problems or difficulty concentrating

Stress is your body’s way of telling you to slow down. Take time to look after yourself, improve your diet and be more active to get rid of that excess adrenalin.

That’s easy enough for me to say, but I get that it’s not always that simple.

So what can you do about stress?

Here are some simple steps that if they become a habit, will begin to reduce your stress levels.  This will allow you to create some space for yourself to relax and find clarity and focus about where to spend your energy.

Digital Detox

It’s great that technology allows us to work flexibly, but is the flexibility working for you or your boss? If you’re constantly checking work emails after hours then how can you ever switch off?  Pressure and overwork makes us feel we have to do extra at home to ‘catch up’ and this can easily become a habit – or worse – an expectation.

Create some boundaries between your work and home life. Don’t check your work email after a certain time of day and make it clear to your boss or clients when you won’t be contactable.

Looking at any screen has been shown to stimulate the brain, making us feel wide awake when we want to rest. Constantly being accessible and bombarded with information is bound to take its toll.

We are overloaded with too much information, too much to fully process, which leads to tiredness and a shorter attention span.

Are you addicted to social media?

We use social media for keeping in touch with people and the buzz we get  from having a post liked or shared can become addictive, making us focus on what’s on our phone instead of the things and people around us.

Social media gives us an imperfect or completely false impression of other peoples lives, making us feel like we should be doing better. We automatically compare our lives to others by assuming that the smiley happy photos are a window into their real day to day life.

We try to keep up by doing the same, trying to feel better by making our lives look perfect too. Comments and likes serve as positive reinforcement, no comments or likes makes us feel ignored and lonely.

Constantly reading about negative events in the news can make things feel even more hopeless and can add to feelings of stress and depression.  The world starts to feel like a scary and unsafe place, and checking for updates becomes compulsive. The more people talking about bad things on social networks amplifies the urgency. Like Chicken Licken telling everyone the sky is falling.

If you find it hard to relax without checking social media or news notifications, you may be addicted to your phone.

Do you really have to have it with you 24/7?  In the not so distant past people wouldn’t be contactable between leaving the house and getting to work, the sky didn’t fall down.

Do you check your phone as soon as you wake up, or do you shower and get dressed first? Can you get through your commute to work or your lunch break without checking your phone?

Here’s some simple ways you can start your digital detox.

-Try not checking your phone for the hour before you go to sleep or leave it downstairs to charge at night. This way you can’t check it first thing in the morning either.

-Don’t check your phone before you eat breakfast.

-Turn off social media notifications, give yourself allocated time to check it later.

-Have a scheduled time to read and respond to emails, make it clear to your work that you won’t respond after a certain time or at weekends

-Have dinner at the table with family and ban phones whilst you’re eating.

-At a restaurant with friends – the first one to check their phone pays the bill.

-Plan a tech free day and enjoy the company of your friends and family.

Diet

We all know that diet can have an impact on our health, but it can affect our mental health too.

Feeling tired, sluggish or unwell because of the food we eat can increase feelings of stress and depression. A poor diet can also create digestive discomfort, stopping you from sleeping.

Comfort eating can make things feel better in the short term but doesn’t really solve anything. It just creates more guilt and makes us feel like a failure if we are trying to lose weight.

Our production of stress hormones (cortisol) slows down the body’s natural processes. This is because the fight or flight response stops any non essential functions to help us deal with danger.

Therefore we get a slower metabolism, lower libido, hyper vigilance and insomnia.

Because we take longer to digest our food, more of it is stored as fat, making us gain weight. It’s also why we are more likely to suffer from digestive discomfort such as heartburn or irritable bowel.

Too much cortisol in our body can impair your immune system, causes hypertension, and sends your brain mixed messages about being hungry. Making you eat too much or not enough.

Here are some recommended foods for brain health which you can incorporate into your diet and others to avoid.

Foods to avoid.

Drinks full of caffeine such as coffee and energy drinks give you a quick boost of alertness followed by a crash, leaving you craving more. Too much caffeine throughout the day can leave you feeling restless and stressed out in the evening. Sugary drinks have the same effect.

Whilst alcohol may make you feel better in the short term, it is a natural depressant. Your low mood the next morning isn’t just due to the hangover. The side effects of alcohol are also similar to stress and you end up craving more of it just to feel ok again.

Foods high in processed sugars and fats are already hard for our bodies to digest, when digestion is slower in times of stress, it makes the problem worse, resulting in heartburn and other problems.

Processed foods can also cause a rise in cortisol levels.

Stress causes high blood pressure, which is made worse by salt and sugar laden foods such as processed snacks, crisps, biscuits, sweets, ice cream, ready meals, fast food and take aways.

Foods to beat stress.

Choose natural foods which are rich in fibre and vitamins.

When deciding which fruit or veg to go for, the more colourful they are, the better for you they usually are.  Fruit and veg such as blueberries, strawberries, red peppers, sweet potato and spinach are all good examples.

Foods rich in omega 3 such as tuna, mackerel and salmon can help to keep cortisol levels low.

Try to cook from scratch instead of eating processed meals from a box. Cook with olive oil and avoid adding salt to your food.

Healthy between meal snacks include nuts, dried fruit, dark chocolate (yes, really), pumpkin seeds – which are high in magnesium and live yogurt – to feed the good bacteria in your gut.

If you can’t live without your caffeine fix, switch your coffee to black tea. Alternatively try fruit or herbal tea, though lots of peppermint tea should be avoided as it works as a depressant in large amounts.

It’s hard to change your diet overnight but small changes can make a big difference. Small changes are also easier to stick to and more likely to become habits that last.

Exercise

Physical activity and exercise releases endorphins which lift your mood and get rid of nervous energy which causes high blood pressure and anxiety. During stress, your body is preparing for fight or flight action, so taking action in the form of exercise uses up that adrenaline and gives that energy somewhere to go.

Regular exercise has been shown to reduce tension, reduce fatigue, stabilise your mood and improve sleep. Other benefits include improved concentration, better memory and cognitive function and raised self esteem.

Exercising just 3 times a week for 30 minutes has been shown to be beneficial for reducing stress and improving well being.

This can be brisk walking, jogging, cycling or dancing. Joining a gym isn’t necessary, but going to a class will give you social interaction and support from like minded people.

Any type of exercise is good for your physical health, here are a few that have shown great results with stress treatment as well.

Exercise such as yoga and tai chi focus on gentle movement and breathing that helps to calm the mind as well as the body.

Walking or hiking also has beneficial effects, and takes your mind off other things going on in your life.

Being out in nature also has a soothing and calming effect on the mind, so get outdoors when ever you can. 30 minutes of gardening is just as good as a walk.

When starting to exercise after a break, always start slowly and don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t buy into the ‘no pain no gain’ mantra, if you don’t enjoy it, do something different.

Find an exercise you enjoy that you can make a part of your life.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a simple form of meditation that increases our ability to be fully present in the current moment.

In this state we are aware of what is happening around us without becoming overwhelmed by it.  We often spend part – or all of our day on autopilot. Worries about current problems or anxiety about future events can send our thoughts into a negative downward spiral.

With regular practise mindfulness can stop these unhelpful patterns by helping us to understand that our thoughts don’t have control over us and it’s ok to let them go

Studies by the University of Oxford have shown that mindfulness can be effective in treating stress and depression.

So how do you start?

Allocate some time each day, even if it’s just 10 minutes.

Find somewhere where you can sit quietly and not be disturbed. Turn off all distractions, like your phone or the TV.

It doesn’t matter where you are sitting as long as you are comfortable, ideally a chair that supports your back and allows you to keep both feet on the floor.

Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. You don’t have to take deep breaths, just focus on the rising and falling of your ribs as the breath flows in and out of your body.

Notice what sensations are going on in your body as you continue to breathe.

When your mind begins to wander and distracting thoughts arise, acknowledge them, and bring your attention back to your breathing.  Be kind to yourself when this happens, it isn’t easy to do and will take some practise.

After 5 or 10 minutes, lift your gaze to see what’s in front of you. Think about the colours and textures you can see.  Take a moment to absorb the information coming to you from all your senses. What can you see, hear, smell and touch?

Simple mindful meditations such as this can help you to stay focused and avoid being overwhelmed with everything that is going on around you.

It can also be used at times when you feel anxious to ground yourself in the present moment.

Journaling

Writing down your thoughts and feelings can help you to understand the cause of negative emotions and cope with difficult events.

Whilst it’s fine to acknowledge negative thoughts – they can give us an insight into causes of stress and emotional triggers – keeping a journal of things we are grateful for and happy events can improve our mindset, making us less likely to suffer from the effects of stress.

Writing down good things that happened each day can serve as positive reinforcement that we are doing well. It can increase self esteem by reminding us of our successes and things that make us feel good.

If you’ve never kept this type of journal before, you may not know where to start. Here are some simple writing prompts.

Write down how you are feeling right now.

What are you grateful for today?

What did you succeed at doing today?

How did you take care of yourself today?

Did you take a break today to do something you enjoy?

What will you do tomorrow?

These are just some suggestions about how to reduce stress.

But recovery from stress is a process. Don't give yourself a hard time if you aren't feeling better straight away.

There may be other changes that you need to make in your life first. If you'd like to chat about how you can create the life you want whilst making wellbeing a priority, book a one to one call with me by clicking the button below.