Daily Healthy Habits: Managing Stress (Part 4 of 4}
Managing stress is such a powerful and important part of our health. I believe that stress is an underlying cause to almost all lifestyle issues. You can’t hide from stress…it’s a part of being human. However, if we look at the different types of stress, we can easily connect the dots as to how vital it is to manage our stress appropriately.
Three Types of Stress
There are three types of stress we need to address: Trauma (Physical), Thoughts (Emotions), and Toxins (Chemical and Environmental threats).
Trauma/Physical Stress can be broken down into both micro and macro traumas. Macro traumas would be the big physical threats. Car accidents, falls, injuries, etc. Micro traumas are the everyday physical lifestyle choices we make…sitting at a desk, texting with our head down, lack of exercise, or the position in which we sleep.
Thoughts and Emotions is what people usually think of when it comes to stress. These can be perceived as both positive and negative but still impact our health. “Negative” stresses like finances, arguments/difficult conversations, work environment, living through a pandemic, etc. can impact our health negatively. “Positive” stresses like a big celebration or having a baby can also affect our health in the same way. Emotional stress is still stress and can have impacts on how we feel and function.
Toxic Stresses are becoming more accepted as the years go on. While it was popular to look at the impact of our life choices on the earth…now we are becoming just as aware of the impact of our life choices on our bodies. Everything we consume, breathe in, or place on our skin impacts our health. The movement towards natural, organic products and away from synthetically created products is booming. Plus, it’s been proven that what we inhale, consume, and use topically has an effect not just on our body but also on future generations as it gets into our DNA (this is the branch of science called epigenetics).
How Our Body Perceives Stress
Our body perceives stress through the nervous system. The nervous system is the master control system of your body. It processes every single function of your body by sending messages from the brain, down the spinal cord and out the nerves to all cells, tissues, and organs of your body. The communication highway between brain and body is crucial. If it is compromised at any level, we have break down and it can cause dis-ease and dis-function.
This is why Chiropractors focus so much on the spine because it protects the nervous system. Our number one job is to ensure the integrity of the nervous system and create clear brain-body communication.
Reacting vs. Responding to Stress
There is a difference between reacting and responding to stress. I like to use the analogy of a flowing river to help visualize the difference. If you have a river flowing downstream and it comes to a beaver dam…the water builds up. The dam stops the water from easily flowing…some may trickle through the branches but the majority of the water is stopped. If instead, it was just a rock in the middle of the river, the water naturally finds a way to flow around the rock. This is a good analogy when it comes to reacting and responding to stress. The stress is still there…the beaver dam and the rock. But how the water is impacted in both situations creates two different outcomes.
In the real world, you may be aware of when you feel yourself reacting to stress. I know there are triggers in my life that cause me to react. I immediately feel my body tense and I’m on “alert”. My breathing may go shallow, my heart races, and I get tired and overwhelmed easily. I have had to learn over time how to respond more appropriately to these triggers.
Now, you may be thinking “well, emotionally, sure….I can respond better but what about the trauma or toxins?” The answer is you can choose to make better lifestyle choices that would impact these outcomes. Physically, you can be aware of your posture, how often you get up from your desk, your sleeping positions, choosing to prioritize exercise and stretching, as well as other physical dynamics. You can also decide what you put in and on your body and what products you choose to bring into your home that may or may not be filled with synthetics and chemicals. Even being more aware of where we are in life and how present we are can diminish our chance of injury, falls, and accidents. The majority of car accidents, for example, happen within 2 miles of someone’s home because they are so familiar with the area that they let their guard down. Tapping into our BEing versus and our DOing can improve these outcomes.
Where do you start?
I would encourage you to do an overview of your life in these three areas.
PHYSICAL (trauma)
what is my posture like?
how much time do I spend on a computer each day?
how much time do I spend on my cell phone/tablet each day?
how much movement/exercise do I get each day?
how much time do I prioritize for stretching each day?
what position do I sleep in at night?
EMOTIONAL (thoughts)
do I tend to react or respond to stress?
how much sleep do I get at night?
do I have rituals in my life that help me ground and have time for me?
do I avoid difficult situations or deal with them as they come up?
am I overly stressed in specific areas of my life? (relationships, work, finances, for example)
do I take time to mediate or journal? (check out my Intro to Meditation here).
BIOCHEMICAL (toxins)
do I eat a majority of whole foods or processed foods?
do I know the ingredients in the processed foods I eat?
how much sugar do I consume daily?
how much caffeine do I consume daily?
how much alcohol do I consume daily?
do I smoke or vape?
how many medications am I on?
how can I make lifestyle changes that will affect the number of medications I am on?
do I know the ingredients in the skin care products I use? (also hair care and dental care)
do I use conventional or natural cleaning supplies?
Choosing to prioritize your health may feel overwhelming. Often, if we ask ourselves, we know WHERE we need to start. It may be what we are eating. It may be the relationship with our spouse. It may be that we haven’t exercised in months. Begin with ONE STEP. Changing everything at once will likely lead to failure because the habits you have had are so ingrained that to change them all would be overwhelming.
JUST ASK YOURSELF….WHAT IS ONE THING YOU CAN CHANGE TODAY.
Begin to research on the topic and arm yourself with the information, resources, and supplies you need to make that one change. Try it out for 30 days and take stock in how you feel. What are the positive effects? Are there any negative effects? (If you’re stopping sugar, for example, you may have a headache and feel lousy for a few days…this may be perceived as negative but truly, it’s your body normalizing). Celebrate your win! And then choose again. What’s next on the list that you want to improve?
I’m curious as to what you want to begin with! Let me know in the comments below!