Summer Shape Up RI Resources - Stress Reduction

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HOW TO MANAGE STRESS FOR A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE

Let’s face it: Life can be stressful.  If you feel stressed, you’re not alone. Everyone feels stressed sometimes.

• The good news: Some stress is helpful – it can get your adrenaline going and help you meet a deadline or get something done.
• But the bad news is that long-term stress can increase your risk of health problems such as depression,and heart disease, says the National Institutes of Health.
•  So it’s important to know how to manage the stress in your life.

How Shape Up RI can help. In Summer Shape Up’s two-week mini module on stress, we’re going to provide you with a variety of ideas to control the stress level in your life. You may not be able to eliminate the stress factors, but you can learn to manage how you feel and react to them.

• The idea is to try out a stress management technique every day for two weeks, and see which ones seem to work best for you.
• Every day that you try one, put a check in your logbook. By the end of the two weeks, you may have some new tools in your arsenal to improve your well-being.

What is stress? Stress is the physical response to change. When you encounter stress, your body gets a signal from the part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which is wired to your body’s nerve system. It stimulates the release of stress hormones, preparing you to take quick action. (In the caveman days, the action was fight or flee).
            Your heart beats two or three times faster. Your blood pressure rises. Blood vessels constrict to direct blood flow to your muscles and brain and away from your skin and other organs.
            Ideally, your body would respond to the stress, deal with whatever’s causing it, and go back to normal a few minutes later. But research has found that stress has a longer term effect on your health, says Harvard Medical School in a special report on stress.

Stress’s toll on your body.  The problem is that your body has a tough time distinguishing between life-threatening events and day-to-day stressful situations. Anger or anxiety brought on by traffic jams or financial worries doesn’t find a quick physical release and builds up during the day.

When your body keeps experiencing the stress response to these garden-variety stressors and the response doesn’t switch off, health problems can arise, say the Harvard health researchers. Prime example: high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease. Another biggie: suppression of the immune system, which increases your chances of getting colds and other common illnesses.

Built-up stress can cause mental health problems too, especially anxiety and depression.  It can make you worry much of the time and make you feel panicky.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is what happens when your psyche is scarred after particularly traumatic events.

Stress warning signs. Too much stress can affect you physically. Your neck and shoulders tighten up, you get back pain, you sweat, you feel too tired to do anything. It can affect your behavior too. You might become overly critical of family and friends, boss people around, grind your teeth, or overeat. Emotionally, stress can lead to crying, anger, and loneliness. You might also lose your sense of humor, have poor concentration, forget things.

So what can you do about stress? Loads of things. Everyone is different, so in the next two weeks of Shape Up, try a variety of techniques and see what works the best for you. Read on for some ideas.

Learn the relaxation response. The relaxation response – the opposite of the stress response – can be elicited at will to create a sense of peace and rest, the Harvard researchers say. It puts the brakes on the biological changes that send us into the overdrive response to stress. If you regularly practice techniques that start up the relaxation response, you can decrease the cumulative effects of stress.

Different ways to spark the relaxation response:

• Breath focus. Many people find that a simple yet powerful technique called “Breath Focus” can elicit the relaxation response. Here’s how the Harvard researchers recommend doing it:
• In a quiet place, take a normal breath. Then take a slow, deep breath. The air should go in through your nose and move downward into your lower belly. Let your abdomen expand fully. Now breathe out through your mouth. While shallow breathing often feels tense, deep breathing produces relaxation.
• Practice this deep breathing for several minutes. Put a hand on your abdomen, just below your belly button. Your hand will rise an inch when you inhale; your chest will rise too. Relax your belly so it expands fully when you inhale.
• Now, practice the breath focus. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Blend your breathing with helpful imagery and a focus word or phrase that will help you relax.  As you exhale, picture the air leaving your body and carrying your worries away with it. Start with 10 minutes of breath focus and work up to 15 to 20 minute sessions.

• Try meditation: The art of staying in the present.  Multitasking has become the norm for many people. We race through life without paying much attention to what we’re doing and how we’re feeling. The opposite of that is mindfulness – from Buddhism – which helps us live each moment as it unfolds. Physicians and therapists are finding mindfulness can be a powerful therapeutic tool, Harvard researchers say.
• Mindfulness can be learned through meditation. This is a method of regulating your attention by focusing on your breathing, a phrase, or an image. Scientists have found using mindful meditation techniques helps relieve stress, and alleviate conditions such as high blood pressure, chronic pain, sleep problems and gastrointestinal difficulties.
• So let’s give it a try. Sit in a straight-back chair or cross-legged on the floor. Focus on the air coming into your body or your belly rising and falling. Once you’ve narrowed your concentration this way, widen your focus. Become aware of sounds, sensations and ideas. Embrace and consider each without judgment. If your mind starts to race, return your focus to your breathing, then expand it again. Some experts suggest 45 minutes a meditation a day, but try at least 20-minute sessions.
• A less formal approach to meditation: No matter what you’re doing, from showering to playing with the kids, keep three things in mind. Start with the breath focus and return to it periodically, staying aware of each breath. Second, do whatever you’re slowly and with deliberation. Third, engage your senses fully so that you savor every sensation.

• Visualization or guided imagery. Deliberately conjuring up soothing scenes can evoke the relaxation response. These images of scenes, places or experiences enhance your inner calm.
• How to do it. Find a quiet, comfortable place. Clear your mind while taking deep, even breaths for several minutes, then conjure up the images you find relaxing. Ask yourself what you see and hear. Concentrate on sensory pleasures, like the feeling of the sun in your image, or a breeze. If unrelated thoughts intrude, observe them, then go back to your scene. Try this for 10 or 20 minutes.
• Body scanning. This technique combines breath focus and visualization to help you become more aware of the connection between your mind and body. Everyone carries unnecessary tension in their muscles. A body scan helps you locate and release this tension.

How to perform a body scan. In the book Mind Your Heart, Dr. Herbert Benson and Aggie Casey suggest this technique. Sit or lie down and breathe deeply for two minutes. Concentrate on one body part at a time, such as a big toe.  Imagine the atoms in that toe and focus on the space between each atom. Imagine that toe feeling open, warm and relaxed. Now shift your focus to the other toes, one by one. Then work your way up your body.

• Choose an exercise with relaxation in mind. Just about any form of motion helps relieve pent-up muscle tension, but there are ways to enhance relaxation through exercise.
•  Some exercises, such as yoga, tai chi and qi gong, are especially effective at provoking relaxation.  You can take a class at many venues, such as YMCAs. Local libraries are a good source of exercise CDs that will help you learn the techniques.
• Rhythmic, repetitive activities can be calming. Walking, jogging, swimming or bicycling are examples. While doing them, breathe rhythmically, focusing on a word or phrase. When disruptive thoughts occur, turn your mind away from them and focus on moving and breathing.
• A mindful walk. As you walk, feel the breath move in and out of your body. Expand your focus to the sensations around you, such as freshly mown grass or how the air feels against your body. A slow, mindful walk helps relax you. A brisker pace can be calming and energizing in equal parts. In this case, place more emphasis on the sensations of your body, such as your quickened breathing and heartbeat and the way your muscles respond.
• Social support: Get a little help from your friends. Social ties, whether they are family, friends, coworkers, or acquaintances, protect our health and well-being, researchers have found. So seize opportunities to expand your social circle and deepen ties you already have. Ideas:
• Instead of waiting for someone to call you, call them.
• Volunteer. Lots of places need your time and talent. Check out the opportunities through The Volunteer Center of Rhode Island at www.vcri.org.
• Sign up for classes.
• Share a confidence. Doing so can turn a friendly relationship into a deeper one.
• Adopt a pet. Research shows that pets improve your physical and emotional health.
• Offer assistance to friends, family and neighbors, and accept when they offer to help you.
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• Nurture yourself! Sometimes you just have to put yourself first, because it can be a key ingredient in managing stress.
• Nurturing yourself needs to be an overarching concept for your life, says Harvard psychologist Alice D. Domar in her book Self-Nurture. The spark you get from nurturing your imagination, relationships, career, sex life or spiritual side amplifies the healing effects of other stress-relief techniques. Some ideas:
• Write in a journal. Research shows that writing about your worries and traumatic events can help you feel better. It’s like taking the cap off and letting your bottled-up feelings out.  It can help you work through a solution. Write for yourself, not for others..
• Make a worry box. At the end of the day, write down two or three worries on slips of paper. Put them inside a box. It allows you to mentally let go of the worries for the time being.
• Keep a gratitude journal. Don’t just write about stress. You can keep a joy or gratitude journal, too, about the things that make you happy.
• ‘The good things in life’ technique. For a week, each night reflect on your day and find three things that went really really well. Spend 10 minutes writing about them, including why they went well. These can be simple things like reading a story to your toddler. Ask why this good thing happened. For example, someone might write that her husband picked up ice cream “because my husband is really thoughtful sometimes.”
• Take time for relaxation exercises.
• Cultivate your social circle.
• Make time for leisure activities and hobbies.

• Change your thinking, because you are what you think. Negative thoughts can make you miserable and stressed. Cognitive therapy is a way to deflate those negative thoughts, which are often exaggerated and distorted, and to pump up positive thoughts.
• When negative thoughts arise, call a mental-time out.
• Breathe.
• Then reflect by asking yourself some questions. Is this thought true? Did I jump to a conclusion? What evidence do I actually have?
• Then decide what to do. Maybe you need to think more realistically. Ask how else you could think about this. Remember that most things we worry about never come to fruition.
• Get a friend’s perspective; sometimes a friend can see a flaw in your thinking.
• Try a mini-relaxation.
• When you have 1 minute. Sit and focus on your breathing and say to yourself “I am at peace” while taking deep breaths.
• When you have 2 minutes. Count down slowly from 10 to 0. Take a complete breath with each number.
• When you’ve got 3 minutes: Relax your muscles and allow your body to feel loose. Breathe slowly.
• When you’ve got 5 minutes. Try self massage. Put fingertip pressure on muscle knots.
• When you’ve got 10 minutes. Try imagery. Sit in a quiet, comfortable room and breathe deeply for a couple of minutes. Then picture good images from the past, enjoying all the sensations of those experiences.

Skewering 10 common stressors. Here’s a few thoughts on things that commonly cause stress:
--Are you frequently late? Apply time management.
--Often angry or irritated? Take the time to breathe and reflect.
--Overextended? Clear the deck of one time-consuming household chore.
--Feeling unbearably tense? Any kind of exercise will help.
--Unsure of your ability to do something? Reach out for help, whether from a friend, coworker or even a librarian.
--Worn out or burned out? Take care of you body by eating well and relaxing.
--Feeling lonely? Connect with others even it it’s a brief conversation.