The brain will always choose healing over disease. We have to learn to change our response to deal with our stress in order to mitigate an internal hormonal battle, which can lead to serious health issues.
As most know, our response to an externally stressful situation releases stress hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones prompt biological responses such as increased blood flow to extremities and suppression of appetite, which is absolutely appropriate. However, in an ideal world, once the outside stressor has disappeared, our body should quickly restore itself to its normal equilibrium. The problem occurs when we carry on feeling stressed for days, weeks and even months after the original thing that stressed us. This could have been a loss, a divorce, or even a horrible argument. This is why it’s essential that we become aware of emotions that we might be hanging on to when it would be healthier to let them go, or find some way of moving on.
Our bodies also need rest, and by this I don’t just mean sleep! We need rest from the continual stress and rush or our everyday lives. If like me, you are a working Mom, you’ll understand the difficult predicament that we’re all in – it’s so hard to chill, right? Here are 5 ways that you can restore your body back to equilibrium and give your immune system a boost.
- Carve out a couple of hours a week (weekday or weekend) to do something that is out of the bounds of your normal routine, and that has you connecting with someone you love to hang out with. This might be your partner, a friend, or a child. Go do something different – something that takes you out of your home: a visit to an exhibit, a museum, a walk on a beach/park that you’ve never been too. This will help you to switch off from the continual pressure that is hard to get away from in daily life.
- Download the Stop Breath Think app, and commit to doing one of the short check-in’s and meditations everyday.
- Learn to control your breath. They are hundreds of You Tube videos on different kids of Pranyama (or yoga breathing) – I love the alternate nostril breathing practice for calming myself down.
- Daily Writing: What’s going on with you right now? Sometimes we are so stressed out that we cannot see the wood for the trees. I find that getting everything down on paper is the best thing I can do for off-loading stress. I just pull out a notepad and start writing under the title “What’s going on with me?”
- Make a to-do list: It doesn’t matter how or where you make this list. I feel way less pressured when I sit down and write out a huge list. I usually make 3 lists: to-do today, to-do soon, to-do this year.
