I must admit, despite my knowledge and experience when it comes to dealing with stress, Covid hit me for 6 and caused a significant stress response which I haven’t experienced in a while.

I had to remind myself that every time you think a situation is stressful, your brain tries to help – so it starts the stress responses.

This stress response is great if were being attacked by a bear not when dealing with the majority of situations that cause us stress today. I first started to look at managing stress better when doing my GCSE’s. I kept having to tell myself, the exam paper isn’t going to attack you, it isn’t going to hurt you. Giving my brain the right information so that it calmed down and I could focus.

Give your brain the right information and manage your brain, rather than letting your brain manage you!

I use the following process to get my stress response back under control in order to remain focused on what was important and most crucially maintain my wellbeing.

Understand your stress response

1. Identify the cause of the stress reaction;

-       external

-       internal (physical and emotional)

-       chemical and nutritional (what we put in our bodies)

-       survival

 

2. Identify the early indicators that you are having a stress response;

physical – headache, tight chest, increased heart rate…

emotional - angry, close to tears, overwhelmed…

behavioural - snappy, withdrawn, impulsive…

 

3. Define what stress is for you.

What does it look like?

What does it feel like?

What does it sound like?

What do you call it?

Where is it?

For me it is a big ball of red, hot string. When I start to feel overwhelmed I have to remind myself. I just need to untangle the string. I just need to untangle the string. Far more easy to deal with than dealing with an emotion that is so difficult to understand, especially in the midst of a stress response.

 

Manage your stress response

 1. Focus on your priorities.

Focus on the things that are genuinely important.

Focusing on those things that are important but not necessarily urgent.

When we focus on the smaller more insignificant things first there’s no space for the big important stuff. Put the important stuff first - health, family, goals, values, what’s your big stuff?

 2. Let go of what you can’t control.

It’s wasted energy to worry and try and change the things we have no power over.

Focus on what you can control.

Take control of how you think, feel and behave. Remember we can learn, un-learn and re-learn. So, there’s no excuse for I’m just like that.

Choose to do everything you do. No more got to, need to, have to. I’m choosing to do this because the outcome is positive. I’m choosing to do this because the consequences of not doing it are negative. I’m choosing to do this because it’s taking me one step forward towards the end goal.

 

 3. Find balance and be D.E.A.R to yourself.

Diet – eat fresh and drink water to nourish your body. Balance the things you want (like ice cream) with the things you need. There’s enough situations out there which could trigger a stress response we don’t need to be adding to it with what we eat and drink.

Exercise – move, find something you love to do which moves your body. Something which boosts your mood and energy. Then do it regularly.

 Attitude – maintain a positive mental attitude (more in our Maintaining Positivity Toolkit)

Rest – quality physical and mental relaxation and rest.

 Managing stress is all about learning, learning about ourselves, learning what works and what doesn’t. Whatever stage you’re at in your journey to manage stress better I urge you to keep learning.

Feeling overwhelmed is like the little dancing top on the pressure cooker.

It is a safety device that is warning us to

take notice.

We can ignore the warning and if we do, something will blow.

Anne Wilson Schaef