Overstressed?
Take a Breather
by Marie Dalloway, Ph.D.
A Day in the Life
The day begins in a way that does not augur well: A restless
night of sleep followed by waking up late and feeling
tired. The youngest has cold symptoms. A debate ensues
about whether she should stay home. The argument is exhausting.
No time for breakfast. You grab a travel mug of coffee
as you fly out the door.
The traffic congestion makes you grit your teeth. An idiot
cuts you off. You curse. The edgy feeling escalates to
being anxious and worried.
At work responsibility for a major report is given to
you. Documentation of earlier work on the report is scant.
As usual support staff is lacking. You lunch at your desk
on junk food as you try to decipher the report materials.
A coworker who interrupts you with small talk spills coffee
on your desk and the report.
The drive home slows to a crawl due to an accident. You
bite your cuticles. At home you are called upon immediately
to referee a fight. You want peace. You want to be left
alone. Can't anyone understand that you don't want this
barrage of demands the moment you walk through the door.
Your voice rises. Your kids look hurt. You feel guilty.
Is this being overstressed or just having a bad day? Don't
the demands and the pressures of combining work and family,
of trying to stay organized, and of working out the logistics
for the ever-increasing list of things to do, naturally
make anyone feel irritable, tired and overburdened? Dealing
with life's stresses requires a stress detection system.
Then, learn to combat too much stress with an easy and
effective breathing exercise. Learn when it is time to
take a breather.
Are You Overstressed?
Stress occurs when we face real or imagined
events that call for a dramatic response. The stress reaction
is for survival. It is a wired-in physical reaction that
gears the body into a state of preparedness.
Primitive men and women when confronted by danger such
as a bear or a tiger prepared to "fight or flee." Muscles
tighten, heart rate and respiration increase, blood pressure
rises, adrenaline is released into the body, blood vessels
constrict to minimize bleeding. These signs indicate the
triggering of an activation system in the body, all of
them adaptive and necessary if you are going to run or
to fight for your life.
Stress is this charged up state of activation. Danger
or demand produce this response.
Most of us are familiar with the stress response. At a
regional meeting, you might be called upon to present
the current marketing strategy your department is using.
You suddenly experience a host of symptoms including a
pounding heart, clammy hands, weakness in the knees and
a quizey stomach.
Since the stress reaction is natural and adaptive, the
fact that stress is experienced does not mean that an
individual is overstressed. Experiencing chronic and unnecessary
stress characterize the individual who is overstressed.
Short-Term and Long-Term Stress
Types of stress include short-term and long-term. Short-term
stresses are ones that we are designed to take. We share
with all biological organisms a capacity to respond in
a certain way to danger or to threat. As you are driving
on the freeway, the car in front of you has a flat tire.
To avoid hitting the slowing car as it pulls to the shoulder,
you turn sharply into the adjacent lane. Instantaneously
the body responds to this emergency situation with a stress
reaction. As soon as the car is passed safely, the body
relaxes.
You encounter a stressor. Once it is dealt with, the body
relaxes and returns to a balanced and normal state. This
process typifies the normal, healthy way of reacting to
stressful situations.
Long-term stress does not go away as easily as safely
passing on an expressway. Emotional conflicts, financial
problems, work stress can create on-going difficulties
and worries. With long-term stress, there is no end point
in view. These stressors lack of clear resolution.
Physically, the body stays in an activated level as though
there were an ever-present danger. With the chronic stress
pattern, individuals continue at a high activation level
that is unbroken by periods of relaxation. This stress
pattern of continuous activation relates to onset of disease.
Certain individuals create unnecessary and chronic stress
by their thinking. Human beings can recreate a stress
reaction over and over by their thinking. A person who
narrowly misses the car with the flat tire can repeat
the scene mentally again and again. Recreating the stress
event mentally keeps the body in a stressful state with
unnecessary wear and tear. Instead of returning to a more
balanced state, the high activation is maintained. Repeating
the stress event mentally can increase and prolong the
stress response.
Thinking can create unnecessary stress in another way.
The way we perceive events affects our stress level. Some
people tend to view situations as dangerous and threatening.
Interpreting a non-threatening situation as threatening
means that the sense of danger and crisis is self-created.
Interpreting non-threatening situations--entering a math
class, walking to the store, preparing taxes, dealing
with a certain person at work-- as threatening means that
the body moves into a state as though you were being threatened
by an attacker. Those who tend to view events as threatening
trigger and prolong the activation of the stress response
and create feelings of worry and anxiety.
In general, methods for breaking the chronic stress cycle
include diet, exercise and stress management. You can
work on breaking the chronic stress cycle by using a method
that is like a one, two punch. First, you use stress detection
to tune into the stress state of the body. Then you do
a breathing practice to create a relaxation state and
to break the chronic stress pattern.
Stress Detection
Many people remain unaware of their reactions until they
experience debilitating levels of stress and anxiety.
You can become aware of stress and anxiety before the
symptoms become extreme. Early recognition of stress and
anxiety reactions make it easier to change your reaction.
Plus, recognizing early signs allows you to react with
controlling methods at the most opportune time.
A stress detection system involves awareness of the physical
response to stressful events. Consider your own reactions.
Do you experience rapid breathing and a pounding heart?
Do you feel butterflies in the stomach and get cold hands?
Do you react mainly with mental symptoms, such as confusion,
forgetfulness, lack of concentration, and irritability?
To increase awareness of how you respond in stressful
situations, you can monitor your reactions.
Invest in a small notepad that you can carry in your pocket
or purse. Each time you encounter a stressful event, note
the symptoms that you experience. Use the list of stress
indicators as a guide to check your body's way of responding.
When you experience a stressful event, go down the list
of indicators and write down those that you experienced.
Write down the symptoms that you experience as soon as
you can following the experience. Otherwise you tend to
forget the nature of your experience. Within the two week
period, you will see the set of responses that characterize
your way of reacting to stressful events. Once you recognize
how patterned your response to stress is, you will be
able to detect these reactions at an earlier stage. For
example, if one of your stress responses is an increase
in heart rate, you will be able to detect the change toward
a stress response when your heart rate begins to accelerate,
rather than becoming aware of it only when you heart is
pounding. Focusing attention on the symptoms you experience
under pressure heightens your awareness of these symptoms,
which enables you to detect changes in these responses
at an earlier stage.
Do Something About the Stress
Beyond increased awareness of stress reactions, you want
to be able to alter your response. Particularly important
is making sure that your reaction is a short-term one.
Once the stressful incident is passed, the body should
return to a balanced, normal state.
Breathing exercises are excellent for achieving desired
physical and mental states. Breathing methods are easy
and effective for creating relaxation. Here is an easy-to-use
breathing exercise that helps to bring about physical
and mental relaxation. This breathing method is called
Breathing 3/3/3 because the technique involves three sets
of deep breaths.
Step One. Three deep and diaphragmatic breaths. Sit
in a comfortable and relaxed position. Take three slow
and deep breaths. Make sure that you are breathing diaphragmatically,
which means that the diaphragm (the muscle just below
the lobes of the lungs) is moving in the correct manner
and that the air on inhalation is going into the lower
lobes of the lungs.
Step Two. Three deep breaths. Exhale with a sigh.
In the second set of three deep breaths, you exhale with
an audible sigh. Making a sigh on exhalation ensures that
you exhale completely. If you in a setting with other
people and you do not want to exhale with a sigh, you
can use an alternative. Instead of the sigh, count slowly
to yourself to seven as you are exhaling. This method
achieves the identical effect of ensuring that the exhalation
is complete.
Step Three. Three breaths. Feeling of sinking in.
With the third set of three deep breaths, on exhalation
you focus on a feeling of sinking into the chair in which
you are seated. Focusing attention on the feeling of sinking
in helps to release tension in the body with each of the
breaths.
Once you complete the three sets of deep breaths, you
can recycle through the three sets again. For a more complete
feeling of relaxation, continue the exercise for five
minutes.
Summary
Life is busy, hectic and complex. It is not a trick but
a skill to stay relaxed in stressful world. All skills
develop with practice. Once you are able to tune in to
your own body and identify the stress response, then you
can do something to change your reaction to stressful
situations. Learn to recognize the signs of too much stress.
Then take a breather!
Copyright © 2000 By Marie Dalloway
All Rights Reserved
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