I have a few facts to share about stress….

1. We are ALL stressed out right now - a recent report said that 94%* of workers report feeling stressed at work (who are the missing 6%?)

2. We can’t STOP stressors in our life, sorry I wish we could!

3. We can MANAGE our stress response

Here’s how it works:

We evolved in a time when stressors ( things that make us stressed) were immediate and life-threatening, like a saber-toothed tiger about to jump you…So our wonderful, amazing, nervous system became extremely good at protecting us by sensing a threat ( a stressor) and sending stress hormones around our body to get us away from this threat.

The challenge with this in our modern world, however, is that the SAME nervous system response happens when we get stuck in traffic or have too many emails in our inbox. Not life-threatening situations but still causing our nervous system to respond as though we are under threat.

So this is why stress is just a part of modern life… AND we can learn to manage it.

The first thing to do is to recognize where in the body you feel stress. Are you a chest-tightening person or a stomach-clencher? When you become aware of this reaction IN THE BODY, then you can learn to release the stress response FROM THE BODY. And you need to do this EVERY time you FEEL it. Note, I’m not talking at all about what is making you stressed (or who). Managing stress is all about releasing the response in the body NOT THINKING about the stress.

Some ways to release stress from the body are:

• Movement - shaking, tapping, yoga, qi-gong, running etc

• Breathwork - Psychological sighs, box breathing, diaphragmatic breathing etc

• Meditation - Helps with the awareness piece so much, without awareness of our stress we can’t manage it.

• Rest - overlooked in our society and much needed to process stress

• Community - connection is a deeply healing way to de-stress

See below for a movement practice and a meditation to help you.

And come to my community class for some help practicing! Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll get all the details.

*https://www.stress.org/42-worrying-workplace-stress-statistics (American Institute of Stress)