According to a lot of recent medical research, stress is one of the biggest threats to public health today. We’re not talking about “positive” or “negative” stress, we’re talking about cortisol. The kind of stress that affects your inner chemical environment and sooner or later will lead to physical symptoms. Aching neck, pain in the back, heart problems, stroke and some forms of cancer. This is what medical research is battling today. Stress.
What is your stress strategy?
Do you keep loading on stuff until the load falls over, do you live on merits of health long overdue or are you spending two minutes a day actually experiencing your life?
There are many simple ways of handling stress, and the three most common are probably:
– Plan (both work and pleasure)
– Say No (to everything that isn’t important)
– Delegate or sub-contract (everything you can afford to)
It may seem too simple to be true… but then again, you may find yourself thinking that this doesn’t apply to you – because your situation is “different”?
If so, in exactly what way do you mean that your situation is different?
Are there external parameters you really can’t do anything about that you are choosing to perceive in ways that lead to stress?
Ok. There is one more rule:
– What you cannot affect: Drop It Now!
Again, there is meditation and mindfulness which you might consider being “new age flower power stuff” or something “you really want to check out when you find the time”…
Well, the “new age” factor of mindfulness is sub-zero. A psychologist came up with this concept after a lot of research around the links between stress, breathing and health, and behind all trendy news values involved in this repackaging of meditation and hypnosis you will find the most important knowledge of them all:
– If you make sure you stop and smell the flowers once a day,laugh at something and feel grateful just a minute, you will most probably live longer and have more fun…
If you don’t have that curiosity and sense of self preservation there is an even simpler approach: Alpha-Theta Breathing. Something so technical and scientifically healthy that you probably can’t help but try it:
1. Take a quick and deep breath through your nose.
2. Hold your breath for a moment.
3. Breath out as slowly as possible through tight lips, as if you are inflating the world around you, gently, as if it were a balloon… and at the same time, relax your shoulders and let them fall.
Do this twice. It will take approximately 30 seconds. You will lower your cortisol levels measurably, notice your breath and think of something funny. I promise. Or your breath back.