#12 - Stress Management Part 1 - 4 Habits I use to Decrease Chronic Stress

Today we are going to cover chronic stress.

Specifically, how to control it and reduce it.

We all walk around each day with varying levels of stress in the background.

In my eyes, it is a good thing to try and reduce this as much as possible.

However, this will not happen by accident.

We live in a fast-paced, always-on world. Often this does not help our stress levels.

If we are not careful, our baseline levels of stress will slowly creep up if we don’t have habits to reduce it.

I don’t know about you, but living a calm and peaceful life seems pretty good to me.

Controlling chronic stress is a big part of making this happen.

We pay the price if we don’t control our stress

High levels of chronic stress are not a good thing. Plain and simple.

Here are just some of the worrying things that happen when we let our stress get out of control:

• Metabolic problems

• Weakened immune system

• Worse mental health outcomes

• Inhibited learning and memory

• An increased tendency to overeat

• A negative cycle - where stress leads to more stress

But, with some small but significant habits, we can prevent these things from taking hold.

Let’s break them down.

1 - Sleep Well

Sleep can be described as the cornerstone of our physical and mental well-being.

Quality sleep makes everything better.

Poor sleep makes everything worse.

Quality sleep allows the nervous system to fully recover. This is important as a nervous system that isn’t functioning well can be a sign of chronic stress.

Too much stress reduces our system’s efficiency and increases our risk for things to go wrong.

Sleep allows us to hit the brakes.

Everything can recover so chronic stress can’t take hold.

Also, if chronic stress is present, worse sleep is one of the most common symptoms.

Which brings us to the value of these next habits.

(For more on sleep, check out this edition of The Performance Lifestyle)

2 - Meditate

The next part of our toolkit is meditation.

A regular meditation practice can allow us to turn off our stress response.

This is what can cause problems if it is active too often.

Meditation is a calming practice in and of itself.

In my experience, anything that promotes calmness is good at lowering stress levels.

A key thing to consider with meditation is consistency. Even 5 minutes done often can keep the habit going and the benefits coming.

I once heard meditation described as a “Warm bath for the mind.”

That sounds pretty good to me.

3 - Do Calming Breathwork

Breathing. Something we do tens of thousands of times per day.

And one of the most valuable tools when it comes to lowering our stress levels.

I mentioned earlier the relationship between our nervous system and our stress levels.

The breath is the fastest and most direct way of influencing the state of our nervous system.

We can make changes in real time.

One form of calming breathing is the physiological sigh.

This involves taking one deep inhalation through the nose, followed by another short inhale.

Then, exhale through the mouth in an extended way.

This has been shown to trump even meditation when it comes to stress reduction.

Some other forms of calming breathing are:

• Coherence breathing

• Box Breathing

• 4-7-8

Whatever form of relaxing breathing you choose, you will experience a beneficial effect on your stress levels.

4 - Write / Journal

This is a hugely underrated tool.

There is something very therapeutic about putting your thoughts onto a page.

It gets them out of our heads.

Not only does this feel good - it’s like a weight has been lifted off our shoulders - but it allows us to take a look at our thinking.

Keeping our thoughts and concerns wrapped in our heads is usually not a good idea.

Getting them down on a page allows us to see them for what they really are.

This provides perspective and awareness. We may conclude that what we were worrying about wasn’t actually as much of a big deal as we first thought.

All the above shows that putting our thoughts down through writing can be a great way to manage chronic stress.

Get the pen and paper ready!

That’s it for today.

Stay tuned for next week where we will cover the other side of the stress equation,

Increasing stress tolerance.

Until then!

• Adam