I often feel frustrated when people give the advice to “manage their stress” or to “be less stressed.” To me, this is as frustrating as saying “just think positively.” Like, yeah, great idea! Why didn’t I think of that?? If it were this simple, we’d all be doing it. Really.
So why isn’t it this simple? And what can we do to feel better? How can we try to intervene to feel less stress and overwhelm, or to feel more positive emotions? This is a particularly relevant question right now, as so many things in the world are feeling destabilized, uncertain, and threatening. (And for many people, this has ALWAYS been the case, it’s just more in-your-face for people who have enjoyed (and currently enjoy) relatively more privilege).
What I’ve noticed is that very infrequently is there concrete advice for how to accomplish these things. Simple suggestions often seem underwhelming, trite, or like a waste of time. But, in some cases, these small suggestions can have a big impact, especially when they’re repeated and practiced regularly. That’s where a lot of the magic happens.
In addition, understanding what's happening in your body and brain can help reinforce actually doing these behaviors, because knowing how and why they help and can help us process why it makes sense to prioritize and continue these actions.
So I’m going to give you three suggestions that you’ve likely heard before, but I’m going to give a bit more background to help you understand why these aren’t throwaway suggestions.
(One issue is that we’re often looking for either a quick fix or a panacea, in part because we’re really desperate for help, and in part because the real answer— slow and steady changes we maintain and practice regularly— can feel impossibly hard to maintain. As I walk through these, I’ll address some ideas to make these more accessible and to integrate them into your daily life).
My top three recommendations for a slow and steady approach to stress and overwhelm management:
A) Rest (but not just the traditional kind; rest = reframing how we think about mental downtime as a means to simmer on problems, be creative, and restore our bodies)
B) Deep breathing (also to signal to your body that it is safe)
C) Exercise to complete the stress cycle (signal to your body you're safe)
First: Rest.
I think rest gets a bad rap because it takes time, it’s uncomfortable when we’re programmed to constantly be productive to prove our worth, it feels lazy or indulgent, we feel judged by other people for making/taking this time, we judge ourselves for making/taking this time, and finally, because we’re so disconnected from the idea of rest as a necessary component to be energized, creative, generative, present, and productive, that we see it as the opposite of these things, rather than a much needed precursor to them.
When you shift your thinking to see rest as a much needed prerequisite to doing, well, anything— it gets easier to allow yourself to rest. The truth is, when we’re well rested (or even partially rested?? Really anything other than exhausted) there’s more room for creative problem solving and widening our field of vision. It’s much easier to approach your days with an open and curious perspective when you’re not exhausted. When we are chronically stressed, we’re trying to outrun our problems by continually triggering the HPA axis and flooding our system with the hormones that help our body survive tough times. Rest helps signal to the body that it is safe, it can stop running, and it can reset and prepare for what comes next.
Second: Deep breathing.
You can’t breathe deeply when you’re moving fast. When you slow down and take a deep breath, you trigger the vagus nerve, which is part of the parasympathetic nervous system. This system slows your heart rate and lowers blood pressure. It helps bring your body down from the fight-or-flight response and helps bring you back to homeostasis. There are marked, measureable, and reliable changes that happen in the body and in the brain when we engage in deep breathing that counteract stress and literally help our bodies relax and slow down.
Third: Exercise. (actually, finish exercising).
Exercise is one of the ways other than deep breathing that helps to re-set the stress hormones in our bodies. When we experience stress (or feeling overwhelmed), our body ramps up our cortisol production and other physiological changes to help prepare us to survive the threat. Researchers have suggested that exercise helps because when you get to the end of your exercise, your body is signaled that it is safe to stop moving and to revert back into the rest-and-digest mode. Exercise can simulate how our bodies respond to stress: our arousal is heightened and we are engaged physically, much like we would be if we were trying to fend off a predator or dispatch another threat. Interestingly, researchers have suggested that when we ramp down our exercise, we’re showing the body that it’s safe to do so, and signaling the end of the stress cycle. Even a short bout of physical activity followed by rest can help transmit these signals.
I find that the more I understand about how something works, the more likely I am to appreciate the value it brings as a practice to keep the cumulative effects of chronic stress from piling up.
And, importantly, the results are in the doing. Knowing that these are what your body needs to manage stress isn’t enough— you have to actually (regularly) rest, breathe deeply, and move your body.
Further reading:
Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky
Proper Breathing Brings Better Health from Scientific American