Stress affects us all at some point in our life and short term exposure can actually be quite healthy to keep our body’s responses and energy levels in check.
But when life and work challenges, exposure to social conflict and long term worry or PTSD is ignored, over time stress becomes chronic with psychological symptoms such as anxiety, depression and sleep issues having an opportunity to surface. If again left untreated, further physical challenges such as high blood pressure, digestive problems and the danger of a weak immune system can unleash a whole host of painful inflammatory conditions and diseases.
The immune system is the body’s form of defense, working round the clock to fight off infections. During a stress response, cortisol is released to suppress inflammation but when chronic stress is present, high level of cortisol circulate inside the blood system for a dangerous length of time with health risk factors significantly rising. Over time, with high levels of cortisol present, the body develops a resistance and begins attacking itself, encouraging nasty inflammation and further unpleasant health risks… a pretty scary and lonely place to be!
To keep stress levels low and to support optimum health and well-being, outlined below are tips and advice for gaining greater self awareness and tools to embrace and launch you into the ‘how’ …
1. Become Aware Of Your “Stressors”
Uncovering your sources of stress is a great empowerment to your mindset, health and overall well-being. If you are finding yourself struggling, it is a great tip to take notes of any current life events, social gatherings or pressured tasks and keep check on how your thoughts or feelings may change in response to these events. Knowledge is power, especially when knowledge is turned active! When we understand and trust ourselves and our instincts, stress reduces significantly and we feel back in natural control. We then have a choice to go full steam ahead, consciously aware of liabilities or we can chose to change direction and take our learning with us for future adventures.
2. No Comparisons, Just Invest Energy In You!
Forget what everyone else is doing! Focusing on where you are in life and how you are progressing raises self worth and reduces expectations We are all unique and all have individual skills and strengths to be the very best version of ourselves! Everyone is a genius and brings with them a trait unique to anyone else. Food for thought.….If you were to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it would live its whole life believing that it’s stupid …. Einstein
3. Nutrition Is Essential For Stress Busting!
Ensuring you are eating enough fruit and vegetables daily with a high alkaline presence alongside a high drinking water intake, favorably strengthens your immunity, mind and body. Learning about any food intolerance you may have and banishing gluten, alcohol and sugar where possible from your diet will support you to feel healthier, be less bloated, have radiant skin and raise confidence levels.
4. Build Resilience, Reduce Doubts
We all have the ability to start new each day and do things different regardless where we have found ourselves living and how we are feeling. Where our mental focus goes, energy flows and investing just 5 minutes a day to have quiet time and tune into your own thoughts and gut instincts, and by getting out on paper what is bothering you or creating a tension build up is a fabulous tool for creating fresh thinking, building authentic creativity with mind & body space to move forward with greater self belief.
5. Tidy Your Environment
Cleaning out the clutter in your environment will enhance health and happiness & improves mental clarity. Mess weighs down people subconsciously and mood can get worse over time! Keeping on top of a households clutter will naturally keep away any annoying internal dialogue reminding you what didn’t get done, leaving you to focus on how free and easy the home feels which will knock on to your own feelings about yourself.
6. Toxic Relationships & Health Hazard Environments
Many people do not realise how the quality of a relationship with a friend, partner, family member or co-worker, if toxic, can be very damaging to health and heighten stress levels.
Common signs that the relationship is more negative than positive would be feeling drained when in the other persons company, unsettled, consciously concerned of unnecessary opinions and inadequacies being highlighted and never quite feeling good enough or valued. The first step to change is recognising you are in one of these relationships and then just as importantly tapping into your self belief and inner strength to know you are worthy of and definitely deserve more. Chances are they are feeling undervalued themselves and it is emotional projection but there is a need to protect yourself and speak truthfully so you do not continue to allow damage to your own self esteem.
7. Positive Psychology – The Happy Bug
Discovering what makes us individually happy and looking at how we can fulfill our own emotional and physical needs plays a vital part in remaining stress free. Connecting and confiding in others, cultivating kindness, getting in our ‘flow’ and embarking on a new creative project heightens enjoyment levels, allowing more room for individual strength and a purposeful existence to develop. Out of all the areas studied inside of positive psychology, gratitude has received the most attention for achieving stress reduction. It has been noted that when we adopt an attitude and regular practice to be thankful for what we do have, we focus on allowing more of the same into our reality and live with less stress.
8. Stress Management Techniques
There are many different strategies for improving health, managing pain and reducing stress but Clinical Hypnotherapy is powerfully different from all other therapies because it works with the subconscious mind, the keeper to your memories, past experiences, behaviors, beliefs and today’s abilities.
Creating positive change at this level, strengthens relaxation responses, brings emotional freedom from all fears and positive visualisation with authentic goal setting being just a snippet of what can be achieved, created and successfully overcome.
Modern Day Wisdom – Supporting You With Mind Over Body Health
