3: Managing Stress in the Moment Versus Managing the Cause of Stress

Welcome to the Women's Success Coach Podcast. A podcast created to inspire growth and to help you learn, achieve, and evolve in your life ongoing regardless of your age. I'm your host, certified coach, and licensed therapist Karen Vincent, and I'm here to guide you and provide you with concrete tips and strategies you can implement in your life. I'm also here to inspire you, challenge you, and cheer you on so that you can create the life of your dreams and beyond. In today's podcast, we're talking about stress, which is a human experience we've all had. When I work with clients around their stress, I take a two-pronged approach. The first approach is what can offer some relief in the moment when stress levels start to build, and I like to call it the quick fix approach. The second approach is a more permanent fix, but it does require a little more time and focus because it involves changing thought patterns that create or dial up stress. Hello my friend. I hope you're doing well. Before we dive into this episode, which focuses on stress, I want you to check in on your current stress level as you start this episode. So, on a scale from one to 10, with one being none like you barely have a pulse, and 10 being explosive, where would you rate your stress right now? If you are a seven or higher. I want you to take some action as you listen to this podcast to help you lower your stress level before the end of the episode. As I'm sure you know, having high stress levels ongoing is toxic for your mind and your body. High stress levels cause you to overeat, over drink, to have difficulty focusing or to make poor decisions, to have difficulty sleeping, and it can increase people's risk for heart and other health problems. It can also make you feel irritable, frustrated, helpless, and unhappy to name just a few challenging emotions that come along for the ride with stress. If your stress level is currently low, let's do whatever we can to keep it that way. Checking in with yourself on a regular basis, even daily, will allow you to manage your stress levels ongoing rather than having them increase until you feel like you were ready to explode. In talking about stress, as I mentioned, there are two ways that I believe you can reduce stress. One is a quicker fix, but not a permanent fix. And the second one is more of a long-term fix. On this episode, I will share them both, and if you're someone who experiences high stress levels ongoing, I'd encourage you to try them both. I'm going to start with the quicker fixes, and if you rated yourself high when doing the stress scale a couple moments ago, I want you to try to implement one of these strategies as soon as possible so that you can get some relief from your stress. The following suggestions are things you can do when you're experiencing stress. Engaging in these activities will help calm your system down, help you to release tension, or help distract you from your thoughts that are causing you to experience stress. These are all great strategies for managing and challenging any emotion. I recommend that you try them out and then find three to five things that work for you when you're experiencing stress. It's good to have a variety of tools that will help you manage your stress when you notice that it starts to creep up. So first we'll start with strategies for calming your system down. I'm going to start by giving you a few different breathing techniques that help slow down your nervous system and calm the body. I encourage you to try all three and determine which one or two works best for you. There's no"better" breathing technique, it's about finding the one that helps you feel the way that you want to feel, and just as importantly, one that you'll actually use when you need it. The first breathing technique is called box breathing. To practice it, you inhale for a count of four counting slowly in your mind as you in take the inhale. Then you hold your breath for a count of four. Exhale for a count of four, and pause for a count of four before taking your next inhale. And that's one round. I recommend you do this 10 times or more, and what happens is with these techniques, when you're counting all the other thoughts in your mind, get shut down, and as you're breathing, you're slowing down your nervous. So for box breathing, it's breathe in for a count of four, pause for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, pause for a count of four. That's one round, and do that at least 10 times. The next form of breathing is 3, 4, 5, breathing. The goal with this type of breathing is that the exhale is longer than the inhale, so you can play around with the numbers. You might want do 4, 5, 6, breathing, or 2, 3, 4 breathing. 3, 4, 5 is a great place to start and you can adjust as needed from there, and how you practice this kind of breathing is you breathe in for a count of three, pause for a count of four. And then exhale slowly for a count of five. Again, that's one round, and I recommend that you do at least 10 rounds, which only takes a minute or two. The third type of breathing I'm going to share with you is called two inhales and one exhale breathing. So with this type of breathing, you take a big, deep inhale, pause, and then inhale one more time. You'll feel like that second inhale is a challenge. Once you take the second inhale, you pause, and then you do a long, slow exhale. So breathe in as much as you can, pause, take another inhale, and then a nice slow exhale. So as I mentioned, I encourage you to try all three of these and determine which one or two you think you prefer. With breathing like this, I always recommend doing it proactively, even if you don't think you are experiencing stress on a particular. The reason for this is that stress can slowly build throughout the day without you really even noticing. When you practice breathing like this, even just 5 to 10 rounds, you make sure that you're resetting throughout the day and not allowing things to build until you're at the point where you're ready to explode. The other reason, as is the case with anything, the more you do it, the better you become at it. So if you are in a situation where you really need it, you'll be that much more effective. And what might take you 10 rounds of breathing today may only take you a few rounds once you get really good and comfortable with it. Okay, so that's breathing, but there are other ways that you can slow down your nervous system so that you feel more relaxed and experience less stress. The next one is to listen to calming music. Find music that relaxes you and helps you release tension from your body As with the breathing, I encourage you to try to find some different music until you find what works best for you. Maybe it's a station that has the music you would hear in the spa, or it's rain or ocean noises, or guitar or piano instrumental music. Maybe it's Indian flute music or smooth jazz music. Again, there's no better music for relaxation. It's about what you find peaceful and soothing. So I encourage you to play around with this Next up for relaxation and slowing down the nervous system is one of my favorites, which is to take a warm bath. This is not likely one that you're going to be able to do in the moment if experiencing stress, however, it's great for unwinding at the end of the day so that you feel more relaxed going into your evening or before going to bed. The more relaxed you are going into bed, the better quality of sleep you will have. And sleep is an amazing tool for managing stress. If you're not allergic to scents, you can also try adding bubbles or oils that have a scent that's calming for you, such as lavender or vanilla, or chamomile. And finally, another calming strategy is dry brushing. And if you've never done this, I do encourage you to try it. To do this, you use a brush specifically designed for dry brushing. You can find it anywhere online, and they're not expensive, and you brush your body with slow long strokes, starting with your feet and working your way up. When doing this process, you move each stroke towards your heart. And in addition to feeling calming, dry brushing will also help you increase blood circulation and promote lymphatic drainage. So those were all soothing, calming strategies to slow down your nervous system. The next few strategies I'm going to talk about are tension releasing strategies. And number one on the list, as you might have guessed, is exercise. In my opinion, exercise can be one of the best anti-stress, anti-anxiety strategies available to you to use both proactively, as well as when you notice your stress levels are high. To make this effective, do some form of exercise that brings your heart rate up, which will also help you release tension from your body while your brain releases endorphins, which are those feel good chemicals. I can't stress enough how helpful exercise can be, even if you don't wanna do it, in managing any kind of challenging emotion and in managing stress. The next tension releasing strategy is progressive muscle relaxation. You can do this sitting or you can do it lying down. Many people find it's helpful when getting into bed as they prepare to fall asleep. So to do progressive muscle relaxation, you start with your toes and you tighten your toe muscles, hold them tight for a slow count of five and then release them. Next, you move to the rest of the foot and tighten the rest of the muscles in your feet. Hold them for a slow count of five, and then release them. Keep moving up the body. so next is your lower legs. Tighten your muscles, hold for a slow count of five, and then release them. And you keep working up your body slowly, ultimately ending with your face muscles. And as is the case with many of these activities, the more you practice this, the more effective it becomes. You train your body that when you start to tighten those muscles and release them, that your goal is to relax. And over time, your mind and your body will take you there faster. I have many clients that use this to help them fall asleep. And once they get good at it and they've practiced it quite a bit, they get to a point where they barely make it up their legs before they're drifting off to sleep. Next, strategy, hug somebody. As simple as this sounds, hugging is a way of releasing tension, so be really intentional when you're hugging someone you care about. Make sure it's a tight hug. Maybe it's a little bit longer of a hug than you usually do, and allow it to release tension and you can feel better almost instantaneously. And my last tension releasing activity I will offer you is laughter. Laughing reduces tension in the body and also reduces stress hormones. Whether laughing with a friend, putting something funny on YouTube or TikTok, watching a comedy or whatever else makes you laugh, be intentional about engaging in these activities that make you laugh. So as a review up to this point, I shared relaxation, breathing strategies, and strategies to help slow down the nervous system, and I also just reviewed tension releasing strategies. Both are designed to reduce your stress and the tension that you may be holding in your body as a result of the stress. The next category of strategies are distraction strategies. And the goal with these strategies is to help you take your mind off the thoughts that are causing you to experience stress. If you listen to this podcast regularly or you follow me on social media, or you get my weekly email, you will often hear me remind you that circumstances happening or people around you are not what cause your emotions. It is always, always, always what you were thinking about those things that causes your emotions. And because of this, it makes sense that distracting yourself from those thoughts will help you reduce your stress. So to do this, try calling a friend and talk about things other than what is causing you distress. Be sure that you don't call them and start venting or rehashing what's causing you the stress. That's going to dial up your stress. The goal is to stop the thoughts you are having that are causing the stress. You may also want to read or watch a show or a movie, YouTube videos, something that has your mind focused on something different, instead of the thoughts that are creating the stress. In doing this, you'll want to make sure that whatever you're watching is captivating enough to hold your attention so that your thoughts don't keep jumping back to the things that are causing the stress. A third way of distracting yourself is to engage in an activity that requires mental focus. When you do this, your brain will shift from focusing on the thoughts that are causing you to feel stress. Despite what we tell ourselves, we cannot think of two things at the same time. We can rapidly switch between two different things, but we can't focus on two things at once. So this type of activity could be something craft related, creating something new, learning something new, maybe it's playing an instrument, cooking and following a new recipe or reading an engaging book. Anything like that will require mental focus, which will then stop the thoughts from going in your mind that are creating your. If you struggle to find something that requires all your mental focus, try listening to a piece of music and follow only one instrument as you listen. This is easiest to do with classical music, but it can be done with others as well. When the music starts, identify just one instrument and try to tune into only that instrument through the entire song. It will require focus so that your mind is distracted from whatever's causing you to experience stress. There are many, many more options and ways of distracting yourself. What's important is that you find a few that really work for you and that are realistic for you to access during times of increased stress. And as I mentioned, the goal with each of these strategies is to offer you some relief from the thoughts that are causing you to experience stress. So as you heard me say at the beginning of the podcast, I typically take a two-pronged approach when helping people manage streess. The first is to manage the symptoms of stress, which we just reviewed, and the second is a longer term strategy for managing stress that involves learning to manage your thinking patterns. So with this strategy, rather than trying to calm your body or distract your mind, this strategy is about managing your mind. As I already mentioned, situations and circumstances do not cause us to feel stress. They're neutral. It's the way we think about them that causes us to feel something. Therefore, two people can experience the same exact thing, and for one person it might be energizing and motivating, and for another, it could be scary and intimidating. The situation is neutral. However, each person has different thoughts about it, which in turn create the emotions they have about it. You have thousands of thoughts each day, and many of them run in your unconscious mind so you don't even know they're happening and you don't recognize the way they may be impacting how you feel. When you learn to notice the thought that is causing the stress, then you can manage it. Just by recognizing exactly what you were thinking will help you to feel more in control. And once you do this, you can then determine if the thought is true, and or, if the thought is serving you. If not, you can choose another thought to replace it with. Once you have a new thought, you'll have a new feeling. That's just how it works. Now this sounds basic and fairly simple, however, it does take practice and spending the time to do so is absolutely worth it. I will walk you through a specific process you can use to start recognizing and challenging thoughts that are causing you stress. So first, you want to notice what it is that you're thinking that is causing you the stress. And when you do this, you want to be sure you're not labeling the circumstance or situation as your thought. So for example, my boss told me my work was not acceptable. That is not a thought causing you stress. That's a fact. That's something that happened, your boss told you your work was not acceptable. The thought causing the stress could be something like,"I'm worried about my job, because my boss told me my work is unacceptable.". So it's the meaning you attach to the neutral circumstance. Another example of how this works could be if you said,"My teen did not come home for curfew, and that is causing me stress.". Your teen not coming home for curfew is neutral. That is not causing you stress, it's the meaning you attach to it. So you might say,"My teen does not have any respect for my rules and doesn't care about their curfew.". So when you're trying to identify the thought or thoughts that are causing you stress, I want you to ask yourself, what am I thinking about this situation or circumstance that is causing me to experience stress? And if you are struggling to find the thought, you can kind of back into this by starting with the feeling. To do this, ask yourself what you are feeling in your body that indicates that you are stressed out. Then back into the thought and start asking yourself what you were thinking that is creating the stressful sensations. Then you can make sure you are really clear about what your thought or thoughts are that are creating the unpleasant feeling or feelings. Once you are clear on your thought or your thoughts, then you want to decide if your thought is serving you. Just cuz you have a thought doesn't mean you need to believe it, and it doesn't mean you need to keep it. You can ask yourself, is this thought really what I want to be thinking about this situation especially knowing how it's making me feel? If you determine that the thought is not doing anything other than making you feel bad, you can choose a different thought. If you want to experience less stress, find a thought that creates less stress. What is important to get clear on with this is that you have 100% control. Feeling less stress is not tied to changing a situation over which you may have no control. It's only dependent on you changing what you think about a circumstance, which puts you 100% in the driver's seat. So how can you reframe what you think about the situation that you may think is causing you stress, so that you have a thought that makes you feel the way you want to feel? I promise you that this works. But if it's something that's not familiar to you, it will require some practice and it may take a little time before you feel confident doing it. However, this is the ultimate fix for reducing stress. All the other strategies are great in reducing symptoms associated with stress, but at the root of all stress is your thoughts. And when you learn to manage your thinking, you learn to manage your emotions and ultimately, you learn to manage your life much more effectively. Learning the skill of noticing and changing your thinking is life changing. And once you get good at this, you can do it with any negative thoughts you are having. So before I jump into the action steps for today, which I always give you on every episode, I want to address something that I see come up with clients when learning how to notice and change their thinking, and that is the challenge of finding a thought that feels better, that they also believe. This process is not about making up stories or about pretending something is great when there is a real challenge you're experiencing. This process is about coming up with thoughts that result in better feelings. So sometimes the goal is to come up with better thoughts, not the best thought that you're never going to believe. I go into this in much more detail and episode 1 of this podcast where I talk about beliefs. And in that episode I talk about how to use ladder thoughts to create a better belief system. So if you want to learn more about this, you can go check out that episode where I'll walk you through this in detail with some very specific examples. Okay, now that you have all of those strategies for managing stress, let's dig into your action plan so that you actually use them to help you manage stress as you start to notice it creeping up. So first, every day or most days, use the 1 to 10 scale and ask yourself where your stress level is. You can't manage what you don't measure, so checking in with yourself is the best way to know where your stress level is. If you decide you're above a 5 consider taking some action to get it under a 5. Then I want you to try practicing the three breathing techniques I shared, and have one or two that you engage with anytime you notice you're above a 5. My recommendation is regardless of whether you think you're experiencing stress or not, to engage in 5 to 10 rounds of breathing at the beginning of your day, in the middle of your day, and at the end of the day. This will help make sure that you keep bringing your stress level back down if it starts to creep up. Next, I want you to identify one or more tension releasing activities you can use when experiencing stress. If you only pick one and you're physically able to do so, consider making it exercise, which I believe is the most effective tool for emotional wellness. You may also want to take a bath, practice progressive muscle relaxation, or find something that makes you laugh, or hug someone. Next, create a plan for what you can do when you want to distract yourself from a thought that's creating stress for you. And finally commit to doing the real work of identifying, challenging, and changing your thoughts that are creating the stress. If you are intentional about this, you'll start to see a change, probably sooner than you think. So that's what I have for you today. But before I go, I want to make sure you know that I also have a blog. So if you like reading and want some more tips and strategies, go to www.karenvincentsolutions.com/blog and check out my blog. Again, it's www.karenvincentsolutions.com/blog. That's a wrap. You should be proud of yourself for investing time in you, which is so critical for success and for overall life fulfillment. I look forward to having you join me for my next episode. And in the meantime, go click that subscribe button so you'll know when it's released, and you can also follow me on Instagram at Best Boss Lady Life that's at Best Boss Lady Life on Instagram. Also, remember that whatever it is that you're working on, you've got this and I'm here cheering you on.