Just Say "No" To Stress

Coherence.  If you haven’t heard this word the context of stress before that’s okay, its really just a fancy way to say “mindful and connected.”  When you feel stressed out, coherence a goal to strive for; its that place where your mind and your heart and your body are aligned and you feel it. You feel present, centered, aware and you move through any given moment with conscious purpose.

Physiologically, coherence can be recognized by a calm nervous system, low (or lowering) stress hormones and an even heart rhythm.  Stress disrupts coherence and engenders the opposite — a hyperactive nervous system, stress hormone (cortisol) release, an uneven heart rhythm —  and the effects of stress on the mind and body can be widespread including:

• sleeplessness
• anxiety
• headache
• increased blood pressure
• fatigue
• low sex drive

Stress is something we all experience — the dog eats our mail, unexpected expenses crop up, work challenges present — its the nature of our modern lives.  Learning how to manage stress and move towards coherence, therefore, is another part of our modern lives that needs to be front and center.  We all want to just say “no” to stress, but sometimes it isn’t that simple.  With a few practical stress management tips, however, we can all reduce the effects of stress on our lives.

5 Practical Tips for Stress Management You Can Implement Today

How to best manage stress in your life depends on your individual needs, but here are 5 relatively universal tips that can help reduce stress and the effects of stress on your life.

1. Heart Centered Breathing (from the HeartMath Institute)
1. Imagine breath passing in through the heart center of your chest
2. Breathe into this space imagining that you are inhaling positive feelings, like calm or balance
3. Repeat this for as long as you need as often as you need, even 2 minutes at break time can make a big difference!
2. Realize that the feeling of stress is temporary
1. When you are in a high stress place or state, you are “state dependent” meaning that everything you see is colored and perhaps limited by that strong emotion.  Like all emotions, it will change if given time.  Try to realize in the moment that the feeling of stress is temporary, ride it like a wave knowing it will crest and fall leaving you in a clearer state.  Truly, change is the only constant, right?
3. Massage the Ear
1. In Chinese Medicine you can treat the whole body just through the ears if you want to, and ear Acupuncture, also called 5NP or Auricular Acupuncture, is incredibly effective for stress.  You can gain some of this benefit by gently tugging on and massaging the ear - pay special attention to the top of the ear (where you mom might have tugged to bring you along when you weren't listening!) and the groove behind the ear.  Practice Heart Centered Breathing at the same time and you have an incredibly powerful combination.
4. Practice Gratitude and Appreciation
1. Slowly research is being done not only on what heals illness but what keeps us well.  Primary among wellness enhancers is the practice of Gratitude and Appreciation.  Start a pinterest board, #gratitude on twitter, start a gratitude journal and feel the results.  Having a regular practice of gratitude, especially in times of stress, will decrease stress and improve wellbeing.
5. Exercise
1. Exercise improves the liver’s ability to clear stress hormones, it boosts endorphin release giving you a natural high, improves heart health, sleep, sex drive and more.  When you are under stress or see stress on the horizon, schedule time to get extra exercise.

Acupuncture for Stress Management - Proven Stress Relief

In Chinese Medicine stress has a specific energetic pattern that primarily affects the Liver meridian.  Over time and with increased severity, stress can affect the Qi of Heart and Spleen as well and at each level, different symptoms present themselves.  With 3,000 years of clinical data behind it, Chinese Medicine - with Acupuncture as a primary treatment modality - has proven techniques for moving Qi and reducing stress in the body.

In an exciting twist of events, western research is actually catching on to this fact!  A study published in the Journal of Endocrinology gained press in 2013 explored the biological mechanisms involved in acupuncture’s stress-relieving abilities. They discovered that acupuncture actually reduces stress hormones in the blood stream meaning that acupuncture can actually reduce stress on a molecular level!

The research showed that acupuncture can work on both the short term and long term, chronic stress cascade in the body lending credibility to the use of acupuncture for both acute and long term stress reduction.

A Parting Note on How to Make Stress Your Friend

I hope you find the tips above useful and, if you are looking down the barrel of a new high stress time or struggling to manage stress in your life in general, please consider getting some acupuncture treatment.  It works! And now there is research to prove it.  Neat, huh?

I leave you with my favorite TED talk on making stress your friend - the central message here is that stress does serve a purpose in your body, and being stressed about stress is actually worse than dealing with stress itself.  Does that make stress management unimportant? Certainly not, prolonged stress is not great for you, but dealing with the stress itself is enough without getting stressed about the stress!

Until next time,

~Rebecca