Have you drawn patterns on what situations or who stress you out the most? Do you suffer from one particular type of stress more often than others? And are you curious how you manage stress in real-time and not just the obvious long term techniques of exercise and good 8 hours of sleep? Then you are in the right place. In this episode we walk you through most common types of stress and ways to manage it real-time and long-term.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Own Your Everyday series. I’m your host and self-awareness coach Shwetha Sivaraman. This is the second part of the two part series on stress and dealing with it. In the first part we decoded stress, explored how it works and made the distinction between good and bad or chronic stress. In this episode we will go into the types of stress and measures we can adopt to manage stress in real-time and in the long run.
So stress we saw is a response when the demand or the perceived demand is higher than the resources we have. Here are 3 things need to remember three things about stress that we learned in the first episode- 1. Stress is a generalised system designed to mobilise the brain and body, 2. It activates certain parts to help us move and shuts certain parts that it feels can wait. Digestion, reproduction, cell repair are considered luxury and are ignored when the body undergoes stress, 3. The stress response can be suppressed by activating the parasympathetic nervous ssytem or the rest and digest mode.
But before we go into stress management, let us understand the 4 common types of stresses most of us experience in our lives today
Time Stress – The classic too much to do but too little time to do it can cause immense stress on us physically, mentally, and emotionally. When we stretch ourselves to fulfill commitments without managing our time or energy strategically, we physically deplete our bodies, we are constantly overthinking and mentally jumping from one context to the next, and emotionally drained as we constantly guilt and shame ourselves for doing or not doing certain things.
Anticipatory Stress – This is when we worry about the future. This could be event specific like say pregnancy causing stress to first-time parents on managing demands of the soon-to-be member in the family. Or a generic and ambigous fear of the future like something will go wrong. When we are constantly on the look out for what will go wrong.
Situational Stress – This is obvious ones where a real situation causes us stress like say losing a job, or losing a loved one, a contractual dispute at work, etc. etc. This could also be stress from past events or situations that are long gone but still survive in our minds and bodies – say a family dispute 20 years ago or a crisis you faced as an immigrant without a job in a foreign land decades ago. It doesn’t matter it’s in the past for its still real in our minds.
Encounter Stress – This is social stress caused by confronting people – all people in general or some specific people who cause us great distress and we find ourselves unable to stand up for ourselves or what we think is right with them.
And another strange but intriguing form of stress – Happy Times induced stress
Can happy times cause stress?
We are stressed when things don’t go our way. It’s natural and expected. But have you caught yourself stressing when everything goes your way too? When everything happens just as you’d planned or things feel too good to be true you catch your monkey mind going on alert mind to watch for when the cards come crashing down?
This can happen around festive periods too. You check yourself from being too happy or posting too much on social media becuase you feel you don’t want it to go bad.
Causes of such happy stress:
1. We feel like we don’t deserve what we get
2. Or a negative worldview where we feel that things will eventually go bad or someone will eventually let me down.
These stressors can affect us at 4 levels –
Psychic stage – emotional disturbances, at this stage it’s 100% reversal. Prolonged emotional disturbance causes it go to level 2 which is Psychosomatic –where it starts to reflect in changes in the body. Stage 3 is Somatic – this is when functional changes happen in the body, heart palpitations change, high BP, respiration to asthma, sweat to itching. And, lastly Organic – organs are disturbed, uncontrolled high BP results in enlargement of heart etc. At this stage the damage becomes irreversible. But there are techniques we can use to stop it from getting to the 4th or organic stage.
Let’s first look at a technique we can use to address stress in real-time
While the stress response not be fully within our control, there are certain indirect levers that we can use to dampen it and calm down in real time. It is a simple hack to activate the parasympathetic nervous system that’s known in yogic traditions for centuries – to elongate exhalations longer than your inhalation. When we exhale longer than our inhalation – we activate the parasympathetic nervous system and instruct the body to slow down. It is a quick hack to directly communicate with the nervous system and reassure the body and the mind that we are not in any real harm. This is something we can do regardless of where we are and who we are surrounded with.
The 3-pronged approach to address chronic stress in the long run
1. Relax: One of the most prominent side effects of prolonged states of chronic stress is that the body and mind have not relaxed. Thanks to the high cortisol levels in our bodies, we remain restless and on high alert during waking hours. Chronic stress leaves us agitated and ready for action. When asleep after many hours of high alertness, our sleep is disturbed never truly allowing the rest our bodies need. To manage stress the first thing we need to do is learn to relax, and this is easier said than done.
A simple way for us to relax could be to take up some hobbies that engross us completely and stop the continous churn in the head. My favourite is to take long walks without my phones or headphones – 5-7 KMs and you won’t remember what you were stressed about. Alternatively you can take up small practices of 5-10 minutes each and integrate it throughout your day – like Aum Chanting, Brahmari Pranayama, Slow & Deep Breathing – making exhalations twice as long as inhalations, Anulom Vilom, Breath Awareness, Body Awareness, or any mantra chanting. AUM chanting is very powerful as it is said to be citta shuddhi as well – the sounds that cleanses the citta – all our perceptions and thoughts.
2. Regulate: Once we are able to relax, the next thing we need to do is to regulate routines to regularise our nervous system. There are 4-5 basic things we need to course correct- exercise, sleep, diet, digestion, and interactions. These are basic aspects that indicate that we are running on a balanced routine where the parasympathetic system is on for sufficient periods to do its work. Sleep is the most important – experts say stress can be reversed if sleep is sufficienty restful. Exercise or movement helps discharge unused adrenaline or cortisol in the bodies. Diet ensures body receives sufficient nourishment, proper digestion ensure we cleanse our body timely to avoid accumulation of toxins, and healthy interactions ensure we are able to connect in a balanced manner with the world and don’t feel isolated or cut off.
Assess how you are doing on all these aspects and see which needs focus to regulate and work at it one aspect at a time. Build routines to sleep early and wake early. Brahmari pranayam is very potent in improving sleep. Avoid phones 1 hour before going to bed to avoid stimualtion before falling asleep. Make time for proper diet and nourishment. Become aware of interactions that trigger you and do something about the ones that aren’t working for you. Accept what you cannot change, Modify what you can influence, and Remove people whom you can avoid for better interactions with the world around you.
3. Re-caliberate: One of the first things we identified is that stress is a response to triggers. Once we are able to relax and regularise our nervous system the first thing we need to do is identify triggers, recognise patterns, and recaliberate. We need to identify what type of stress we mostly suffer from and actively take steps to mitigate them.
If its time stress, we need to find out where our time is being spent and if they are not our priorities, reaign our schedules so we focus our limited time on our top priorities. We need to learn to say no to things that are not our priorities so that we don’t suffer from the stress of not having time to do the things we love. Another good strategy here is to delegate things others can do for you. I’ll record a separate podcast on time management in the coming weeks to explore this more.
If it is anticipatory stress, practicing techniques that help us stay in the present moment can be a great starting point. Pranayama, mindfulness practices etc can be a good way to minimise worries about the future. If it’s related to specific events, seeking help from friends and family or professionals like therapists/coaches/mentors can help us gain clarity and keep fears at bay.
If it is situational stress, drawing the distinction between what’s in our control and what’s not and focusing all our energy and attention on proactively doing everything within our control is a good strategy to navigate.
If it is encounter stress, a short-term strategy is to explore with a therapist or a coach on why you feel a certain way with certain people and how to navigate conflicts. The long-term approach can be using methods like journaling to deepen self-awareness and stay in touch with our emotions and triggers. The more we understand our emotional patterns, the more proactively we can take measures to stay on top of situations and maintain good relationships with those around us.
We cannot remove stressors from our lives, but we can certainly equip ourselves to deal with it. So here’s your own your everyday tip for this week, while the stress response might not be fully in your control, there are indirect levers like elongating exhalations that you can use to hack the nervous system and reactivate the parasympathetic or rest and digest mode on. Use the 3 R approach of Relax. Regulate. and Re-caliberate to counter chronic stress and find your peace amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life and responsibilities.
Until we meet again, this is Shwetha signing off hoping you have a phenomenal week ahead.