11. building relationship with stress...

11.

Everyone talks about stress management. Yet, stress is part of life.
​So what do we do?

The experience of stress is in a way a normal part of living. It is a survival activation process that gets us to either fight, run away or stay still in the presence of danger.
When we talk about stress we must briefly mention the link to our sympathetic nervous system - the innate survival mechanism that also keeps us alive, protects us from harm for centuries. Which is great!
The thing about, however, is that it has only one way to respond and nowadays not everything is life threatening. In fact, very things are.

This is why the activation of our sympathetic nervous system has its way it shows up in our state, and has 3 different aspects:

• Physical symptoms: increased heart rate, sweaty palms, breathing changes, trouble sleeping, digestive issues, muscle tension, etc.
  
• Mental symptoms: focus difficulties, memory problems, racing thoughts (common one), negative thinking, restlessness, etc.
  
• Emotional symptoms: anxiety, mood swings, depression and feeling overwhelmed (common one), irritability and emotional reactivity.

They usually go together and although they feel very unpleasant, this actually helps us identify and recognise that we are experiencing stress. And this is the first step to building a healthier relationship with it.

Personally, I prefer not using the word ‘manage’ stress and it also implies exerting our will over it. I am of the belief that we need to build a healthy relationship with ourselves and from there - a healthy relationship with our experience of stress.

Ok, I can relate to the points above. So how do we actually do that?
                Great, let us start with the different levels of stress.