Everything You Need To Know About Stress Management

Finally...

Here it is!

The last installment of my 3-part series on stress. The first installment gave a definition of stress and the second treated the topic of biological stress (hormesis). More on those blogs in a second.

This third installment talks about psychological stress. You probably know tons of people who have issues with psychological stress - that's why I kept the best for last.

This guide gives you several means to deal with psychological stress, and above all, mindfulness.

I'll also cover topics such as different types of psychological stress and the role of trauma in chronic stress.

Interested? 

Read the entire blog post or move to a specific section listed in the table of contents below: 

 

Table Of Contents

 Below I've listed all the sections of this blog post. For the best comprehension, read the entire blog post. If you already understand psychological stress reasonably well, skip to any specific section you like:

 

Ready?

Let's start with a quick recap of my previous blog posts on this topic: 

 

Summary Of Previous Blog Posts: Defining Stress And Biological Stress

In my previous blog post that defines chronic stress, I made an analogy of a car to describe brain processes in chronic stress.

(Of course, the brain is not the only body part affected by stress but it can be argued it's the most important one.)

The driver of that car is analogous to the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is found behind your forehead and is involved with planning, abstract thought, impulse control, etcetera. 

Meaning?

To arrive at your destination correctly, the driver better be in control.

Moreover, in the front passenger seat, there's the "hippocampus". In terms of brain area, the hippocampus is involved with long-term memory, among others. In our analogy the passenger in the front can help the driver navigate.

In reality too, the hippocampus can help you deal with stress by remembering how you solved a problem the last time it happened.

So just like people gain experience quitting substances, they also gain experience dealing with stress throughout their lives.

In the back seat of the car, however, there's the amygdala and hypothalamus - which are a metaphor for children in the backseat. 

The amygdala is the emotional center of the brain and the hypothalamus is the brain area involved with releasing stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. 

If these kids are really loud, they will divert attention away from the driver and everyone loses out. If these children are calm and patient, everyone wins as well.

The same is true in the brain: you'll want the driver of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, to be in control in most important situations. You also want to ensure that the prefrontal cortex makes all the important decisions.

Under very strong psychological stress, moreover, the amygdala can become very predominant in its activation. In that case, the prefrontal cortex (driver) loses control and you'll feel as if you're losing control over your life.

(Read more about the car analogy in THIS blog post)

Secondly, there's the issue of biological stress. 

Not all biological stress is beneficial: being woken up in the middle of the night or having mercury fillings in your mouth is very stressful to your body but won't help your overall health improve.

Alternatively, several useful "hormetic" stressors exist that make your body healthier overall. Examples of hormetic stressors are using cold showers, ice baths, exercise, and more.

Man people go wrong with these stressors, however, in that they either 1) do too much; 2) they don't solve their psychological stress issues first.

Example?

Sure:

If you've got a chronic health condition then stressing your body 5 times a week with intense exercise should probably not be the first strategy you implement. Instead, you need to optimize your sleep first, ensure you're eating a healthy diet, move more, decrease the amounts of toxins they ingest through many means, etcetera.

Another important strategy is to master psychological stress first.

How? 

Keep reading this guide and you'll find out! 

First, we're beginning with defining different types of psychological stress. It turns out not all psychological stress is the same: 

 

Different Types Of Psychological Stress  

Not all psychological stress is created equal.

The goal of this section is to make you more aware of what causes psychological stress. By getting insight into what causes psychological stress, you can more adequately deal with that stress.

If you don't know that some types of psychological stress harm you in the first place, then you'll not be in the situation to adequately manage that stress.

Psychological stress is the most important reason most people end up being chronically stressed in modern society.

Remember that most people are not exposed to many hormetic stressors, and yet, still end up with chronic stress.

One of the reasons people can no longer expose themselves to many hormetic stressors is because psychological stress drains their energy levels all the time. And because of the absence of exposure to hormetic stressors, these people's resilience goes down.

Let's look at different types of psychological stress that strongly affect your life:

  • Negative life events can cause enormous stress.[225, 226, 227, 228, 229]

    Whether you're losing your job, getting sick, or failing in one of your life's projects, these negatives outcomes can thoroughly set you back.

    The somewhat related big life transitions - such as getting your first child, or leaving the house for the first time - affect stress levels in a big way.[261, 262, 263, 264]

    Make sure to go easy on yourself when you've got some negative life events or transitions. Lots of people just "power through", which can give rise to problems later on.

  • Financial problems (can) also explain why you're worried all the time.[233, 234, 235, 236, 237]

    Worry about finances can often put you into a vicious cycle. More stress and worrying make you unable to deal with your financial problems, which leads to poorer choices, which leads to even more stress.

    More often than not, moreover, financial worries are there for a reason. Statistics show that half of Americans have less than $1.000 in savings. In such an instance, it's somewhat good that you're worried. Stress, in this instance, hopefully, helps you take (the right) action.


    financial worry can create a fight or flight response
    Cats: never worried about finances....


  • working lots of hours increases (perceptions of) stress.[238; 239; 240; 241; 245; 270; 271; 272]

    No shit Sherlock! 

    Working more than 60 hours is especially deadly for your stress levels. Depressive symptoms are an often-experienced side-effect of long working hours. Shift work and being on-call can add stress on top of existing stress.

    Additionally, some factors increase the perception of stress at work:

    If you cannot influence policy, or have almost no say in your working hours, your stress levels increase. Work targets, having problems balancing work with family life, a terrible boss, the danger of being fired, and repetitious work have the same outcome.

    There's thus some truth to the dictum to get a job you love.

  • Being a parent by itself increases your stress levels.[252; 253; 254] 

    Of course, most people already intuitively know this is true. The biggest stress levels develop when you've just become a parent. 

    Parenting is also more stressful if you don't have social support, if your children don't do well in life, or if you don't have many financial means.

    Make sure to anticipate higher stress levels if you or your partner is pregnant...

  • Having lots of uncertainty adds stress - an inability to accept uncertainty adds even more stress.[255; 256; 257; 258]

    This is a big one for me. When I started this blog, I was unaware of how much uncertainty comes with running a blog and website. 

    If you've got lots of uncertainty, you'll often start to anticipate worst-possible outcome scenarios. People who can accept more uncertainty in their lives, on the other hand, are better able to deal with (chronic) stress.

  • Speaking of uncertainty: losing your job increases stress. 

    Another no brainer right? 

    Being out of work in the long-term can even cause chronic stress on its own.[265; 266; 267] If you're looking for a job for a few months, for example, your body creates more of the "adrenaline" and "cortisol" stress hormones.

    After a few months of unemployment, you'll also be more sensitive to pain, depression, and have greater anxiety. Support from friends and family can help you through these periods though.

    The reasons job loss increases stress are the financial worry, the thoughts whether you'll find a new job, and anxiety over the fact that other people might depend on your salary.

  • Perfectionism.[259; 260]

    Yes. If you're a perfectionist, you're more prone to engage in critical self-talk. Stress is the end result of that perfectionism.

  • Breaking up a relationship. As you know, breaking up (almost) always hurts, even if you're unmarried.[268; 269]

    Relationship difficulties alone also give you more stress.[246; 247; 248; 249; 250; 251] Pretty self-evident actually...

Of course, many other stressors are imaginable, such as illness (of your loved ones), being lonely, having lots of pain, living in areas of noise pollution, not having a life's purpose, etcetera.  

Again, I lay out these different psychological stressors to give you more insight into how stress is created in the first place. 

More psychological stressors in your life often result in higher stress levels. 

The problem is that not many people experience just one of these stressors. Some people might even experience several of these stressors on a daily basis - without being aware of how stress affects them.

Let me give you an example:

 

Mark has just lost his job. He's been working for the company for 12 years, but he's actually in his late 40s now. 

Mark is really worried whether he'll get another job in the coming months, because he thinks he's too old to be hired. He's never been without a job for longer periods of time before, which feeds on his already negative self-imagine.

Additionally, Mark is not on perfect terms with his wife and their relationship has already been under pressure for some years. He's got many friends, but most of them just drink a beer with him, and comfort him that "it's all going to be all right".

Mark verbally agrees with that assessment, but deep down, he still remains worried. Is all really "going to be all right"?

Then there's Kathleen. 

She's fired as well, but she's actually somewhat delighted that she's lost her job - she hated working at that company. 

Kat's job was rough, with lots of deadlines, long working hours, and always demanding clients. Kathleen worked as a management consultant. 

Because Kathleen's partner also has a good job, she's not too worried about finding a new job tomorrow. She doesn't even know whether she'd wish to continue working as a consultant. 

Even though Kathleen is very perfectionistic, and always doubles down on any life decision she makes, she thinks its time for a change.

Instead of making 80 hour weeks, she's thinking of starting a business of her own. Even if that business fails, she's got her husband (and some great friends) to fall back on.

 

Even though I've laid on the differences between the scenarios described above thick, and they're kind of obvious, some of the lessons to be drawn from these stories are not.

Most people actually intuitively know that losing their job, being lonely, or no longer having a great partner makes them stressed.

It's essential to actually assess your overall psychological stress levels, and work from there. Without knowing where you stand, it's impossible to assertively deal with that situation. 

Psychological stress is a complex issue, and I cannot give an "algorithm" that's applicable for anyone to deal with these issues. For that reason, please just assess your overall psychological stress levels, and take action from there.

The bright spot about many of these psychological stressors is that adequately dealing with them is partially up to us. You can prepare for setbacks that give lots of psychological stress.

With that strategy, you can alter your life to be less vulnerable to succumbing to psychological stressors over time:

  • Got fear of losing your job? Double down on creating a great CV, and start looking around for opportunities even while you're employed. Just knowing what to do once you get fired can massively reduce your overall stress levels in case you do get fired.
  • Are you worried about your finances all the time? Well, if you've been worried for years its probably a sign that you might need to actually change something in your financial management. Cut all useless spending from your life, and you'll immediately feel better and more confident.
  • Are you afraid of your relationship ending? Ask yourself why you're so afraid. Are you afraid of being lonely, or afraid of never getting a great partner again? In that instance, maybe you need to develop some social skills so that you can take care of yourself in case your relationship does end.
  • Stressed because you're a parent? This is a tough one for me to give advice on - knowing that I'm not a parent myself - but I do think there's therapeutic value in questioning whether you're 100% responsible for how your children end up in life. I don't think you are. Instead, focus on yourself: did you give your children all the support they need in life? Yes? Then that an indication that you can allow yourself to worry less about how your children end up. You don't control their actions...

 

You thus need to dig down and question why psychological stressors are psychological stressors in the first place.

The solution?

The biggest problem with psychological stress is that people overstretch themselves.

Think about that for a second.

It's easy to deal with being a parent, dealing with uncertainty, or with financial worries - in isolation. But if you're a parent, and have lots of uncertainty in your life, and have lots of financial worries, it becomes much harder to deal with psychological stress.

Let's consider that example:

At some point, you made decisions that destroyed your financial life, and you made the decision to have children. You took on more responsibilities than you could handle. 

The mistake, then, is to not take psychological stress adequately into account in your life's strategy. 

But what can you do when things already turn south in the psychological stress department? In that case, I've got a technique for you: mindfulness...

 

Using Mindfulness For Killing Psychological Stress

Before I tell you about mindfulness, let's first take a quick detour:

You can engage in many different relaxation techniques to lower your (chronic) stress levels. 

One stress relief technique entails disconnecting from technology, while simultaneously fully engaging in an activity that you really love.

It doesn't matter whether that activity is dancing, swimming in the lake, painting, or walking in the woods, as long as you love that activity. The activity cannot be inherently unhealthy - so binge drinking alcohol does not count as a de-stressing activity. Additionally, it's important to fully disconnect from technology during that relaxation period. 

fully disconnecting from technology is truly undervalued in modern society for destressing
Spending time in nature: check.
Disconnecting from technology: check
Relaxation levels: sky high...

 

As an alternative for relaxation, you can also engage in "mindfulness" meditation. 

I've written shortly about mindfulness before. In my blog post that gives the 50 most important tips to improve sleep quality. Tip 16 denoted using mindfulness meditation.

In that sleep blog post, I had given a short introduction on how to practice mindfulness. While I do consider mindfulness indirectly very beneficial to sleep, the meditation technique is even more beneficial for lowering (chronic) stress.

I've included a mindfulness mini-course here because I think it's such an amazing technique that helps you with the psychological equation of stress relief.

Eating a better diet and engaging in hormesis, are great for lowering the biological aspects of stress. Mindfulness, on the other hand, helps you deal with the psychological side of the equation.

Let me give you a short introduction to meditation first. I divide all different types of meditation into two categories:

 

  1. Focus meditations, where you focus on your breath, an object in your environment, body-parts, your sensation, or movement. Mindfulness meditation falls into this category.
  2. Un-focusing meditations, where you effortlessly let go of all focus. Mantra meditation is an example of this meditation form. We won't consider the second option in this blog post because it's harder to teach.

 

Let's now consider mindfulness meditation:

Mindfulness can help you with the continuous acute (psychological) stress reactions that emerge when you think about events in the past or future, such as a deadline in a month, whether you'll keep your job, or the addiction of a spouse.

Over time, the results of mindfulness become permanent, and less acute stress emerges in your brain.

Why?

Remember I talked about "neuroplasticity" in the fourth section. Neuroplasticity allows your brain to change over time, so that you unlearn to stress so much about the future. Instead of dealing with acute stress, you'll free your brain capacity to deal more assertively with any task at hand.

Let me give you an example:

 

"Mary has a type A personality: she's highly ambitious and has been all her life. 

During her childhood years, her parents broke up while ending their marriage. While her parents stayed on relatively good terms, Mary experienced lots of sadness during her teenage years.

Nevertheless, Mary pushed on, went to college, finished her degree cum laude, and started working at a high-paying but high-stress job.

Mary's also a health freak. She's been exercising since she was 17. Running and weightlifting are her favorite activities, but since a few years she's also heard that cold therapy and fasting might beneficial to her health.

Even though Mary is doing well in life, what people don't see about her is that she's constantly worried. She's constantly thinking whether she'll get the next promotion, whether she's keeping up with people around her, or whether a friend of her is going to eventually "stab her in the back" by betraying her. 

Even though she knows many of these thoughts are irrational, they are draining her continually. She also has problems opening up to friends. 

What Mary doesn't know, is that the breakup of her parents have sensitized her brain towards rumination, worrying, and self-sabotage. All the hormetic stressors she's applying, such as cold, fasting, and exercise, won't heal her brain that's hijacking her.

All the hormetic stressors even add stress on top of existing stress, draining Mary of her happiness. Mary needs to resolve psychological patterns to restore her brain to its full health.

 

Fortunately, the example of Mary also shows a bright spot: 

Mary already knows stress is sabotaging her, that stress is irrational, and that she would be a better human being without stress. Lots of people, on the contrary, think that psychological stress is helping them, which is fundamentally untrue. Fortunately, Mary also knows her friends won't really turn on her, and that her stress reaction is lying to her. 

Why?

When her prefrontal cortex is in control, Mary's fully aware of how stress is sabotaging her.

The goal of mindfulness is to calm your mind. Psychological stress actually originates in relation to 1) how you were negatively influenced by something in the past; or 2) because you foresee negativity occurring in the future. 

Rarely is there any reason to be that psychologically stressed in this very moment, right now. In the present, there's usually no real stressor at all, just an imagined one.

Let me explain...

Anytime you're thinking negatively about the past or future, you're creating psychological stress. If you think more deeply about what's happening in that instance, the problem you're thinking about is not actually with you right now.

Let's say you're ruminating, imagining worst-case scenarios, or reliving bad experiences. These instances have taken place in the past or will take place in the future.

Next week's presentation you're worrying about is not with you right now. An insult someone made on the street yesterday is not with you right now. 

Mindfulness makes you realize that there's nothing currently to worry about. Bringing you back to the present moment is where mindfulness shines. Without worry, you can take the right action that actually solves problems.

How?

Let's consider how mindfulness changes your brain:

Mindfulness can literally decrease the connectivity between the amygdala and a part of your higher brain areas associated with pain, blood pressure, and heart rate.[273]

The role of the amygdala in your brain's stress reaction is thus toned down. Other brain areas such as your prefrontal cortex are changed in a positive way as well.[274]

Brain areas concerned with emotional regulation, learning, memory processing, literally gain "grey matter". Grey matter consists of the nervous system cells of your body.[275] 

The amount of grey matter in your amygdala, however, decreases. That decrease in grey matter in the amygdala signifies that you're becoming more proficient at emotional control.[276] 

Let's look at the full list of mindfulness benefits. Mindfulness:

  • makes your brain more interconnected.[277; 278; 279; 280] Specifically the "white matter" in your brain is stimulated qua growth, which helps your brain's different regions communicate.

    Just a few hours of training, such as a long mindfulness course, already induce this effect.

  • improves emotional regulation, and decreases worry, stress, fear, panic, depression, and anxiety.[281; 289; 293; 326; 327; 430] 

    You'll be less troubled by negative emotions, have improved differentiation between emotions, and can regulate them better.

    And yes, mindfulness can also decrease the hormones that we've been associating with (chronic) stress, such as cortisol and adrenaline.[327; 328; 329; 330; 332; 333]

  • helps you focus, by improving your capacity for attention.[284; 290; 291; 292; 293; 425] 

    This effect is even present if you have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), which is a mental disorder where people have problems with attention and controlling behavior.

    Mindfulness increases focus because you'll be less prone to ruminate on useless psychological stressors.

  • lets your immune function properly do its job.[338] 

    Although more research is needed to study the effects of mindfulness on the immune system, current studies demonstrate that inflammation, the aging process, and your number of immune cells are affected.

    Mindfulness is even proven to work in instances of (chronic) pain.[339; 340; 341; 342; 343; 344] Why? Mindfulness makes you better able to accept what is and take action, instead of uselessly stressing over things you cannot control.

  • makes you happier and gives you more well-being.[312; 313; 314; 315; 316; 318; 319]

    In a sense, happiness and well-being are opposites of (chronic) stress. That stress-reducing and happiness improving effect have been proven in several populations, such people with diseases, health care workers, and generally stressed-out business employees.

  • enhances sleep at night. That effect is a big advantage for (chronically) stressed people.[294; 295; 296; 297; 302; 308]

    The effects of mindfulness are especially strong if you're already an insomniac, or experience sleep problems. In other situations, such as chronic pain or pregnancy, the technique also works for improving sleep.

  • gives you more conscious control over your behavior. 

    Like I said before, mindfulness improves how well your prefrontal cortex can regulate lower brain areas such as the amygdala.[320; 321; 322; 323; 324]

    Your prefrontal cortex also takes part in attention or focus. By strengthening your control over this part of the brain, you're better able to control any emotions that come up in the moment.

    Examples of such emotions are bursting out in anger towards a colleague, thinking about a deadline in 3 weeks, or being overwhelmed by anxiety.

  • makes you more compassionate, both towards yourself and others.[303; 304; 305; 306; 307; 309; 310; 311]

    In addition, mindfulness helps you identify your own emotions, get more in touch with these emotions, and accept your emotions.

    If you're more present, you're also better able to engage with the emotions of other people.

 

You might be thinking: "why list all these benefits? I thought we were talking about (chronic) stress in this article?"

Yes, I am talking about stress.

And that's exactly why I listed all these qualities...

Why? Many of mindfulness' qualities can help you with stress.

Let me explain.

Better interconnected in your brain, for example, can help the higher parts of your brain control your amygdala. Better sleep at night will help you feel more restored during the day -further decreasing your overall stress levels. Making you more compassionate - both towards yourself, as well as others - aids in building better social connections, and treating yourself more lovingly.

All the qualities which I've listed above help lower stress - sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

Even better focus, for example, can give you more awareness during chronic stress, so that you've got better perception of what's going on, and give you the means to find a way out of the situation. 

Let's look at what the mindfulness technique exactly accomplishes. Mindfulness trains you to be non-judgmental towards your experience.  

the ocean is an analogy for the mind that is unaffected by phenomena
The ocean is not concerned with the movement of individual waves.
In the same way, your consciousness should not be judgmental towards
its experiences - which is what mindfulness teaches.

 

During mindfulness meditation, you're placing yourself at a safe distance from your thoughts.

Because of a certain distance from your thoughts, you'll no longer want to continually change them. Please understand how wanting to change your thoughts matters:

 

  1. The more you cling to positive experiences, the more you suffer. Why? You'll actually destroy the positive experience because you don't want that experience to go away.

  2. The more you try to avoid negative experiences, the more you'll suffer as well. 

    Let me give you an example. Let's say you're actually doing pretty good in this present moment. You're not in any immediate danger. If your mind then starts thinking about what could go wrong, or what went wrong in the past, you're creating your own suffering. 

    Your present moment, which was without any danger, is ruined by suffering created in your mind.

 

Mindfulness undercuts that suffering. Of course, mindfulness cannot do away with all the pain found in life. Instead, mindfulness removes the suffering associated with the pain.

Hard to grasp?

Let me give an example again:

 

Steve was in a car accident, and has broken his leg. Fortunately, his health is otherwise doing good - and no-one else was hurt in the traffic accident.

Steve works at an oil rig, and has to stay home to recover from his broken leg. The break isn't actually that bad, and his physical therapist thinks that with a few sessions per week, he will be able to go slowly get back to work.

The economy is in an economic downturn, however. Oil prices have been falling, and Steve is continually thinking about how he needs to recover as quickly as possible to get back to work.

The longer he's absent from work, the higher the chances he'll be the first to let go if there are any new layoffs at the oil rig.

Steve's also worried about whether his leg will recover properly, and whether he can continue his work in the first place. His physical therapists has treated many roughly the same issues, and assures Steve's everything is going to be all right. 

Steve's not so sure, however.

Since the accident, Steve's having sleepless nights about the prospects of his job. These sleepless nights aren't caused because his leg hurts, but because Steve's continually thinking about his job prospects...

 

Observe that Steve's got two separate problems. His first problem is his broken leg, which needs to heal. His second problem is the suffering associated with his situation.

The big problem with the suffering (or stress) associated with Steve's situation, is that it undercuts solving his first problem.

Why?

Let's find out:

 

  1. Steve's constant worrying throughout the day means that he's constantly creating cortisol and adrenaline, which actually undermine the recovery of his leg. Steve's body also runs through vitamins and minerals quicker, which means that his nutrients get depleted quickly, which means that fewer nutrients are available to heal his leg.

  2. Steve is sleeping poorly, even though he needs good sleep to heal his leg in the first place. It's important to observe that the suffering that causes poor sleep, instead of his leg.

  3. All the worrying takes up lots of mental space for Steve. If he used the time spent on worrying on actions that are actually helping his leg heal, his leg would recover far quicker.

 

In other words, if Steve could replace two hours of worrying each day with two hours of preparing world-class meals, some movement, and some deep relaxation, he would remove massive time from his recovery.

I hope this scenario demonstrates that stress (or suffering) is not helping you get ahead in life.

To be more precise: having high perceived stress increases your difficulties in life.[377; 378; 379; 380; 381; 382; 383]

Let's compare two persons, who have the same job and are both otherwise in average health. If one person perceives their stress levels too much higher extents than the other person, the person with the higher perceived stress levels will have a much harder time getting through the day.

High perceived stress levels lead to a vicious cycle, which inhibits your ability to cope with stress in the first place. You'll end up with worse health after having some high perceived stress levels for some time, your ability to cope with stress goes down even further.

It's not just the stressor which makes your life difficult--instead, it's your perceived ability to deal with the stressor that making your life difficult.

The influence of perceived stress demonstrates to me that stress is not purely biological. Instead, your psychological expectations play just as big a role in stress.

The non-judgmental attitude developed in mindfulness allows you to stop clinging to positive experiences, and stop ruminating over avoiding negative experiences.

How?

I'll explain in the next section.

Stay with me...

Seems like we've found the solution Steve needs. 

Let's now dig deep into the actual technique...

 

The Mindfulness Stress Relief Technique 

Mindfulness works by accepting your experiences as they come. 

What do I mean with experiences?

Our experiences are constantly changing. Under "experience" I subsume any thought, sensation, desire, belief, intention, etcetera. Phrased differently, "experience" is anything you can hold in your consciousness.

That conception of experiences is actually really important to understand how mindfulness works.

Any time you want to change your experiences, you're holding onto them. And by fully accepting your experiences, your:

  • negative experiences will not be held in your mind, but you can allow them to pass over until other experiences arise. 
  • positive experiences can be experienced and enjoyed fully. What's the alternative? If you're holding onto positive experiences, you're creating suffering, and "dilute" the positive experience.

Let me give you an analogy of how you can "dilute" a positive experience. I've actually experienced this before while eating all you can eat sushi. 

When eating sushi, I wanted to make sure to make the experience as good as possible, by eating as much as I could. The end result, however, was that I ended up bloated and stuffed. An otherwise good experience turned south.

An example of holding onto positive experiences would be meeting a long-time friend. Instead of really enjoying the single day you have together, you're thinking about how this moment may never end, and how you must make absolute the best out of your time together.

The end result, again, is that you've not maximally enjoyed your day together...

Through mindfulness you'll essentially learn to accept that negative experiences are part of life and that accepting positive experiences are transitory.

That's as good as it gets for the human condition...

Stopping to hold on removes the suffering from the process.

Remember the five brain areas we discussed in the third section. Let's tie mindfulness to these brain areas.

First I'll do a quick recap:

  1. Through your senses, your brain nerves, brain stem, and forebrain become aware of the world.
  2. If there's a threat in that world, your amygdala gets activated.
  3. The hypothalamus, which is connected to the amygdala, can then release stress hormones, and activate your nervous system, to ready your body to "fight, flight, or freeze", in relation to a threat.
  4. Your prefrontal cortex has the ability to calm down that amygdala if its regulatory capacity is strong enough.
  5. The hippocampus can store memories of you successfully dealing with stress.

From the car analogy we've talked about, mindfulness allows the driver of the car to take control, while the children in the back become more calm and silent. Because the children are silent, the front passenger (hippocampus), as navigator, can help the driver even better.

During mindfulness, we're thus training your prefrontal cortex to carry out the job of inhibiting the amygdala's activity.

The more often you practice that, the better you're able to return to a restful state, avoiding the "fight, flight" or "freeze" response.

How?

Remember I talked about being non-judgmental towards your experiences. 

Let's consider how the actual mindfulness meditation technique works:

  • Make sure you've got some time to use this technique, like 10 minutes. If you practice more often, you can even increase the time to 30 or 40 minutes, once a day. Short on time? Even a few minutes or as little as 20 seconds will give results.
  • Use a comfortable position, such as a chair with back support, which allows your feet to touch the ground. If you're short on time, you can use the technique anywhere - even in an airplane or at work.
  • The overall goal of mindfulness meditation is to allow everything that happens to happen. You'll let your experiences be in the present moment, without judging them, accepting them as they come.
  • There's a good analogy for understanding the process of accepting your experiences without judging them: imagine that you're the ocean and not the waves. The ocean is undisturbed the waves. Waves here, are analogous to your individual experiences, which come and go. The ocean is the "screen" upon which the experiences (waves) are projected. You are the screen.
  • Whenever you have an actual experience, such as a thought about the past or future, make sure to return your mind to the present moment. That step is the absolute key to applying mindfulness. You thus need to stay aware of what's happening right now using your main senses. For example, you can focus on your visual or auditory experiences.
  • It's absolutely essential to remember that the goal of mindfulness meditation is not to "stop your thoughts" or "get rid of thoughts". If you try to get rid of thoughts or stop your thinking during mindfulness meditation, you will not get results. "Stopping thoughts" is an often found false imagination that people have regarding meditation.

Alternatively, you can also focus on your breath during mindfulness:

  • Again, make sure you've got some time to use this technique, like 10 minutes. If you practice more often, you can increase the time. Short on time, and stressed in this very moment? Take just 30 seconds to focus on your breath to lower acute stress.
  • Use a comfortable position, such as a chair with back support, which allows your feet to touch the ground. Close your eyes.
  • Move your awareness to your breathing. Accept the rhythm of your breathing completely as it comes. Don't try to make your breathing slower or faster, deeper or more shallow, more or less rhythmic. Only become aware of your breathing, and accept its pattern in any way it comes.
  • Now, it's perfectly understandable and even expected that your mind wanders during this process. Whenever your mind has certain experiences, make sure to bring back your mind to your breathing. Remember that your breathing exists in the present. 
  • You might, for example, be thinking about having to do the dishes, a problem you had with your colleague last week, or financial problems. Accept all these experiences as they come, and gently re-direct your mind towards your breath.
  • When you re-direct your mind to your breath, do so with compassion. Don't conclude: "damn, I should have focused on my breathing" while becoming angry that you failed. You never fail if experiences come up because your mind naturally creates experiences. Instead, gently and compassionately, without judgment or emotion, redirect your awareness to your breath.
  • The exclusive goal of this exercise is to notice that your mind is having experiences and to redirect your focus towards your breathing.
  • Any time you have negative experiences - such as thoughts that are critical thoughts towards yourself - that's actually great. Experiences are an opportunity to re-direct attention. 

It's crucial to understand that the re-direction of attention over and over again is the reason you're doing mindfulness meditation.

Again, the goal is not to "stop thoughts" - the goal is to re-direct attention. I cannot emphasize that claim enough.

By redirecting attention, you train your prefrontal cortex to stay in the present moment. Being in the present moment ends suffering. 

Your self-critical mind will give way for a more open mind. Suffering about the past and future will no longer inhibit your performance right now. Let's look at how this happens with yet another example:

 

Remember Steve who had had broken his leg? He was putting his job at the oil rig at stake because of his worrying, which inhibited his recovery process.

After a few weeks of sleepless nights, Steve's had enough. He's followed a mindfulness meditation program, and started practicing 30 minutes per day.

After the first week, he's already starting to see benefits. Steve's less judgmental toward himself, and he's more able to accept thoughts about the future in any way, shape, or form they come.

Of course, not all his problems have magically vanished, but at least during the day, he's able to focus on his recovery a lot better. After a few weeks of mindfulness meditation practice, he's also starting to sleep better at night.

Steve slowly starts to be more detached from his feelings, thoughts, sensations, and desires to change his situation. By detaching, he's no longer identifying with the ruminating thoughts, allowing them to be, and therefore letting these thoughts pass over quickly.

And because his worrying thoughts are accepted and allowed to pass over quickly over and over again, his amygdala slowly gets the signal that it's fine to calm down.

 

In the end, mindfulness allows you to be attentive and notice what's happening first before your brain starts a stress reaction.

In most situations in life, there's actually no need for a fight, flight, or freeze response. What you need instead, is to think things through.

The fight, flight, or freeze response doesn't often provide an accurate solution for modern life. The only instances in which you need such a situation is when you're in physical danger, such as a robbery, or if you're almost hit by a car.

If you can prevent the fight, flight, or freeze response from occurring in the first place, you'll end suffering, and free up energy to engage in activities that are useful.

And because you're no longer identifying as strongly with your experiences, you're better able to make the choice that's right in that particular instance, instead of getting carried away in emotions.

Again, in other words, by returning to the present moment, and not being stuck in experiences that are tied to the past or future, you regain your ability to act in that present.

Another great mindfulness exercise would be to immediately focus on the present once a stress response gets triggered.

This is my personal favorite by far. 

This exercise is really simple. Let's say you're ruminating about your mother in law, and you actually notice that you're doing that. Realize that in essence, a minor fight, flight or freeze response just got triggered in you.

In that instance, focus on your breath, or switch between focusing and describing a few objects in the room for 10-20 seconds. Just that short period of time will already lower or even vanish your fight, flight or freeze response. During that time, your prefrontal cortex takes over from the amygdala.

Over time, it's essential that you start to notice when a fight, flight or freeze response is triggered. Only by becoming aware of that response, can you use the mindfulness technique to undercut acute stress right away.

What happens when you practice that technique over and over again?

Stress will become your servant, instead of your master.

And because you're better able to deal with stressful situations through this technique, you're starting a vicious cycle of success in dealing with the world.

Your hippocampus - or navigator - gets trained in the process. You'll start building a "library" of successful experiences in that hippocampus. The next time you have a challenge, your prefrontal cortex can access the hippocampus to improve its ability to deal with the situation.

The absolute most important strategy with acute stress reactions is to stop them dead in their tracks.

Yes...

It's not enough to practice mindfulness 10 minutes a day. Stress needs to be removed right now.

Why?

Once you allow a stress reaction to occur, the stress reaction magnifies. Mindfulness meditation allows you to start focusing on the present immediately so that the vicious cycle of stress never starts in the first place.

I'm repeating that claim so often because it's absolutely essential.

Why?

At the moment one negative thought pops up, many others arise later as well. The cascade of negative emotions might start with "how about that deadline next Friday?". If you undercut the negative emotion right then and there and let your prefrontal cortex focus on the present, the cascade stops immediately.

If your prefrontal cortex is unable to regulate your amygdala right then and there, the next thought pops up: "what will my boss think about me when I don't get my work done by the deadline?". 

Next, you'll be thinking about how well your standing is among colleagues, and whether you're the first to get fired. Then you'll be thinking about what job to get once you indeed get fired...

The more you ruminate, and imagine the worst possible outcomes, the more your body creates stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.[431; 432; 433; 434; 435]

By applying the mindfulness technique immediately after acute stress you'll stop rumination.

Just practicing mindfulness will also help you notice when you're having acute stress in the first place.

So, that's all taken care of. Apply mindfulness whenever you've got stress.

Are we done?

No...

I do want to be radically honest.

I don't think mindfulness meditation is the only very powerful meditation technique out there. I actually teach mantra meditation one on one.

Most people get good results with mantra meditation after the first few sessions - but only when applying the technique absolutely correctly.

Because mindfulness meditation is a lot easier to teach, and because it lies much closer to our everyday experience of focusing, I've included the technique in this guide. Mantra meditation, on the other hand, is totally counter-intuitive because it's absolutely effortless, and often requires more teaching.

Nevertheless, there are hundreds of studies showing that mindfulness also works great, and that it can bring changes to your brain over time. Integrating mindfulness into your life is a no-brainer, because it's so simple, especially in short-circuiting acute stress immediately.

To be sure, mindfulness meditation can be applied in many different ways I've not described.

Instead of focusing on the present moment before you, or your breath, you can also focus on a candle or other objects in the environment. 

As an alternative, you can also focus on your body parts, such as how your abdomen are moving while breathing, and then focusing on your legs, feet, arms, or head...

 

a candle that can be the focus object of mindfulness meditations
As long as you can engage your prefrontal cortex
on the pressing moment, while being non-judgmental
to any emerging experiences,
you're practicing mindfulness meditation.
Simple...

 

There's no need to over-complicate the technique though. Using mindfulness meditation with a candle, your breath, or objects in the world in front of you is sufficient for getting great results.

Use whichever option suits you. Fortunately, mindfulness can be practiced anywhere. You don't need an expensive gym subscription or take a yoga class to get results.

Always remember that practice makes perfect. Mindfulness is like a gym for your self-control and attention, and thus: your mind.

Of course, if you can combine mindfulness with activities that are inherently pleasurable, such as walking or spending time at the beach, that would be highly recommended. 

Lastly, mindfulness can also help you deal with troublesome emotions you might have from the past.

How?

It's important to remember that in the long-run, you'll actually have to work through your emotions. 

In modern society, we have the habit of suppressing our emotions instead of working through them. Suppressing your emotions will not make them go away, but will store them for some time, after which they come back more violently.

Mindfulness gives you a safe way to let emotions be present in your awareness, without actually identifying with them.

Even negative emotions, like anger, frustration, fear, apathy, grief, and hopelessness, can be explored with mindfulness. By being non-judgmental towards your emotions, you can hold there negative emotions in consciousness, without identifying with these emotions in the first place.

Accepting that these emotions exist, without suppressing them, allows these emotions to dissolve. If you suppress them, instead, they'll come back at a later time, with a vengeance.

To use this exercise, simply think about something that angers your, or over which you grief. Any negative emotions will do. You can do this exercise in a stressful situation, or when you're relaxed and intentionally start to think about a previously stressful situation.

By allowing emotions to be, without identifying with the emotions, they will start to dissolve.

Don't worry about "being stuck" in an emotion. Your mind - by its very nature - is changing experiences continuously. You'll never "stay" with emotion for very long because your mind is change by its very nature.

If you don't let emotions into your consciousness in a safe way, however, they'll will keep returning in your mind forever though.

That's it.

A full mindfulness mini-course...

If you'd like to learn more about mindfulness, check out my ebook on the topic.

To me, mindfulness meditation teaches an important lesson with stress.

Always tackle acute stress head-on, instead of letting the problem grow and get out of control. If you can tackle most acute stress reactions with mindfulness, you'll prevent small stressors from making you chronically stressed.

Your body was made to deal with acute stress, not chronic stress. Building your prefrontal cortex is the key to taking control. Remember the analogy of the prefrontal cortex is the driver of your car:

If that diver can quiet down the children in the backseat, the diver can navigate the car to the proper destination. The same is true for your life. With a well-functioning prefrontal cortex, you'll navigate life easier.

So, what's left to say about stress?

A lot actually.

Let's look at some other techniques you can use to lower (chronic) stress...

 

Additional Stress Relief Techniques

Mindfulness meditation and hormesis are not your only strategies for dealing with stress.

There are many additional strategies that can help you as well: 

  • Building a good social network with family and friends.[229; 230; 231; 232; 389; 390; 391; 392; 393]

    I've written about the enormous importance of social connections in the past. Unfortunately, social connections are rarely talked about in the broader health community, even though they're very important.

    Social support reduces your overall stress levels. Of course, you need the right social support. There's no advantage to having toxic people in your life who motivate you to do the wrong things, such as committing crimes when things turn south in life.

  • Do brain training games targeting your "working memory" - especially if stressed.[414; 426; 427]

    Just like your computer has a working memory, the prefrontal cortex of your brain functions as working memory as well. That prefrontal cortex can keep several pieces of information in its working memory at once.

    By training your prefrontal cortex' working memory, you're increasing the control you have over this brain region. That increased control helps your prefrontal cortex calm down your amygdala.

    Brain games thus have a similarity with mindfulness meditation: training your prefrontal cortex.

  • Engage in yoga, dance, gymnastics, or any activity during which you need to learn a complex skill.

    These activities work for the same reason that memory training works: you engage your prefrontal cortex.[428; 429]

    Beware of these activities are too intensive because then you'll engage in stressful exercise, which can counterproductive against lowering chronic stress.

    When you're noticing that you're getting stressed, it's essential to stay busy instead of resting. By staying busy - especially when engaging in a complex motor activity such as dancing - you're avoiding ruminating on the negative thoughts.

    Doing nothing while stressed actually increases rumination. Of course, remember that mindfulness meditation can also break patterns of rumination just as well.[436; 437; 438; 439]

  • Spending time in nature.[334; 335; 336; 337] I know I've mentioned this tip in previous blogs before. But this tip worth reconsidering: merely spending time in natural environments, such as a forest or the beach, has massive benefits. 

    You'll lower your stress hormones levels such as cortisol and adrenaline, enhance your immune system, improve mood, lower blood pressure, and decrease your overall stress levels.

    Just looking at nature already brings down your stress levels - even if it's just by watching a picture.[440; 441]

    just looking at a sunset makes you relaxed
    Are your stress levels lower already?

  • Hug someone.[442; 443; 444; 445] Very simple. Or have sex...

  • Having an optimistic attitude.[355; 356; 356; 357; 358; 359; 360]

    Optimism seems to counter one side-effect of stress, which is always imagining the worst possible outcomes. 

    There are indications that optimism or pessimism is largely a personality trait - and thus very hard to change. So why would I talk about optimism and pessimism if you cannot change that behavior anyway?

    Well, if you're a pessimist, you need to emphasize more other strategies in this guide to compensate for that trait.

  • Increasing your perception of control. The less you feel in control, the higher your overall stress levels will be.[345; 354; 361; 362; 363; 364]

    By increasing perceived control, you're more likely to persist in your endeavors because of lower stress. The more unpredictable the stress is, however, the higher your stress levels become.

    If you're exposed to uncontrollable stress for long enough, you'll even develop learned helplessness. People who develop learned helplessness will no longer see a way out of their stress.

    An important strategy to increase your perception of control, and avoid learned helplessness, is to learn to control all you can control and to avoid wanting to control things you cannot control.

    Controlling everything you can indeed control is a technique already practiced by the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers. According to the Stoics, only our own actions are controllable, while actions of others and outside circumstances are not.

    I'm quoting the Stoic philosopher Epictetus' Enchiridion here:

    "Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions."

    So according to Epictetus, not even your health (body) and reputation are within your own control. Your actions in the moment, however, are, which can affect your body. You thus have to focus on your actions instead of the outcome (health) to improve your perception of control.

    I actually use this control technique a lot when writing these long blog posts. For example, I cannot control how people respond to my blog posts, or control how many people visit my website. What I do have control over, is how many words I write per day, or even better: how many hours I work at my maximum brain capacity.

    So it's always the number of full-brain-capacity hours I set as a guideline and which I try to beat...

    What are other strategies to improve your perceptions of control when you get stressed?

    First, think about a similar situation in the past - how did you successfully deal with that stressor back them? 

    Secondly, focus on the resources that you have, instead of thinking about everything you don't have. Focusing on your resources will improve your inventiveness and creativity in dealing with stress. 

    Thirdly, imagine the worst-case scenario. Can you live with that outcome? If so, just allowing yourself to imagine failure gives you the freedom to fail - which paradoxically, helps you succeed. You'll let go of negative thoughts and ruminations, and take action.

  • Getting used to successfully dealing with stressors.[384; 385; 386; 387; 388]

    Remember the hippocampus we've talked about before? That hippocampus remembers when you've successfully dealt with a certain situation, such as presentations.

    The hippocampus subsequently presents those successes to your prefrontal cortex, which gives you confidence to deal with similar situations. 

    Over time, successfully dealing with stress - and even intentionally subjecting yourself to psychological stress - can increase your resilience, which helps you deal with future stressors. 

    Do what you fear. Run towards fear. Your hippocampus learns. Even psychological stress is thus hormetic in a sense...

  • Having compassion for yourself.[394; 396; 397; 398; 399; 400]

    Yes, really.

    This might sound strange, but being less harsh on yourself can decrease feelings of stress. Having a compassionate attitude to yourself will help you make better choices, that support your health in the long-term.

    Self-compassion increases your perception of control and your well-being. Both control and well-being directly counter psychological stress.

    If you're under stress, you're very prone to be hard on yourself, which triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response. That response is actually oppositional to self-compassion. Self-compassion thus undercuts the acute stress response.

    What makes self-compassion so great is that it isn't circumstantial. When you're self-compassionate, you're deserving of love whether you're having a good or bad spousal relationship, whether you're doing well or not so well at your job, and whether your finances are great or poor.

    If you're self-compassionate, you cannot be hard or excessively critical towards yourself...

  • Actually being prepared. 

    I hope this tip does not come as a surprise: actually doing the work before an important deadline will make you feel much better and less stressed.

    The less prepared you are, the higher your perceptions of stress. Why? Your amygdala is (correctly) sending out the signal that things might turn south in cases of very little preparation.

  • Practice gratitude - or even better: happiness.[406; 407; 408]

    Celebrate all the small moments in life, and envision these small victories becoming part of your new happy self.

    Or write in a gratefulness journal. 

    There are indications though, that the gratitude should not stem from an "indebtedness" gratitude, but instead a happiness with what you have. Thinking of gratitude as an indebtedness may trigger feelings of shame or guilt, because  you might think that you are not really deserving of positivity in life. 

  • Your perception of stress alone can alter whether stress destroys your health, or not.[405]

    In other words, the more you think stress is detrimental to your health, the more stress actually is detrimental to your health.

    Of course, it's never great to have very high stress levels for several years. But if you can have high stress levels while also believing that stress does not affect your health, the downsides are much lower.

    Having strong perseverance, moreover, also helps you overcome chronic stress. If you finish what you started, find meaning in your goals (even though there might be suffering), and see that your stress levels exist for a good purpose, you'll be better off in the long run.

  • Get into a flow state.[423; 424]

    During a flow state, you fully immerse yourself in a given activity. If you get into a flow state after having an acute stress response, you can divert your mind from the stress response and lower its negative effects.

    During flow state, you also prevent new stress responses from emerging. I can attest to that effect - if I'm really in a flow state by writing these blog posts, stressful thoughts never entertain my thoughts.

  • Lastly, realize that you need to let stress go for greater cognitive flexibility.[401; 402; 403; 404]

    Stress makes you blind to creative options and solutions that are available to you. Decreasing stress expands your horizons, and makes you see new opportunities.

    With too much stress, you'll create tunnel vision toward what you merely assume are good solutions. You'll also close off from the outside world - and even friends and family, in the hope of working more efficiently towards the project that's been stressing you.

    It does seem that the cognitive flexibility of men is hit harder than that of women. Unpredictable stress also causes bigger declines in cognitive flexibility than "regular" stress.

    Try to stay creative, and avoid closing yourself or your world off, which perpetuates stress. Don't succumb to the illusory type of thinking that stress puts you in, such as telling you that staying home for 2 weeks will help you recover.

 

There you go: many additional techniques you can use for stress management. 

My job of relieving you of stress is not fully finished though.

There's an exception to this guide, which is stress relief once you've had traumas. In that case, the stress system in your body works differently. I at least need to say a thing or two about trauma.

 

Stress Relief From (Psychological) Trauma

Some people experience chronic stress that's not resolved by any tip I've given in this guide. 

Childhood traumas would be an example of a chronic stress response that this guide does not help you with. PTSD is another one.[459; 460; 461; 462] 

In people with childhood trauma and/or PTSD, the threshold for triggering stress responses, and the means through which these stress responses are triggered, are fundamentally altered.

A continuation of that stress response throughout life, however, will sabotage any efforts you undertake to change your life for the better.

Just imagine a stress reaction being triggered in you, because someone smiles at you, or because a car passes by - which is exactly what happens with Daniel:

 

Daniel is 42 years old. He's got a construction job, but he know he can do much better in life. 

Building automobiles and motor vehicles from scratch are some of his favorite hobbies. Even though he's working on these hobbies for 10 years now - and built some amazing vehicles - Daniel has chronic anxiety which prevents him from actually going to car shows and showing off his "beauties".

Daniel's also an alcoholic, but many people don't know that. There's a very specific reason for Daniel's chronic anxiety and alcoholism though: he got beaten by his father when he was a kid.

Since that time, Daniel's got an enlarged and altered amygdala, that warns him of other people whenever someone smiles towards him. His dad actually smiled when he tried to make up with Daniel, almost every time after the physical abuse.

The end-result is that Steve's always anxious, which prevents him from really connecting to people and moving on with life.

 

As you can hopefully observe by now, Daniel's brain is hijacked, with an overactive amygdala. His alcoholism further degrades the activity to which his prefrontal cortex can take charge of his brain.

Every time a person smiles at Daniel, his brain releases cortisol and adrenaline, to deal with the situation. That changed stress reaction - which would not happen in other people who are chronically stressed - is just one characteristic of trauma.

Daniel's highly creative though, and when he's not with people and working on his cars and motorcycles, he's shining.

If he could just change his brain to no longer experience chronic stress, and to react differently to human faces, he could quit his construction job and sell his vehicles at a premium price. Right now, however, his anxiety prevents him from going to car shows.

Daniel thus needs to deal with his trauma first, before he can move on in life.

Of course, my treatment of these traumatic events is oversimplified.

I did want to stipulate the problem of trauma to indicate that you can find help for these instances.

I do know that there are therapies that are proven to be effective, such as "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing" (EMDR).[464] Psychotherapy is another option.[473]

The bottom line is this: if you're traumatized, please get adequate help, and do not rely on my guide for dealing with your stress.

You can get better, but I'm not able to help you, sadly enough. 

Do you want even more tips to kill stress, besides the ones I already supply in this article?

 

Finishing Thoughts: Conquer Stress To Conquer Life

That's it: the end of my 3-part series on chronic stress!

I hope I've supplied you with a guide on stress that takes both biological as well as psychological stress into account.  

Let me go into a philosophical perspective for a while:

A remaining interesting question would be to what extent psychological stressors are actually biological stressors. My answer to that question is that I assume that the former can be reduced to the latter, although, for convenience sake, I still talk about these two categories because that terminology lies closer to the intuitive understanding of many people.

I thus hoped to provide a unified account of stress in this guide, that explains how both biological as well as psychological stress function.

And thereby ends the philosophical discussion...

With this guide, you should have a more systematic method of tackling (chronic) stress in your life.

For a complete plan to tackle stress, don't just rely on this guide though. Read my articles about improving sleep quality, sunlight, how to properly use cold exposure, and strategies to increase happiness as well.

Please also practice mindfulness to properly deal with any acute stressor. By short-circuiting any fight, flight or freeze response immediately, you'll directly counter the buildup of chronic stress over time.

To counter stress, also make sure you follow a good diet, and don't add any unnecessary stressors in your environment (which have been laid out in section six of this guide). Only add "hormetic stress" - such as cold therapy, exercise, or saunas - once you're no longer in poor health.

Remember that hormetic stress is defined as a temporary stressor for which your body compensates by getting stronger.

Oh yeah:

One last suggestion:

Your body loves hormetic stress - and even needs hormetic stress - to move towards optimal health.

Seeking out biological stress is built into your human system. Psychological stress, however, should be eliminated as much as possible.

The upside is that you can do it. Many people have learned to overcome their stress. You can do so too. 

Start your stress-reduction plan today. And remember: conquering stress is a marathon, not a spring - but a very worthwhile marathon to run. If you finish that marathon, you'll have achieved a big accomplishment.

Do it. Overcome stress today. You're worth it...

 

 

This is a post by Bart Wolbers. Bart finished degrees in Physical Therapy (B), Philosophy (BA and MA), Philosophy of Science and Technology (MS - Cum Laude), and Clinical Health Science (MS), and is currently a health consultant at Alexfergus.com. 

 

Found This Interesting? Then You Might Like: 

 

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