14 effective ways to protect yourself against chronic stress

14 Effective Ways to Protect Yourself Against

Chronic Stress

2 www.rockwellnutrition.com

Stress is a good thing.I know that sounds ridiculous, but consider the followingA gazelle is feeding. It sees a hungry lion. Automatically its pupils dilate. The gazelle is breathing faster and its heart is pumping in overdrive. Thanks to a sudden burst of energy, the gazelle is able to run away from the lion and into safety.

This phenomenon is called the stress response (aka the flight-or-fight response). All animals, including humans, re-spond this way when faced with imminent danger (stress-ors). And without it we would never have made it this far as a species.[i]

So if our bodys stress response is such as life-saver, why is it that we always hear stress can lead to chronic disease, weight gain, and worse?

Glad you asked.

You see, our bodies cannot distinguish between life-threat-ening stressors (a hungry lion, for example) and symbolic stressors which are non-life threatening and include being late for work, speaking in public, worrying about making mortgage payments, and more. Your body reacts to these stressors the same way it responds to being chased by a lion.

Feeling like you are being chased by a hungry lion day af-ter day, week after week, month after month throughout the year is not a healthy thing. Yet thats the situation the vast majority of us find ourselves in. We suffer from chron-ic stress. And this type of continued, excessive stress can

wreck your body.

The bad news is that stress is an inescapable feature of our modern life. Thankfully, there are ways that you can pro-tect yourself against it. And today Im going to give you 14 techniques that will help you relax and achieve a level of peace you probably thought impossible.

But first, lets see how stress damages the body.

7 Ways Chronic Stress Can Wreck Your Life

Stress affects both the body and the mind. Lets look at some of the ways stress can affect your daily life.

1. Stress Can Ruin Your Sleep

When stressed, you either get too little or too much sleep. Aside from messing up the quantity of sleep, stress can also


affect the quality of sleep. If youre too stressed, your risk for insomnia is increased by 19 percent. And it can turn into a vicious cycle. You cant sleep because youre stressed and youll get even more stressed because youre not get-ting enough sleep.[ii]

2. Wreck Your Emotions

Stress can suck the humor out of you. Whats hysterical to others will seem plain and boring. You may become irrita-ble, jumpy, easily frustrated, overwhelmed, and jaded.[iii]

3. Spoil Your Concentration

Stress heightens your senses and makes you concentrate

more initially. THEN, these initial effects wear off. Sud-denly, youre no longer able to concentrate.[iv]

4. Make You Lose or Gain Weight

Stress can cause unintentional weight loss[v] or weight gain[vi]. It depends on how an individual reacts to stress. Some may lose their appetite. Others will comfort them-selves by eating more.

5. Weaken Your Immune System

Stress weakens the immune system.[vii] According to the American Psychological Association: For stress of any significant duration from a few days to a few months or years, as happens in real life all aspects of immunity went downhill. Thus long-term or chronic stress, through too much wear and tear, can ravage the immune system.

6. Diminish Your Willpower

According to author Kelly McGonigal, PhD, The biology of stress and the biology of willpower are simply incompat-ible. So any time were under chronic stress its harder to find our willpower. The fight-or-flight response floods the body with energy to act instinctively and steals it from the areas of the brain needed for wise decision-making. Stress also encourages you to focus on immediate, short-term goals and outcomes, but self-control requires keeping the big picture in mind.[viii]

7. Contribute to Your Risk of Life-Threatening and Debilitating Diseases

Prolonged stress can make any disease you can imagine


even worse. Here are the 10 most significant of them:

Heart diseases Asthma Obesity Diabetes Headaches Depression and anxiety Gastrointestinal problems Alzheimers disease Accelerated ageing Premature death[ix]

Now, dont get too stressed about getting stressed. The key to victory is to know the enemy. Lets find out more about stress.

What Exactly is Stress?

Heres a head scratcher, stress is a highly subjective term that defies definition.

In 1936, Hans Selye first used the term stress. He observed through several animal tests that lab animals respond sim-ilarly to unpleasant stimulus such as loud noises or blaring light. Selye was the first to demonstrate that persistent stress can lead to disease.[x]

Its important to distinguish between stressors (things that cause us stress) and our stress response (how we react to these stressors).

The 10 Most Stressful Jobs of 2015

CareerCast rated the top 10 most stressful jobs of 2015.

Rank Job Stress Rating

1 Firefighter 71.592 Enlisted Military Per-

sonnel70.78

3 Military General 63.11

4 Airline Pilot 60.46

5 Police Officer 50.826 Actor 50.33

7 Broadcaster 50.30

8 Event Coordinator 49.93

9 Photojournalist 49.22

10 Newspaper Reporter 48.76

According to Stress.org:

Selye struggled unsuccessfully all his life to find a satis-factory definition of stress. In attempting to extrapolate his animal studies to humans so that people would under-stand what he meant, he redefined stress as The rate of wear and tear on the body. This is actually a pretty good description of biological aging so it is not surprising that increased stress can accelerate many aspects of the aging process. In his later years, when asked to define stress, he told reporters, Everyone knows what stress is, but nobody really knows.

A more useful definition of stress would then be the whole interaction between stressors and stress response.

Lets now take a look at the causes of stress and how you can prepare yourself to minimize the impact of these stressors.


7 Causes of Stress

Mike Bundrant listed 7 things that make us stressed[xi]. Understanding these stressors can help us deal with them better.

1. That Critical Voice Inside Your Head Theres a voice inside your head that constantly reminds you that what youre doing may be wrong. Sigmund Freud called this the super-ego. We cant silence this voice but we can learn to live with it.

2. Toxic Relationships A study involving 10,000 subjects with each one followed for an average of 12.2 years dis-

covered that those who are in negative relationships were more likely to develop heart disease compared to those who are in non-negative relationships.[xii]

3. Self-Sabotage This is different from #1. In self-sabo-tage, you know whats good for you but you do the ex-act opposite. You rationalize and make-up excuses that you know all the while arent true. And you do this again and again.[xiii]

4. Inner Conflict Psychologists call it cognitive disso-nance. Its why you cant decide. You want one thing and you want the opposite too. So you pass off making the decision and you feel helpless. Indecisiveness can con-sume a good part of your emotional energy which could have been spent more productively.[xiv]

5. Inner Passivity Inside every one of us is a battle be-tween inner aggression (the super-ego) and inner pas-sivity (self-doubt and subordinate ego). It blocks cre-ativity, purpose, confidence, and other functions of our intelligence.[xv]

6. Autopilot Thinking Youve probably experienced driving home and not have any memory of how you got there. It happens to most of us. Scientists attribute this to what they call Default Mode Network (DMN)[xvi]. The brain, it turns out, is on standby mode when were resting. Theres continuous background chatter. This standby mode consumes 20 times more energy com-pared to when were actually engaged in activities.

7. Physical Imbalance When youre stressed, you tend to neglect eating right and engaging in healthy activi-ties. And when you dont eat healthy, you deprive the brain of the nutrients it needs to function properly and you easily get stressed resulting in a vicious cycle.

The good news is that there are things you can do to fight back stress and to protect yourself against it. Lets dive


in and find out about these powerful tools for managing stress.

14 Natural Ways to Manage Stress

Its called stress management because its simply impossi-ble to totally eliminate stress from our lives. And thats not too bad. In fact a little stress can be good for you. Too much stress is what we want to avoid. [xvii]

Lets talk about how you can manage stress so you dont have to deal with too much of it.

#1 Be Assertive

Being assertive is a style of communication. Its some-where in the middle of being passive and being aggressive. It means being able to effectively express yourself while re-specting others point of view.[xviii]

In communication, delivery is as important as the message. If you come off as too aggressive or too passive, you risk sending the wrong message.

The Passive Mode of Communication

When youre passive, your tendency is to avoid conflict. So you just say yes all the time. This sends the impression that your own feelings and ideas arent important. In essence, youre giving other people permission to ignore your wants and needs. Always saying yes can lead to internal conflict and more stress.

The Aggressive Mode of Communication

The opposite, being aggressive, isnt very healthy either. It may appear that being aggressive is the ticket to getting what you want but it comes at a steep price. Aggressive-ness undermines trust and respect and it often backfires.

The Passive-Aggressive

Another communication style you want to avoid is being passive-aggressive. When you complain behind others backs instead of confronting the issue directly, youre be-ing passive-aggressive. Just like aggression, passive-ag-gressive behavior often leads to lost trust and respect.

The best way to communicate if you want to manage stress better is to become assertive. Mayo Clinic has the following tips to help you develop an assertive communication style:


Figure out your style. You can only make changes once youve figured out what your current style is.

Start using I statements. Instead of saying youre wrong say I disagree.

Learn to say no. You dont always have to explain why you decline. But if you decide to explain your reason, keep it brief. Simply say, No, I cant do that now.

Practice what you want to say. This is particularly help-ful if you find it hard to articulate your thoughts. Prac-tice with someone role-playing as the person you want to talk to.

Project an assertive body language. Look confident even if you arent. Assertive body language includes:

1. Making regular eye contact.2. Maintaining a neutral or positive facial expression.3. Avoiding dramatic gestures.

#2 LearntoDealwithConflict

Conflicts naturally arise and developing your conflict reso-lution skills is a must to manage stress better.Conflict itself often isnt the problem. Its how we handle it.

To handle conflicts more skillfully, stress management ex-pert Elizabeth Scott, MS recommends the following:[xix]

Focus dont bring up past conflicts however related they may seem. Digging into the past can only muddle the current issue. Youre looking for a solution, not try-ing to prove whos wrong or whos right.

Truly listen effective listening means not interrupting or getting defensive. Hear the other person out and ac-knowledge what they said by repeating it back to them in your own words. When you truly listen, you may be surprised that they, in turn, are more willing to listen to your side of the story.

Put yourself in the other persons shoes No it wont be easy. And it seems counter-intuitive. But the more you understand the other party, the easier it will be for you to explain your side. When you empathize, it would be easier for them to be open to what you have to say.

Dont get defensive with criticism criticism is very difficult to hear. Our natural instinct is to dismiss them as exaggerated and unfounded. Try to respond with em-pathy to their criticism. Theres possibly a grain of truth to what theyre saying and that can be valuable infor-mation for you.

Own up personal responsibility is not a weakness but a great strength. Admit your faults. Its often the case that both parties involved have a share in the conflict. By taking personal responsibility, you are setting a good example. Its a step closer to resolving the conflict.

Compromise again, youre not trying to win. Youre looking for a solution that can make everybody happy.


Take a break emotions can often get in the way. If this happens, take a break and cool off for a while before re-suming talks.

See it through You take a break but then you come back and continue when youre ready. Dont give up.

Use I statements assertiveness plays an important role in conflict resolution. I statements sound less ac-cusatory and dont prod the other person to be defen-sive. I feel stressed when this happens is easier to take than You stress me out.

#3 Learn to Communicate Effectively

Trying to put your thoughts into words can be doubly dif-ficult when youre under stress. And when you grasp for words, your stress is multiplied.

Jonathan Dugger from Rich Dad Education[xx] has the fol-lowing tips about dealing with stress while communicating:

Acknowledge that you are stressed. Calm down before proceeding. Use your senses. Think about a soothing experience. Use humor to diffuse the situation. Learn to compromise. Agree to disagree.

#4 Learn to Manage Your Time

We all have a finite amount of time. But theres so much we want to do. Time is never enough. Like anything worth-while in life, learning to effectively manage time is not easy. The rewards, however, are truly worth it.

Psychologist Jeffrey Janata, PhD, recommends monitoring

how we spend our time for a few weeks. We have to figure out if we have a time management problem or if theres just too much load than we can realistically bear.[xxi]

Donna M. White, LMHC, CACP has these 6 tips to manage your time better.[xxii]

Use a checklist. Theyre super simple and effective. Set deadlines. (And meet them!) Quit multi-tasking. Youll be more productive when

you focus on one task at a time. Delegate. You may be very good at what you do but you

cant do everything yourself. Make the best of downtime. You dont have to stress

about maximizing every minute of your life. But you can


use time waiting, for a doctors appointment, for exam-ple, to create, say, grocery lists.

Reward yourself. Rewarding your productive behavior reinforces it.

#5 Build Your Social Support Network

Close friends and family who you know will always be there when you need them can go a long way to helping you man-age stress. Some social support networks have regular meetings and a formal leader. But its not necessary.

The idea is to develop relationships that you nourish during times when youre not stressed. A chat with your neighbor, a coffee break shared with a friend at work, a phone call

to a loved one. All these help develop lasting relationships that can help you during bouts of stress.[xxiii]Aside from helping you against stress, a social support net-work has been shown to help people live longer.

#6 Focus on the Positive

Yeah, I know. Glass half-empty, glass half-full. Youve heard it all before. But theres a reason youre always hearing this. Its because it works. Were not really sure yet why it works but it does.

While we dont know the why, positive thinkings effects have been observed by researchers and they include:

A longer life Lower rates of depression and distress Better resistance to colds General well-being (physically and psychologically) Reduced heart disease risk Resilience to stress Thinking positively doesnt mean ignoring the bad

things that inevitably happen in life. Mayo Clinic[xxiv] has a short and useful guide on using positive thinking to defend against stress.

#7 Be Thankful

Simply being grateful you know that thing we do once a year during Thanksgiving can make you healthier if you practice it throughout the year. Psychology professor Rob-ert Emmons points out that thankful people are more likely to take care of their health. Being thankful is a powerful an-tidote against stress and its been shown to boost the im-mune system.[xxv] m


To develop being thankful, Emmons suggests:

Keeping a gratitude journal. List all the things you are thankful for at least once a week.

List the benefits in your life that you often take for granted.

Be kind when you talk to yourself. Reframe a situation. Look at it at a different angle and

highlight the positive.

#8 Stop and Smell the Roses

Life would be infinitely less stressful if we just take the time to slow down. Toni Bernhard JD has 4 tips for slowing down to reduce stress.[xxvi]

Double the time you allot on a task. For example, if you estimate you can finish a report in 3 hours, allot 6 hours to the task. You can avoid burn-out and actually enjoy accomplishing the task by taking it slow.

Consciously perform tasks in slow motion. Slowing down by 25% can have tremendous helpful benefits.

Stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. This counteracts the flight-or-fight response that cause us stress. You can do this by:

1. Breathing through your stomach.2. Visualizing a relaxing scene.3. Lightly running two fingers over your lips. (Bernhard

swears this works.) No multi-tasking. Multi-tasking can be a hard habit to

beat. If youre a hardcore multi-tasker, it may take some time to focus on just one task at time. But it can be done.

#9 Use Humor

Its no joke. Laughter is an excellent defense against stress.[xxvii]When you laugh, you take in more oxygen which stimulates the heart, lungs, and muscles. It also helps the brain release more endorphins the feel good hormone. Laughter can leave you feeling relaxed.

It also has long-term health benefits including an improved immune system, pain relief, increased personal satisfac-tion, and improved mood.

# 10 Develop Your Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is how you evaluate yourself. Stanley J. Gross, Ed.D. puts it this way:

Low self-esteem is a negative evaluation of oneself. This type of evaluation usually occurs when some circumstance we encounter in our life touches on our sensitivities. We personalize the incident and experience physical, emotion-al, and cognitive arousal. This is so alarming and confusing that we respond by acting in a self-defeating or self-de-structive manner. When that happens, our actions tend to be automatic and impulse-driven,we feel upset or emo-tionally blocked, our thinking narrows,our self-care dete-riorates, we lose our sense of self,and we focus on being in control and become self-absorbed.[xxviii]

And thats stressful.

The good news is that self-esteem can be raised. Stanley Gross has a few tips on raising our self-esteem.

#11 Learn to Cope with Your Fear and Anxiety


Stress and anxiety are intertwined. They overlap. The main difference between stress and anxiety is their cause. With stress, you are fully aware of whats making you stressed. With anxiety, we dont always know whats causing it.

Anxiety and stress are distinct feelings. Stress is about be-ing frustrated and being nervous. Its about tension (emo-tional or physical). Anxiety, on the other hand, is the feeling associated with fear, unease, and worrying.[xxix]

The University of Minnesota Center for Spirituality & Healing has the following tips to cope with fear and anxi-ety:[xxx]

Face your fear head-on. Avoiding fear makes fear more powerful.

Develop a sense of personal control. Focus on the things that you have power over.

Be positive. Rediscover a sense of purpose. Youre here for a rea-

son. Talk to family and friends. (Social support group, re-

member?) Take a hike. The combination of exercise and being

close to nature works wonders.

Avoiding fear makes fear more powerful.

#12 Mind Your Spiritual Health

You dont have to be religious to experience a sense of spirituality. A lot of people find spirituality in believing in a higher power, in observing religious practices, and in prayer and meditation. For others, spirituality is being one with nature, enjoying music and art, or by being part of a secular community.[xxxi]

Different strokes for different folks.

But the benefits are the same. The following are the bene-fits of maintaining your spiritual health according to Mayo Clinic:

A sense of purpose. Youll have a clearer sense of whats


important and thus spend less time on unimportant things.

Being connected to the world. When you have a pur-pose in this world, youll feel less lonely even when youre alone.

Release of control. You realize that there are a lot of things that are out of your control.

An extended support network. Being part of a group increases your social circle. You are no longer limited to just family and friends.

Better overall health. Those who are spiritual-minded tend to cope with stress better, heal from illnesses fast-er, and come out of addictions faster.

#13 Learn to Relax

Sitting in front of the TV isnt exactly an effective relaxation technique. Sorry.

The following are techniques that stimulate the relaxation response in our body to counteract the effects of stress.[xxxii]

Deep Breathing Meditation Its easy to learn and you can do it anywhere. Just try breathing from your stom-ach.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation is a two-step relax-ation technique. You focus on one part of your body, your right foot for example, and then tense the muscles and then relax them. You then move on to other parts of your body up to your head tensing and relaxing that part as you go.

Body Scan Meditation just like progressive muscle relaxation, you focus on specific parts of the body. But instead of tensing and relaxing each part, you simply

observe the sensations of each body part. Mindfulness for Stress Relief mindfulness is about

focusing on the present moment experience and has been proven to be very effective against stress.

Visualization Meditation its basically employing all your senses to imagine a scene in which you can let goof all the tension and anxiety.

Yoga or Tai Chi Massage sessions help too. And also, having a pet.

#14 Exercise

We all know that exercise is good for us. Its just that we dont have enough time to do it. Or we dont have the will-power. Or were too stressed.


Too stressed you say?

I have good news for you. All forms of exercise can go a long way in managing stress.[xxxiii] Heres how:Remember endorphin? The feel good hormone? Yep. Phys-ical activity makes you feel good.It helps you focus. Mayo Clinic calls exercise meditation in motion.Regular exercise improves your mood.Find a workout buddy, this helps you stay more enthused in getting and staying active!Conclusion

We live in a 24-hour society where stress is. If we want to flourish in this kind of society, we have to learn how to manage stress better.

References

[i] Fight-or-flight response (in humans), Wikipedia, Re-trieved February 16, 2015.

[ii] 5 Ways Stress Wrecks Your Sleep (And What To Do About It), Lindsay Holmes, The Huffington Post, Published September 17, 2014, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[iii] The Impact of Stress, Steve Bressert, Ph.D., Psych Cen-tral, Published 2006, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[iv] How Stress Affects Adult Students Concentration, Colorado Christian University College of Adult and Grad-uate Studies Blog, Published January 12, 2012, Retrieved

February 16, 2015.

[v] Weight loss unintentional, MedlinePlus, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[vi] Can Stress Cause Weight Gain?, Collette Bouchez, WebMD, Published May 13, 2005, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[vii] Stress Weakens the Immune System, American Psy-chological Association, Published February 23, 2006, Re-trieved February 16, 2015.

[viii] The Science of Willpower, Stanford Medicine, Pub-lished December 29, 2011, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[ix] 10 Health Problems Related to Stress that You Can Fix, R. Morgan Griffin, WebMD, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[x] What is Stress?, The American Institute of Stress, Re-trieved February 16, 2015.

[xi] The New List of Lifes Top Stressors, Mike Bundrant, Psych Central, Published 2013, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xii] The Hidden Health Hazards of Toxic Relationships, Sherrie Bourg Carter Psy.D., Psychology Today, Published August 7, 2011, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xiii] Beating Self-Sabotage: Recognizing and Overcoming It, Mind Tools, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xiv] Cognitive dissonance, Wikipedia, Retrieved February 16, 2015.


[xv] The Hidden Cause of Clinical Depression, Peter Mi-chaelson, WhyWeSuffer.com, Published December 12, 2011, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xvi] The Brains Dark Energy, Marcus E. Raichle, Scientific American, Published, March 2010, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xvii] Is a Little Stress Good for You?, Tom Scheve, How-StuffWorks, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xviii] Being Assertive: Reduce stress, communicate better, Mayo Clinic, Published May 15, 2014, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xix] How To Improve Your Relationships With Effective Communication Skills, Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com, Last Updated December 16, 2014, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xx] Effective Communication Skills: Managing Stress, Jon-athan Dugger, Rich Dad Education, Published September 5, 2013, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxi] How Does Time Management Help Reduce Stress, And What Are Some Tips To Manage Time Better?, Jeffrey Janata, Ph.D., ABC News, Published December 22, 2008, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxii] 6 Tips to Improve Your Time Management Skills, Don-na M. White, LMHC, CACP, Psych Central, Published 2013, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxiii] Social support: Tap this tool to beat stress, Mayo Clin-

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[xxiv] Positive thinking: Stop negative self-talk to reduce stress, Mayo Clinic, Published March 4, 2014, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxv] Boost Your Health With a Dose of Gratitude, Eliza-beth Huebeck, WebMD, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxvi] 4 Tips for Slowing Down to Reduce Stress, Toni Ber-nhard J.D., Psychology Today, Published September 13, 2011, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxvii] Stress relief from laughter? Its no joke, Mayo Clinic, Published July 23, 2013, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxviii] How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, Stanley J. Gross, Ed.D, Psych Central, Published 2006, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxix] The Difference Between Anxiety and Stress, Lind-say Holmes, The Huffington Post, Published February 25, 2014, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxx] How to Deal with Chronic Fear and Anxiety, Univer-sity of Minnesota Center for Spirituality and Healing, Re-trieved February 16, 2015.

[xxxi] Spirituality and stress relief: Make the connection, Mayo Clinic, Published July 23, 2013, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

[xxxii] Relaxation Techniques for Stress Relief, Lawrence Robinson, Robert Segal, M.A., Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., and Me-linda Smith, M.A., Helpguide.org, Retrieved February 16,


2015.

[xxxiii] Exercise and stress: Get moving to manage stress, Mayo Clinic, Published July 21, 2012, Retrieved February 16, 2015.

For more information, please visit Rockwell Nutritions blog at

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14 effective ways to protect yourself against chronic stress

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