BODY, MIND, and BALANCE
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We are pleased to launch the 4th issue of the Body, Mind, and Balance Bulletin. We’ll bring you new issues of the newsletter at the Body, Mind, and Balance website four times each year, to coincide with the first day of each new season. As always, this newsletter will feature topics related to the integration of physical health and mental health toward the goal of living a balanced life. Though the newsletter will change quarterly, you will be able to access archived issues. Do not forget to check back to the newsletter more than once during each quarter as new features may be added from time to time. For those of you who have been following our journey, thanks for staying with us. And for those who are new to us, welcome, and we hope you’ll keep visiting. Contents -Cheers from Valerie I hope that each of you is anticipating the upcoming warmer weather and longer daylight hours. I personally enjoy this time of the year very much as there seems to be an increase of energy, optimism, and hope. One way to make this time of the year even better is finding ways to enhance one’s ability to cope more effectively with stress. Dealing with stress more effectively can certainly enhance the quality of our own lives as well as those around us. Below are some suggestions which are easy to incorporate and cost very little to do. There are also archived radio show topics and current video clips which can assist you in dealing with stress more effectively in the radio and video sections of bodymindandbalance.com. Stress is one of the most popular topics in psychology. Everyone has at least a minimal amount of stress. For many, stress can be very overbearing at times, and in extreme circumstances, even fatal! There have been several approaches that have been utilized in dealing (or not dealing) with stress. One is the passive approach. This approach is basically not taking an active role in dealing with stress until it becomes so taxing, that one is forced to deal with it. Think of what happens if one were to go without sleep for two days while working a ten hour shift and caring for your three children. In this situation, one’s immune system breaks down and is more prone to physical illness, cognitive abilities are severely diminished, and the ability to deal with normal daily stressors proves to be very challenging. A second approach, which is backed by a wide body of research in the field of psychology, is the active approach. This approach states that by the individual taking an active role with their stress, their chances of diminishing it increases, and therefore, the individual is more healthy both physically and psychologically. Contrast this view with the passive approach with the following example. Think of someone having a stack of ten pound weights placed on top of them. In the passive approach, the weights would be piled up until the stress of the weight was actually causing physical pain to the individual. Maybe twenty, ten pound weights, or two hundred pounds. Most people would have a difficult time lifting two hundred pounds off of them all at once. However, in the active role, the person would lift ten pounds off each time it is being placed upon them, so that there would never be more than ten pounds of weight to lift. Most, if not all, people could lift ten pounds. We can either deal with stress by allowing it to accumulate over time and then trying to handle it all at once, or we can handle it a little bit at a time. There are three suggestions for actively coping with stress that have been reported numerous times in the field of health psychology. By employing these strategies in one’s life, the amount of stress should be diminished and one’s ability to cope with them should increase. The first one is an adequate amount of sleep on a daily basis. While this suggestion sounds very simple, the importance of it cannot be overemphasized! By getting an adequate amount of sleep on a consistent basis, one’s ability to cope with stress is heightened. Just think of what it is like when you have gone a few nights with an average of four hours of sleep. The most mundane tasks can seem completely overwhelming. Most people need an average of seven to eight hours of sleep on a daily basis. The second suggestion is maintaining a healthy nutrition plan on a consistent basis. Sure, a cookie once in a while might be a nice treat, but it should not be one of your four major food groups that you partake in on a regular basis! Additionally, eating frequent meals throughout the day instead of a couple of large meals also increases your available energy because your metabolism functions at a higher rate. This, in turn, allows one to handle more stress effectively by having more available energy. The third suggestion is to develop an exercise program. Similar to ingesting substances (both legal and illegal), an endorphin high is often produced. This feeling has been associated with diminishing physical pain and increasing one’s cognitive abilities. Furthermore, it cost very little to do, one’s appearance is improved, a feeling of empowerment is experienced, and the muscles (including the heart) grow stronger which allows one to handle stress with less of an effort. The good news with exercising is that even relatively short sessions can reduce and relieve stress. For example, a daily twenty minute brisk walk should allow one to feel less stressed, while also improving one’s physical health! The beauty of the above suggestions for actively dealing with stress is that for many of us, they are well within our control to choose to implement them. Furthermore, they are fairly easy and inexpensive to do on a regular basis. Sleep is free, a sound nutrition plan might take some planning and persistence but is certainly attainable, and walking twenty minutes a day is a realistic goal for most of us and cost nothing. I wish you the best of luck and success in your quest to decrease your stress levels and to enhance the quality of your life! Cheers from Valerie Let me start by saying I have things to fear all the time. I don’t like to fly on planes, and usually the week before I take a plane trip anywhere, I have anxiety-filled dreams at night. But I like to visit other places, so I push myself to make my plans to fly and go ahead anyway. When I go for a bicycle ride, there is the possibility that I’ll fall off the bike and hurt myself. In fact that’s happened once or twice, and the road isn’t very forgiving, let me tell you! But road rash heals, fortunately, and the falls I took have taught me to use more caution when riding with a group. In my work life there are fears also. I work for myself, and I’m in a service business, so while I’m serving my current clients, I need to also be thinking about ways to cultivate new business. And sometimes even when client relationships seem to be working positively, they may decide they don’t want to work with me and take their business elsewhere, so there is always the risk that clients will leave. And these are just a few of the many fears in my daily life that could become emotionally overwhelming if I allow myself to go there. From the moment we’re born, life can be a dangerous place, and there are things to fear around every corner. We can plan for our preferred life outcomes, but that doesn’t stop bad things from happening to us, and many times there are no warnings about those bad things - they happen anyway, don’t they? As I see it we have two choices when it comes to fear. One is to listen to phrases such as “what if” and “suppose something should” and “that’s too scary” and take them to heart as a way of living life. Or we can admit that life brings scary things to us, and that they are unavoidable. With this information known, we can own our fears around whatever those scary things might be for each of us, and we can manage the anxiety brought on by the fears without becoming emotionally paralyzed. Myself, I’m all for striving for choice number two whenever possible. I am reminded of a recent conversation with an acquaintance, during which we talked of several different topics, all having to do with leisure activities. No matter which leisure activity we discussed, this person started almost every sentence with “I should really look into doing that.” However, no matter what the activity discussed, by the end of the discussion, the person had decided not to pursue it, because in each scenario there was a downside possibility/risk that might come from participation in the activity. In another recent conversation with another acquaintance, this person shared with me about an upcoming move to Hawaii, and that it came about very suddenly. The opportunity presented itself and this person went with it. During our brief talk, this acquaintance said to me that life comes at us fast, and we can choose to meet it and go with it. Quite a contrast between the two conversations, isn’t there? In my life, I find I’m stimulated by others who find life as exciting an adventure as I do. When I talk to someone like that, I’m feeling nourished somehow - to have my views mirrored by someone else is nurturing, reassuring, empowering, inspiring, validating, all at the same time. When I spend a few moments in conversation with a person for whom fear is the underlying message, I feel drained, depleted and dejected. Maybe that’s why I try very hard to limit my contact with people from the second group. Fear is something hard wired within us, and it’s also learned as we take cues from the people who raise us and the people towards whom we gravitate as we grow and go out into the wider world. However, far outstripping our learned attitudes about fear, and aside from factoring in our personality styles, we need to remember what was stated above. Bad things come to us, scary things are all around us all the time, life can be a dangerous place at any given moment. But we’re here, we’re alive on the planet. So what choice do we have but to meet the scary things as they come, deal with them in order to keep going on, knowing we can learn something from every experience we encounter, even the ones that cause us fear? Years ago, a client said a phrase to me that I use often: “The only way out is through.” I add to that: “The only direction is forward.” Another of my favorites is the following: “Dance as though nobody is watching, work as though you don’t need the money, love as though you’ve never been hurt, leap and the net will appear.” One last one: “Our fears are the price we pay for the things we win.” For me, these are powerful words I try to live by, because they are all about hope and positive energy and belief in ourselves. Here’s a very simple
first step toward facing forward as opposed to fear-filled. Change the “Yes,
but......” and “I can’t” and It won’t work because...” phrases to “I can,” or
“I choose,” or “I will.” Think about the things you fear. Are they getting in
the way for you in terms of pursuing a goal, a passion, a lifestyle choice, a
dream, a plan? If the answer is yes, then I send hopeful thoughts to you for
finding ways around those fears so that your journey forward can continue with
better ease, more joy, greater rewards.
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Created: 12/24/05 |
