GOOD STRESS, BAD STRESS.
Here’s how to find your stress sweet spot.
Stresses whether emotional, environmental, physical, spiritual, social, nutritional and intellectual. All can influence our lives in both a positive and negative way.
What is stress:
Stress is our body’s way of responding to any kind of demand or threat. When we feel threatened, our nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, which rouse the body for emergency action. This can be a good thing.
There are two categories of stress “good” and “bad”. The same exact stressors — job pressure, kids, money, and, yes, an intense exercise and eating regimen or even the wrong social conditioning or living environment — can energize and inspire us or sap our will and our mojo.
Reaching our potential is about finding our stress sweet spot and using it to propel us to our goals.
It’s a well-known fact: Being stressed out can make it really hard to reach our health, fitness and life goals.
But did you know: Not having enough stress can slow our progress too?
See, stress isn’t a “thing” that happens to us. Stress is our response to the challenges we face every day. Part of this response is learnt and conditioned from childhood and life lessons. Which we all have the ability and choice to re-learn, change, undo the conditioning and evolve from, to a space in which we can better manage this thing called stress.
These stressors — like pressure at our job, raising kids, managing money, piles of dirty laundry, and, yes, nutrition and exercise — can make us either act and do things in “boss mode” or getting shit done like Superwoman, or crumble and sink into our couch… FML.
The key is to find our “stress sweet spot” or learn to understand and manage stresses in our life — just enough stress, but not too much — so we can reach our potential without crashing and burning.
Good stress:
- is short-lived
- is infrequent
- is over quickly (in a matter of minutes or hours)
- can be part of a positive life experience
- inspires us to action
- helps build us up — it leaves us better than you were before.
But let’s say you ride that roller coaster constantly, or lift weights 4 hours a day, every day. Now it doesn’t seem so fun, does it?
This is bad stress, or distress.
Bad stress:
- lasts a long time
- is chronic
- is ongoing
- is negative, depressing, and demoralizing
- de-motivates and paralyzes us
- breaks us down — it leaves us worse off than we were before.
One key feature that distinguishes good from bad stress is how well the stressor matches our ability to recover from it.
This is massive topic and is always the first thing i explore and then address, when working with my wellness-coaching clients.
REACHING OUR POTENTIAL WITHOUT CRASHING AND BURNING.
For inspiration and energy:
- Set effective goals
- Start with one action each day.
- Track your progress.
- Spend time with a coach or mentor.
For rest and recovery:
- Practice parasympathetic activities.
-Walking
-Yoga
-Enjoying nature
-Deep breathing
-Low-key music
-Having sex
-Snuggling with pets
- Meditation.
- Get outside.
- Balance your exercise routine.
- Practice self-compassion.
Lastly “Stress” is a label we choose to put on things and situations. Because of this, when working with my clients I help them pull apart the stress factors in their lives. Then we work on ways to better management, reduce or even re-frame the stresses from a different perspective. This all plays a key role in the individual, their overall health and mindset. Which then leads to determining their quality of life, abundance and ultimately what reality they create.
Feel free to contact me: info@universalhumanenergy.com for any help or guidance around managing stress.
Content by Mark Haynes, Krista Scott-Dixon and Brian St. Pierre.
Article written by Mark Haynes, Genetic Wellness Coach from Universal Human Energy. www.universalhumanenergy.com