Don't Stress! 6 Tips to Manage Anxiety and Stress in 2020
Finances, relationships, work, family, significant others, kids, health, overworked or under-engaged, internal or external...COVID19!! One thing we all share as humans is that we all experience challenges to our mental and physical well-being.
“Into every life some rain must fall.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Knowing that we all experience stress and that it is universal doesn’t necessarily make us feel any better about it. When it is us, we often feel uniquely targeted or alone in our experience. It may feel overwhelming, permanent, or insurmountable. Time will pass and we will get through it one way or the other.
So how can we empower ourselves to better deal with the inevitable stress of life?
I’ve learned loads about how stress affects the body and mind, both through working in stress physiology research, living with a chronic illness, in my personal life and working professionally as a clinician with people with serious health conditions. Below is a sample of some of the key techniques to help improve stress resilience and overall mental and physical well-being. Practiced regularly, they enable you to ride the inevitable turbulence of life instead of being knocked off your feet.
External support
Meditation and mindfulness practices
Move!
Combine them
Supplemental support
Address your chemistry
1. External support
“No man is an island.” -John Donne.
Social support is fundamental to both physical and mental health. And yet conversely, we live in a culture that emphasizes independence and holds on high the ideal of the self-made man. For some reason, we often see it as weak to seek or accept the wisdom and support of others. And yet, as prolific researcher Brene Brown (and here) has discovered, not only is social support integral to our mental health, but being emotionally open and vulnerable is actually a sign of strength and predicts a higher quality of life.
We need connection with and support from other humans for our health almost as much as we need food, water and shelter.
Humans need connection. To different degrees and in different flavors, for sure, but without it, both our physical and mental health suffer tremendously. And social networks give us vaster resources to get through challenging times, both physically but perhaps more importantly in modern lives, emotionally.
Invest the time and emotional energy to cultivate healthy reciprocal friendships. Over the long haul in life, it’s the connections with others that lead to a higher quality of life.
Also, be mindful of how you use social media, tv and videos. Are they helping you build healthy connections? Are they supporting your mental well being and goals by connecting you with like-minded, supportive people? Or are they distracting you, allowing you to numb out, fostering unhealthy focuses or even bringing you down mentally and emotionally? Use social media wisely to cultivate connections and expand your horizons, rather than distract, numb out or focus on superficial and negative things.
“How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live ’em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give ’em.” – Shel Silverstein
2. Meditation and mindfulness practices
Take your daily meditation pill.
Practicing meditation and mindfulness isn’t just for the realm of spiritual practice and personal growth. It is actually a potent prescription that can help rewire your body and mind for health and wellness and improve your ability to deal with stress.
Need more incentive? Meditation and mindfulness is the cheapest, technically easiest thing you can do (just sit there…) to decrease inflammation, improve your overall sense of well-being, improve your resilience to stress, moderate ADD/ADHD, treat anxiety and even slow down aging. If there was a pill that could do even some of this, it would be generating billions of dollars.
Also, remember that meditation is a practice. You’re not going to be “good” at it, perhaps ever. Lots of people aren’t ‘great’ runners, but they keep jogging 3 miles, 4 days a week without ever getting faster. It still improves their health and fitness, slows aging, and makes them feel better.
Much like physical exercise, the mental exercise of meditation and mindfulness strengthen your ability to stay calm and focused, whatever is going on.
So practice ‘strengthening your calm and focus muscles’ with regular meditation and mindfulness practices. You’ll create the patterns of connectivity in your brain and nervous system for calm and focus.
Need help getting started or sticking to it?
Check out these free meditation apps.
Put it on your calendar like a daily meeting you cannot skip.
Start small (3-5 minutes) and just form the habit before going for longer.
Enlist friends -make meditation dates, virtually or in person.
Find a local group, the experience of meditating with others can be a lot different than meditating alone and can help you into a different or even deeper experience of calm and focus.
3. Move!
Of course exercise is essential for physical health, but did you know it is also an essential part of mental and emotional health?
For most of human history, stress involved a physical danger which required physical action. In our modern era, stress is more often psychological -work, family, relationships, traffic, money, health. But our physical reaction still prepares us to mobilize, even while our modern lives have made us more and more sedentary. Our ‘threat alarm’ is going off, and we’re just supposed to sit still?
Follow your evolutionary programming and move! And it doesn’t even need to be a lot. 10-20 minutes of elevated heart rate activity can be enough to help process the physical affects of stress from the body, clear your mind, and fill you full of the chemicals that support happiness and confidence.
4. Combine them all
Here is a potent combo for stress: move, meditate and connect or journal.
Get your heart rate up for 15 minutes.
Meditate for 5-10 minutes.
Connect with a friend or journal for 5-10 minutes (or do both).
Do this ~30 minute routine, most days of the week to foster overall all, lifelong mental and emotional well-being and build your ability to cope with and conquer the inevitable stressors in your life.
5. Need more help?
There are numerous supplements that can provide what I call ‘scaffolding’ to your internal house during times when stress just overwhelms your ability to cope. These aren’t substitutes for the habits listed above, or for pharmaceuticals, counseling and professional help. But they can be useful, gentle and generally safe tools for temporary support during those days when things are just a bit too much. As always, these are general considerations and you should always work with a health care provider who is educated in the use of supplements and herbs to insure their safety and efficacy for you.
5-htp: A metabolite of serotonin, is relaxing, but not sedating; may help reduce stress and and insomnia
Dose: 100-300mg, 1-3x/day, as needed for stress, anxiety or insomnia related to this.
Cautions: If you are on SSRI antidepressants, overdose of serotonin supplements and medications can lead to serotonin syndrome. At higher doses, promotes bowel movements and can lead to bowel gurgling and looser and/or more frequent bowel movements
Other uses: PMS, constipation, focus, attention and focus and menopause
L-theanine: An amino acid involved in GABA production (see below), it promotes relaxation without sedation.
Dose: 100-200mg/day, 1-3x/day, as needed for stress, anxiety or insomnia related to this.
Cautions: none
Other uses: attention and focus
GABA Lozenges: GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter of the brain and is indicated for stress and anxiety. Can be used for anxiety and insomnia
Dose: 250-500 mg, 1-3x/day, as needed for stress, anxiety or insomnia related to this.
Caveat: GABA has a hard time crossing the blood-brain-barrier (BBB), so I recommend using a lozenge to get into your bloodstream more directly. High dose oral forms may create more peripheral nervous system sedation (your body), rather than central (your brain).
Other uses: Taken at bedtime, it may help promote HGH (human growth hormone), associated with muscle and athletic recovery and anti-aging.
Ashwagandha: Probably the most commonly known Ayurvedic herb in the western world, Ashwagandha has a host of benefits, including balancing the stress hormone cortisol. It can be used both for better energy as well as to calm anxiety and stress.
Dose: 250-500mg, 1-3x/day, as needed for stress, anxiety or insomnia related to this.
Cautions: rarely, it can cause an allergic reaction in those allergic to ragweed.
Other uses: energy, stamina and athletic performance.
6) Balance your chemistry
Not all stress is externally or mentally generated. When our hormones are off, or there is inflammation in our body, we experience what in stress research is called “sickness behavior.” We feel depressed, fatigued, our mood is more anxious, depressed or we are more easily irritable or emotional.
Also, when stress is too constant in our lives, our chemistry is just not able to bounce back. We will experience dysregulation of our hormones, nervous system and immune system. The first step is of course to remove ourselves from chronic stress (as much as possible), and the above techniques will support our recovery. But at this point, you will likely benefit from professional diagnostics and therapeutic protocols to bring balance and strength back to these systems of your body.
Contact us if you think you need help in these areas. You don’t have to suffer from fatigue, lack of stress tolerance, poor and unrefreshing sleep and other side effects from too much stress. We can get you back on your feet and feeling well again!
The Stress of Life.
Following these basic guidelines will go a long way to improve your overall quality of life and allow you to ride the waves of life’s challenges, rather than crashing full on into them.
Remember too that sometimes stress and life challenges can be signs pointing to where we need to do some personal reflection, growth and perhaps change. Cultivating our connections, practicing mindfulness and meditation and moving on a regular basis will help us learn and move through these times and come out better for having been challenged.
Finally, if these techniques are not enough to relieve stress, or if it is too chronic, seek professional help and guidance. Continuing to practice these habits along with professional therapy or psychiatric medications will greatly improve the efficacy of all.