Carrie Sink, CHHC

Stress. We all have it. We all try to deal with it. Today Health Coach Mary Tirrell is sharing her tips on stress management!

How do you feel in your every day?  Happy, relaxed, carefree?  Or more like tired, dragging, worried?

I know what it feels like to be so stressed and overwhelmed that only the bare minimum gets done. Where everything seems too large and too heavy for me carry.  But I thought I couldn’t ask for help because I’ve always been the strong one, the one who takes care of things.  

I’m going to share a few techniques and ideas I use to alleviate that stress and make that load smaller and lighter so it’s easier to carry.

I’m going to start by telling you my biggest secret – if you don’t get any other benefit, I want you to hear this:

JUST BREATHE!

Sounds simple.  But how often do we stop and notice HOW we are breathing?  Or ARE we even breathing at all?

There’s a saying “Stop and smell the roses.”  To me, that means, “Slow down, take a few deep breaths and notice.”  Notice your breath and how you feel in this moment.  Are you anxious?  Overwhelmed from trying to do too much or being asked to carry too much? Are you afraid and holding your breath?

OR, are you relaxed and strong and ready to take on the world?  

When you take a deep, full bodied breath, you bring in new air, new energy to fill up your empty spaces.

Here is an exercise from Dr. Andrew Weil. It’s called 4-7-8 breathing.

Take a deep breath for a count of 4.  Hold it for a count of 7.  Release it for a count of 8.  Do this 5 times.

Notice anything different?  When I do this exercise, I feel my heart rate slowing down, my thoughts slowing down and I feel calmer.  

Another exercise I do is what I call “Breathe in the Good, Breathe out the Bad.”

I literally say “Breathe in the Good” and raise my arms while taking in a deep full breath. I think about one good thing in my life – playing with my dog, watching a movie with my partner, drinking tea with my best friend.  Just one thing.  

Then, I literally say “Breathe out the Bad” and lower my arms as I fully exhale that breath.  I think about the thing that is stressing me out RIGHT NOW.  Then I release its power over me.

I also do what I call a MindCation.

 I started this when I had a job that was super stressful for me.  Each day, I started taking MindCations.  If I felt overwhelmed or stressed, I would take a few minutes and do something that would make me smile or have a little bit of fun.  Jump up and down. Put on Pharrell’s song Happy and dance with my dogs.

Push back from my computer, close my eyes and relax all the parts of my body. It’s important to loosen the tightness in your body to open yourself to receive energy not close it off.  Then, I would think about a time when I was in Nature and feeling really good.  A hike with my dogs, a bike ride, sitting on the beach.  It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it is a memory of something that brought you joy.

Next are what I think of as the rational ways, the mind trick ways.

I took a workshop called Rumination and Resilience.  

The gist of it was stop chewing things to death and then bringing them back up to re-chew again.  Rumination and worry are where stress lives and thrives.  We ruminate over things from the past that we can’t change. We worry about things in the future that we can’t control.  Let go of stress by realizing that there is no point in ruminating over the past or worrying about the future.  

Resilience is about how we deal with the things that pop up in our lives.  How we view them, how we solve them, how we let them go. Keep in mind that there is no stress from “out there.”  It’s “in here” – internal and self-created.

We can view events as either stress (bad) or pressure to perform (good).  Stressful things block us, paralyze us, make us reactionary.  Pressure to Perform things put us into action, focus us, make us proactive. And, once they are dealt with, we can let them go.  If I allow myself not to let it go, I ruminate – Did I do the right thing?  Did I take the best course of action?  Could I have performed better?  

A great visual from the workshop was a river… Water flowing along contained by the banks on either side.  When we are performing well, the water flows smoothly and stays inside the banks.  When we allow stress to build up, it’s like rocks and boulders that disrupt the flow.  It breaks the banks, overflows and becomes a flood.  When we are smoothly controlling the river of events in our lives, we keep everything under control.  When we allow the events to get overwhelming, we lose control.

Remember to keep breathing. Allow your breath to calm your heart, calm your mind.  Then, look at what is in front of you and see it as pressure to perform so that you can solve the problem and not stress out about how you are going to get it all done.

Mary Tirrell is a Health and Life Coach based in New Jersey.  She loves working with people who are going through transitions and helping them come out the other side to a healthier, happier, more joyful life.  When she’s not working with people, Mary loves cooking, hiking with her dog, Makia, being on the beach in any kind of weather and geeking out to Star Wars movie marathons with her husband! You can reach her here: mtirrellcoaching@gmail.com