Listen to this episode to learn more about how you can prevent stress, eliminate the negative repercussions of stress or recover from stress.
Show Notes
Episode summary: Have you felt stress in the last day? The last week? Or maybe even in the last hour? When you understand where your stress comes from, you can find ways to prevent it, eliminate it, or recover from it. In this episode, we’ll help you get a handle on your stress!
In this episode:
Ways to prevent stress:
- Reduce the number of decisions you need to make each day. Set up systems and routines.
- Become a master planner.
- Get clarity and prioritize- how does each thing you need to do align with your values and your purpose? Refer back to episode 6.
- Overwhelm is often a problem with clarity- you don’t know where to start, which task to choose etc.
- To prevent fight, flight freeze, or fawn decide ahead of time which tasks are the most important to prioritize and then get those done first. Making a physical list, in order with the most important first, will give you a clear place to start when you are ready to work.
- Time block by combining like items, scheduling work and scheduling free time and family time.
Ways to eliminate stress (or stop feeling stressed):
- Stop looking for the negative, you find what you focus on.
- Create moments of calm, use breathing and mindfullness activities.
- Know what is yours to deal with- saving the entire world is stressful!
- Don’t take on other people’s stress.
- Don’t stress about things that haven’t happened yet.
- Remember the good stuff, celebrate good moments and events.
- Remind yourself what you can be proud of.
Ways to recover from stress:
- We discuss the book Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. They share how we can recover from stress by completing the stress cycle.
- In stress, your entire body and mind change in response to preceived threats.
- Stressors activate stress in our bodies. Stressors can be anything that are stressors to YOU.
- Stess is the neurological and physiological shift that happens in your body.
- It is an evolutionary adaptive response that is deisnged to help us cope and to help us survive.
- A flood of hormones come rushing in- adrenalyn, cortisol, glycogen and epiniphrine which pushes blood to your muscles.
- Endorphins help you focus on the danger but not the uncomfortablness, your heart beats faster, your blood pumps harder, you increase the rate of your breathing, and attention is at high alert. Your other organs and systems slowdown.
How your body recovers from stress:
- You need to stop the hormone rush and signal that your body is now safe.
- That means you need to DO SOMETHING to signal your body that the stressful event is over.
- Things you can do to tell your body to recover from stress: exercise, laugh, or cry.
- Involuntary shuddering or shaking or uncontrolable sobbing also signals that an event is over.
- Take deep breaths.
- Show affection, try a 20 second hug or a long kiss with someone you love and who makes you feel safe.
- Engage with pets- petting your furry friends reduces blood pressure.
- Take time for creative expression- art, music or any kind of creativity allows us to move through our feelings.
Recap:
Stress is inevitable. However, there are practical steps we can take to prevent stress from happening, strategies we can use to eliminate some of the stress that already exists, and ways that we can mindfully and physically recover after we have encountered stress. Stress does not have to rule our lives.
Quote:
If you don’t get through to the light at the end of the tunnel, you stay in chronic stress.
From Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Burnount: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
The Inspired Teacher’s Guide to Taking Back Your Life
The Inspired Teachers Journal: A Weekly Guide to Becoming Your Best Self
Related Posts:
4 Ways to Decrease Stress and Increase Happiness
Is Feeling Stressed Inevitable?
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More About Inspired Together Teachers:
Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?
If you are dedicated and caring but often overwhelmed and exhausted, join us at Inspired Together Teachers. We’ll give you inspiration, strategies and tips that help you navigate life’s challenges as a stronger, more confident, and more joy filled person, both in and out of the classroom.
Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.
Co-hosts Paula Schmidt and Michele Vosberg are award winning educators with the experience and skills to help teachers thrive in life and work. They’ve taught at all levels, worked with thousands of teachers, and conducted workshops around the world. They are also the authors of the #1 best-selling book The Inspired Teachers Journal: A Weekly Guide to Becoming Your Best Self.
Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to live an inspired life.
