Change of Address

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Please visit Strategies for Stress-Free Living at the following address:

http://www.instantstressrelief.org/instantstressrelief/blog/

thanks!

3 Strategies to Get You Through Those Confined Spaces

Yesterday I spent an hour stuck on the tube. The tube ground to a halt between stations. It got quite hot and the lighting was minimal. You don't often get opportunities to really see if you can walk your talk. Here's how I managed my emotions during my time of stress.

1. I made a conscious effort to slow down my breathing. Breathing slowly and deeply helps you to change your physiology. Try a few quick shallow breaths and notice how you feel. Do you feel hyped up, possibly a bit anxious? Now, slow your breathing right down, breathe slowly and deeply. Notice how you now feel. Often when we feel stressed, we breathe in the upper part of the chest rather than using the entire chest area. This adds to our feelings of anxiety and distress.
2. I chose what to focus on. When the tube first stopped I found myself thinking about the trains behind us. Would they know we had stopped? I started imagining other possibilities, none of them happy or helpful. I noticed I was starting to feel a bit panicky so I chose to think about other things. I thought about things that made me feel happy, centred and calm. By the way, it’s a good idea to practice this so you have a stock of images you can call upon in an instant. This isn't the time to hypothesis with your neighbour. There’s no need to discuss how long you may be down there. We don’t know. Sharing worst case scenarios won’t help lighten the load.
3. If you can, find ways to laugh with fellow commuters. We had quite a bit of comaderie going and it does help to pass the time. *thanks guys!* Laughing is a great way of changing your physiology so that you can manage your emotions.
   

By managing your emotions during times of distress you can minimise any feelings of anxiety, panic or distress. Change your breathing pattern and you change your physiology; change what you are thinking about and you change how you feel; reach out to others in a positive way and you avoid feeling isolated and begin to feel supported.

Hooray! You've Made It Through Induction Week

Congratulations to everybody who made it through induction week. I wish you every success in your studies.

Induction week is a stressful time for some students. Some have moved countries, cities, careers and identities in order to study.

I have been speaking with quite a few students over the last week and noticed a few themes that may help you to reduce any test anxiety and stress. Test anxiety I hear you say? We haven't even started lectures yet. I know, and yet so many students in their first week are worrying about how they will cope with the workload in year 3.

Coping Strategies

1. Be aware of the outcomes you're looking for in this semester and break those down into mini projects. Don't worry about year 3, focus on what you want to achieve this semester.
   
2. Draw up a weekly timetable. Colour code it for each distinct activity such as lectures, pre-reading, revising, exercise, relaxation time etc. By allocating time and ensuring you build rest and recreation into your timetable you will be able to work with your body to manage your stress. All to often when the deadlines emerge, those necessities for staying stress-free get forgotten about. Make exercise and rest-time a priority.
   
3. List all your deadlines on a wall planner. This helps you spot in an instant busy times so that you can plan your workload around them.
   

Over the next few weeks we will look at study skills and learning styles so that you can get the most out of university life without getting too stressed.

Finding Out About Anxiety

We've just added a new page to our website, www.InstantStressRelief.org. It provides a wealth of information on anxiety, including common symptoms and available treatments to manage anxiety disorders.

We are also experimenting with a new format for our website. We would love to know what you think of it.

Please check out our new page and give us your feedback. The page can be found here: Anxiety

Using Time Out to Reduce Symptoms of Stress

I had one of those "a-ha" moments the other day when talking with a friend. It's the Art of Stopping? Not really considered it? No, nor had I.

It seemed stopping was something Clare didn't know how to do. There she was busily racing around the place doing stuff. But the doing was exhausting and she was getting stressed as a result. Clare is a businesswoman. One of the many one-person businesses that serve our many varied needs. There's a lot of doing to be done when you're a one-person business.

What is stopping? Is it doing nothing? If you're doing nothing does that mean you're doing something? Perhaps it's a moment of reflection. Or is it the impatient waiting period before you're given that green light to proceed? How do we spend that period of stopping? Do we spend it questioning whether we would have made it through the amber light if we had floored it. And more importantly who else would have noticed the light was amber? How we spend that time is even more vital than the act of stopping.

If you don't take the time to stop and smell the roses you will become exhausted or worse, burnt out. This is especially true if you're self employed because, guess what, if you're stressed, your clients know.

Your body will tell you when you're stressed. Below are some symptoms which can be used to gauge your level of stress. How many of the symptoms listed below have you experienced in the last 3 months?

· Back Ache
· Upset Stomach
· Headache
· Neck or shoulder tension
· Change in appetite
· Tearfulness
· Irritability
· Change in Weight
· Panic Attacks
· Short Temper
· Anxiety
· Feelings of not being able to cope
· Change in libido
· Always washing hands
· Irregular breathing
· Palpitations
· Exhaustion
· Uneasy Throat
· Problem skin
· Night sweats
· Worry
· Sleeplessness
· Nail Biting
· Use of alcohol to relax or caffeine to energise
· Frequent toileting
· Forgetfulness
· Grinding teeth
· Feelings of Insecurity
· Relationship issues
· Feeling confused

If you've experienced 10 or more of these symptoms in the last 3 months then it's time to build in some stop time.

So, let me ask you this question. What is the one thing on this Earth that you really enjoy doing? What is it that really makes you laugh (you know those big belly aching laughs where you laugh so hard the tears roll down your cheeks and your sides hurt). What is it that makes your soul sing? When did you last do it?

Whatever it is, make some time, right now, to do it again. No ifs or buts! You HAVE to do this (within the next 48 hours if possible). Schedule some time into your diary to do it this week. Do you remember the suitcase exercise? (we talked about it on 30 August, in case you want to go back to it) It's a great exercise to do before doing that one thing that really gives you a lift. Knowing how stress works means that it's vital to be in the right frame of mind when you give your body the gift of time to rebalance.

And then, once you've done that magical uplifting thing, and only after you've done it, go back to those suitcases. Open one up and deal with the first issue or situation that presents itself. We'll deal with the rest in good time.

Depression is More Debilitating than Angina, Arthritis, Asthma or Diabetes

One in five women and one in ten men will suffer from depression at some point in their life. People who are highly stressed or experience stress for long periods of time often report ‘feeling depressed’. Research released in the Lancet indicates that depression is more damaging to health than angina, arthritis, asthma and diabetes. Between 9 – 23% of the survey participants have had depression in addition to angina, arthritis, asthma or diabetes. The combination of diabetes and depression had the greatest negative impact.

A chronic illness is any illness lasting more than 12 weeks. 3.2% of those surveyed reported experiencing depression over a one-year period. The breakdown by illness was asthma (3.3%), arthritis (4.1%), angina (4.5%) and diabetes (2.0%). Depression also appears to impair the health of people suffering from other illnesses.

"Our main findings show that depression impairs health state to a substantially greater degree than the other diseases," said the lead author, Dr Moussavi. The study’s leader Somnath Chatterji (World Health Organisation) said, "what we are saying is, these people will also be depressed and if you don't manage the depression you can't improve a person's health because depression is actually making it worse."

The study asked participants to rank the impact depression has on their quality of life by asking questions about their ability to carry out everyday activities. Dr Moussavi, found that on a scale of 0-100 with 0 being the worst health and 100 being the best, people sufferering from depression had an average score of 72.9. A comparison to those who did not report suffering from depression showed a quality of life ranking of 80.3 for asthmatics, 79.6 for angina sufferers, 79.3 for arthritis sufferers and 78.9 for those with diabetes.

Some psychologists believe depression occurs in response to a feeling of loss. Could this feeling of loss be related to the onset of illness and a belief that good health has been lost and replaced by a future impacted by poor health? Knowing that it is common for people who are very stressed to experience anxiety and depression, it’s worth considering the impact of being diagnosed with a chronic illness such as angina or arthritis. The diagnosis may in itself be the stressful event that triggers depression.

In the year 2000 depression was the forth greatest “disease burden” (the impact a disease has on people’s health). This is expected to increase to second place by 2020.

It's a State of Mind

Do you ever have one of those weeks where there's a lot on, you're really pumped and your mind is racing with lots of new ideas and things to do. Pretty hard to switch off when you're in that space, huh. I've had one of those weeks.

It's a very exciting time at Turquoise Ray. We are in the process of redesigning the content on our sister site, Instant Stress Relief. The content covers a range of issues related to stress that people often ask about. We've got a few pages up and lots more to go on things as diverse as 'what causes stress' through to information on anxiety and depression. Anyway, I did something today that I often forget to do. I took my own advice.

I attend a weekly yoga class. Most of the time, I love it. It's a welcome respite from my weekly schedule of lifting weights and swimming and it provides an opportunity to relax the mind and check in on the body. That is, when I remember to relax my mind and check in on my body. I arrived at class today with a million things running through my mind. Exciting stuff, not threatening stuff but the flow of creative oil through my brain was more stimulating then relaxing. I lay down on the mat and thought through a few of the topics that were foremost in my mind and I noticed how that made me feel. I noticed the excitement and enthusiasm and I decided to park it, just for the 90 minutes that I was in the class. I said to myself, "ok body, this is your time, we'll do whatever you want to do". Immediately I felt my body start to unwind. By the end of the class I was totally relaxed, there were spaces inbetween the spaces in my vertebrae and my shoulders had moved from beneath my ears back down to my shoulders.

The effect was so profound that it really caught my attention. I could have marched through that yoga class and finished up feeling as exhilerated as I had when I arrived. Instead I had allowed my body 90 minutes to catch up and I felt replenished and even more creative than before.

So here's the bit of advice that I remembered to act on. Sometimes how we are when we're doing things is just as important as what we're doing. Often we can surge forward with even more power, motivation and enthusiasm if we just take a moment to check in with our body and give it what it needs. The easiest way to do this is by asking the question. Our body knows what it needs and when given half a chance will redirect the orchestra to play harmonious music once more.

Next time you're walking along the beach (even if it's just in a daydream) notice how the wave surges into the shore, pulls back and surges forward once more. It's a great example of the potency that available when we work within the natural order of things.