I was raised by worry warts and became a worry wart. Stress has always been around me. I was someone who just couldn't reset easily after stressful situations. As far as I could remember, I was always in some kind of waiting for an emergency mode. I was rarely relaxed because when something happens, I feel that I need to be prepared.
Here is my stress history, I spent a decade caring for my chronically ill mother. There were frequent hospital visits and ambulance calls. When I had my first child, I had a harder time trying to balance care giving for an elderly (slow and patient mode) and a child (fast and patient mode). Years passed, my mother's health deteriorated and I slowly began to grieve for eventually loosing her. I worried ahead of time. My first born growing needs change. I was wearing thin. When it was time to consider end of life arrangements for my mother, I was pregnant with my second child. I didn't even think my body could conceive again under the amount of stress I was constantly experiencing. My mother passed when I was 3 months pregnant. When my second child was born, new life brought joy. I was able to relax and enjoy life a short period of time. Then I lost a dear cousin to a sudden and tragic death. My world crumbled again. I was thrown right back into grieving mode.
Fast forward to today, I finally figured out how to manage many kinds of stresses life brings therefore am able to keep my Colitis symptoms under control. I look back at how I kept hanging onto residuals of every stressful experience and eventually the stress manfested into a physical aliment. During the unknown pre-diagnosed months, my worries sky rocketed. I was physically getting weaker and emotionally a wreck. My naturopath pointed out that I need to address the emotional aspect of the disease. Adapting to the Paloe diet was easy, learning to manage stress was hard. Everything can be stressful if you let it become. I find my stress level seems to only have high and low setting with nothing in between. And more often than others, it was on high.
The following methods or products helped me to finally arrive at a more stable zen state I am in today.
Bach flower rescue remedy
I use this during a stressful situation like when I was waiting at emergency for the doctors' prognosis for my mother to a headache. I also used it in labour.
Bach flower is derived from flower essence and they also have pastilles which is great for kids.
EFT Emotional Freedom Technique
EFT is a technique where you tap on certain points on your body and repeat affirmations. This technique helped me most during the teary months of accepting my mother's deteriorating health and the doctor's suggestion of the palliative care approach.
Yoga - yogedownload.com
I am able to practice yoga daily because of
yogadownload This website offers a good selection of free 20-30 mins yoga podcasts. If you decide to join their membership, you can have access to a greater variety of yoga styles and longer classes. Of course donations are welcome to this free site.
Meditation
Some nights when I am just too wound up from the day, I settle with meditation podcast ( I use
Relax - Podarama Studio from itunes) while I put my legs up wall. The leg up the wall pose helps with digestion too.
Deep Breathing
As simple as it is, I often forget and take quick short breathes. I have learned that breathing exercise not only calm the mind and body, it also gets more oxygen into the body to handle whatever pressing situation on hand.
Keeping alkaline
Did you know that stress is acting very acidic? Besides eating a diet with lots of vegetables and some fruit, lemon water can bring your acidic level down a notch.
Rubber band bracelet
I give this exercise the most credit in resetting my brain to deal with stress in a healthy manner. When my naturopath told me to address my stress levels, I thought it would be impossible as I am a worry wart. She introduced me to this exercise where I would wear an elastic band out my wrist. Everytime I felt panicked or worried about something, I would snap the band. The snapping sends a message to the brain that associates the "pain" to the negative thought. In time, the brain learns to stop the process or at least helps put things into perspective for me so I don't over react about the smallest little thing. I wore the band for a good few months and am no longer wearing it now.
What are your stress managment tips? I would love to hear from you
