How to manage and reduce stress in minutes

In my previous blog we spoke about what causes stress. We covered both psychological, but also biological causes. Todays I want to focus on strategy and what you can do to reduce stress in a matter of minutes.

First of all before interrupting the stress pattern, you need to understand your physiological response to stress. When Fight or Flight response is triggered the body it will first produce physical symptoms. Then you get cognitive and emotional symptoms. By the time you are feeling frustrated and irritable, are speaking fast or swearing your body would have been stressed for minutes if not hours. As such, when you lack awareness and are not focused on the present you miss this physiological feedback. When you do this, you will experience stress for longer and more intensely than necessary.

So let's increase awareness as to what you should look for at the physical level that indicates stress. When you know what to look for it will be a lot easier to pick it up as it happens in real time.

1. Breath- when stressed you will likely breathe fast, shallow, through your mouth and up in your chest or you may simply hold your breath/ stop breathing.
2. Posture- you may be feeling tension in your shoulders, neck, may be hunched over, have your arms and legs crossed and may be looking down.
3. Fingers- you may be feeling fidgety, play with your pen or touch your body or other items nervously.
4. Feet- you may have your legs crosses and shaking your leg nervously.
5. You may have clammy hands and experience armpit sweating or a cold sweat.
6. You may feel like you simply want to run out of that room, get up and do something active.

The idea here is that you should know how your body does stress. When I am stressed I hold my breath and I sweat. These 2 symptoms tell me I am stressed which prompts me to stop what I am doing and use the following strategies to interrupt the stress reaction and eliminate any associated side effects.

1. Breathe- Through your nose. Inhale for 3 second, exhale for 5 seconds, hold for 2 seconds. Breathe like this for 3-5 minutes. This nasal way of breathing will have you in a rest and digest/ relaxation state within 5 minutes tops.
2. Posture- Change your posture. If you sit, get up up and stretch. Relax your shoulders and release any tension you may be feeling in your body.
3. Smile. The last thing you want to do when feeling stressed is smile. However when you do smile this will confuse your brain and will make you less likely to continue feeling stressed.
4. Look up and if you have access to a window look outside intently at nature. This will calm you central nervous system.

When in the midst of stress your prefrontal cortex shut down so to speak such that you have tunnel vision. This may not always make it easy for you to find solutions when in this state. So best use your body for 5 minutes using above strategies and once you are calmed and relaxed find try thinking you way out of it. 

For more information and to learn more personalised strategies on how to manage your stress join me for my upcoming workshop Stress Less - Live More. For details visit https://www.ancavereen.com/stress-management-course-Melbourne

Anca Vereen is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Nutritionist, Psychotherapist, Breathing Coach and Nutrigenomics Lecturer for Latrobe University.

For more information about stress please visit https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/stress