Quick Glance: What is stress? How to define it and steps you can take to begin to build resilience
I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve come across advice to “lower” or “manage” your stress in order to stay healthy and feel your best.
From work performance, workout recovery, weight loss, and immune function, to sleep quality, and overall quality of life…it impacts everything.
And I’m sure not only have you heard it at SOME point, you hear it a lot. No matter what your current wellness goals are.
But do you ever question whether your efforts to lower your stress levels are actually working?
You’re aware of the dangers of chronic stress, and you *think* you’re doing a good job of building up your tolerance, yet you still feel off.
You set aside time to rest and relax, say no to commitments, and try to find balance but periodically find yourself tense, overwhelmed, and exhausted.
Or, maybe you don’t *think* you have a lot of stress in your life…but you don’t sleep well, your hair is falling out, and that stubborn, unexplainable lower back pain keeps coming back periodically.
“But I’m not even stressed!”
– Said the person who is most definitely stressed
You could be so used to being stressed out that you don’t even think you are stressed at all. You’re not consciously aware of what it feels like to NOT be stressed.
What is stress, really?
Whether your symptoms are physical, mental or emotional, it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself — what does “stress” really mean?
Stress is your body’s response to any demand or pressure.
So with that definition in mind, wouldn’t it make sense that if you’re interested in managing stress, you would work on improving your response by building resilience? Wouldn’t you want to focus on working WITH your body to strengthen your response?
Of course.
And you may think you do that. But what many of us do is actually the opposite.
Rather than focusing on the internal response, we tend to focus on the external event.
And so “lowering stress” actually results in modifying our environment, closing ourselves off, and letting fear run the show rather than building resilience.
Don’t get me wrong. Limiting stressors is definitely important. But it’s a piece of the puzzle. It’s far from the whole story.
If you’re not actively working to restore balance in your body and evolve your capacity for stress, stressors will chip away at you, little by little over time.
EVEN despite the fact that you limit stressors, since stressors in the modern world have increased exponentially and have become a lot more abstract than our physiology has evolved to deal with.
So what’s next?
The purpose of sharing this with you is NOT to make you fearful.
I’m here to:
- help you build awareness of your body so that you can identify your triggers for stress – both physical and emotional
- help you identify how stress manifests in YOUR body so that you can effectively release trapped energy as it builds up & feel better
- teach you resilience training by providing tools to stop burnout, replenish/rebuild depleted resources that your body needs to respond to stress
- help you control your relationship to stress once and for all so you can look, feel, and show up as your best
You can read more about me and resilience training here.
More resources coming soon! Stay tuned!