Stress is the demands placed on the body to handle difficult situations, which can be physical, emotional or mental. A normal, healthy body is well able to cope with such stressors while trying to figure out how to get things back to normal and in balance. Adrenaline is the hormone responsible for activating the sympathetic nervous system – the flight-or-fight response, which is considered a healthy, normal and necessary response to a stressful event.
However, when stress becomes chronic, a person can experience a constant state of anxiety. Cortisol is the hormone which can alter the function or shut down of systems that are seen as less important in high-alert situations, like the reproductive, digestive or immune systems. When cortisol levels stay elevated it can negatively affect the cardiovascular, immune, neuroendocrine and central nervous systems. Cortisol also influences insulin levels and reduces the liver’s ability to burn fat.
When these systems are compromised for a prolonged time it can lead to debilitating conditions like insomnia (a result of decreased melatonin production), anxiety and depression (insufficient serotonin). Sleep is essential for restoring the body and as such insomnia alone can lead to a myriad of problems.
It would seem the logical place to start when dealing with depression and anxiety is to go back to the start and cut stress. The second most important thing would be to learn how to handle unavoidable stressors and to exercise one’s ability to bounce back (resilience). The catch, it seems, is when you are stressed you are more likely to stop doing the very things that help you cope with it, like exercising, socialising and eating good food. But discipline, like most things, is like a muscle that becomes stronger the more you use it.
Here are 5 things you can start doing now to cut stress:
Identify stressors in your daily life that you can eliminate. Make a list of all your commitments (work, social and personal) and scrap those that are not in line with your life goals and vision.
Little things add up. Sometimes it can be as simple as waking up early enough so you don’t have to rush to get to work. Do it often enough and it will become a habit performed on auto-pilot, leaving you to focus on bigger issues.
Procrastination causes stress. Practice the 10-minute rule: tell yourself you are only going to spend ten minutes on that important task you’ve been pushing aside. Ten minutes are not that big a deal and once you get started you will more often than not find that you keep going.
Swap multi-tasking for mindfulness. Get engrossed in one task at a time and give it your undivided attention. Put your phone on silent if possible. You will be much more productive and able to finish the task a lot quicker. You will even enjoy the task at hand much more.
Move your body and watch what you eat. Stretch, go for a ten-minute walk, do squats – any physical activity. The lymph system which is responsible for eliminating toxins from the body only works when we move (unlike other systems which keep going automatically like the respiratory system). The fewer toxins you put into your body the less stress it will put on all your organs trying so desperately to get rid of it – so be mindful of what you put into your mouth.
Stress, anxiety and depression have a circular relationship to each other – they basically feed each other and make each other stronger. Diminishing one stressor at a time, and eventually eliminating it, can be the start of breaking this chain apart. Focus on the weakest links, the ones you can most easily break, and the harder ones will soon follow.
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