This week I am looking at Stress, as so many of you have written to me and messaged me about how your anxiety levels have increased during lockdown and particularly in the last few weeks.
It’s not surprising really when you think about what has happened to us all over the last 6 months — even just the language we hear on a daily basis sounds anxious:
PANDEMIC; DISEASE; INFECTIOUS; DON’T GO OUT; SOCIAL DISTANCE; WEAR A MASK; WASH YOUR HANDS
The language, coupled with the fact of having to distance from friends, family, changing routine, being confined to our homes in some cases ... it’s no wonder that this is affecting our mental health.
So let’s break it down a little. Firstly stress presents in many ways in both the physical and the emotional. It can be stomachache, an increase in joint pain, sleep issues, eating problems, eczema, migraines/stress headaches, decrease in concentration and focus. Our motivation and desire to do things drops, our mood can roller coaster between the heights of joy and the depths of sadness. It can even lead to breathing problems and restlessness.
When stressed we start to create more cortisol — the stress hormone produced in our adrenal glands. Cortisol is the fight v flight hormone, so while we do need a certain amount of cortisol, too much increases this level of instinctive angst. We get into a cycle of not being able to make decisions, not being able to settle, brain feeling scrambled, wired, feeling overwhelmed, feeling unable to complete any job fully.
If this sounds familiar, there are some small changes that we can start to make straight away to help us with our stress levels:
- Let's start with the News — we have rolling news these days, and it is easy to overdose. The problem is that the News focuses on fear ... so if you are feeling anxious this will only add to how you are feeling. If you need/want to keep up-to-date, why not limit your news intake to one bulletin a day and don’t look at it again, and again, and again... Switch it off.
- What about relationships? This is a hard one, but we all know people who either want to rain on our parade, or just make us feel heavy of heart. They might be argumentative, they might be negative — so develop a shield for yourself from these people. Imagine climbing into a lizard-like skin so that anything they might throw at you will just slide off!
- Get outside in nature — even though the weather is changing, find some time to spend in nature: kick off your shoes and feel the grass, do some anti-anxiety breathing, find some space. Doing this regularly has shown to have a huge impact on anxiety levels.
- If you see the sun — get out and spend time with it, Vitamin D — which exposure to the the sun generates — is very helpful in bringing down levels of cortisol.
- Breathing and mindfulness — just taking 5 minutes in a quiet space everyday to concentrate just on your breath. Leave your mat out permanently, and if you only spend 5 minutes lying on it every day it will introduce a habitual practice of mindfulness.
- Pilates — is the perfect exercise programme to help with anxiety and stress levels. The breathing and mind/body connection we practise helps to reduce the stress levels and — now that you have access to online classes — doing more than one class a week will help. Move away from intense exercise because this could add to the stress on the body and increase the overall stress hormone production. Make Pilates a lifestyle choice.
- Do some soul-searching — there may be historical stress that keeps cropping up and this may need to be looked at. Why not try a bit of a life laundry. Writing down how you are feeling — just write it as you think it. No-one else needs to see it, but it may help to release some deep seated emotions.
Every time we have a stress spike, we have a cortisol spike, and we quickly find ourselves in a cycle of anxiety. But it's good to know that we can make small, incremental changes that will start to help us control our stress/anxiety levels.
Next week I will look at Sleep, if you have any questions or would like to find out more let me know.
