In today’s podcast, Kim and Tony talk about what causes stress, how to identify your stress triggers, how to handle it, and even how to transform those negative feelings into something positive. Stress uses up physical and mental energy and leaves you exhausted, so learning how to manage and recover from it is imperative for your health and happiness.
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Here notes from the show:
Potential Causes of Stress
- Time management is a big issue when it comes to stress, whether it’s self-imposed due to procrastination or you’re just in a demanding job.
- Traffic can stress you out if you approach it that way and label it that way. You can’t control it, so it’s best to accept it, breathe, and relax with music or a podcast.
How to Deal with Stress
Stress is a disconnect between the way reality is and the way you think it should be. It comes from expectations and resistance. Stress or worry won’t create friction around that energy and make it better, though. It’s a common misbelief that feeling fear, anxiety, or stress about something will make it turn out better.
Instead, focus on creating flow and authenticity. Surrender to what is and be in the now, be in the present.
Recognize your stress symptoms (trigger symptoms), like your heart speeding up, a bubbling up of pitta energy that’s like a fire of impatience or a feeling of something creating resistance. Go for a walk, shake it off, get away for a minute and cut off that trigger that could lead to full-blown stress. It can take practice to create new reactions or no reaction at all.
Part of the Realize Yourself process is learning to align, tune in, and realize that the more you react to stress, the more you’re layering suffering on top of suffering. This creates more stress; it doesn’t dissipate it.
Staying in Alignment
Clarify yourself, body and mind, and you’ll become more aligned and naturally experience less stress. Really feel the experience of focusing on what you’re doing rather than thinking of the outcome. Don’t focus on how far you are from the end result because there’s a disconnect from where you are now and where you want to be in the future.
Diet-Related Stress
This works the same with your diet. Some people get so wrapped up in the food they eat and the way they eat, and it leads to confusion. They stress about food choices. If the way you’re eating and approaching your diet is stressful, it’s out of alignment with who you are.
Step back and think about overarching Realize Yourself and Beauty Detox principles—have the Glowing Green Smoothie and salads, eat food sin their whole, unprocessed form instead of worrying about formulas. Think about how you feel after a whole, unprocessed meal. Use your body as a source of information and intuition.
With time management, you can only do one task, one step, at a time—not the whole project. It’s the same with diet. You can’t do it all at once. The Beauty Detox Solution and Beauty Detox Foods are helpful because you always know which foods you can have in a given moment and you aren’t focusing on the whole, big picture.
Transforming Your Energy
Be conscious of your reactions—rapid breathing, feeling impatient, a feeling in your belly, tapping your foot or hands—and shift when you see those reactions coming up. Take that energy and use it for something different. Instead of impatience, send love to someone, smile, send a nice text. Make a choice for good.
What to Do After You’ve Been in a Stressful Situation
It’s impossible to avoid stress altogether, and it can come from good or bad situations. Tips for nourishing yourself after you’ve been in a stressful situation:
- Enjoy avocado in kale roll-ups, similar to the Ananda Burritos. The fattiness of the avocado can be soothing.
- Have an almond milk latte. Heat up some unsweetened almond milk with cinnamon, vanilla, stevia (or coconut nectar), or another flavor you like, and enjoy. It’s creamy and feels like a treat, plus it’s hot and take a while to drink so it helps you come back down after a bad day.
- Breath awareness that allows you to focus on deep inhales and exhales (even one can help!).
- A mantra, like “Let” (on inhale) and “Go” (on exhale) said in your mind as you take slower breaths.
Deal with stress day by day or hour by hour. Don’t’ let it build up over time. Anticipate it and get it out before it lodges in.
Find a private space to go to be alone and reconnect with yourself. If your work environment is stressful because of all the chatter and noise, try listening to soothing music through headphones, creating a more relaxing environment for yourself.
Nourishing Yourself with Practices That Take More Time
- Meditation makes you more adaptive in stressful situations, and if you are affected, you’re able to go from stressed to not stressed much more quickly.
- An ongoing yoga practice helps, but it’s important to find the type that nourishes you and makes you feel good after you do it.
- Spend time in nature. You realize you’re a part of something so much bigger and you can tune in to that and relax. There’s unity, beauty, and continuity in this world, and you always have that connection. If you’re in the city and it’s not easy to get out in nature, watch the sunset or do any kind of physical exercise that you enjoy to get out of that compressed state.
- Get more sleep. It prevents you from being so reactive. Without enough sleep, you’re starting the day with stress and anxiety, feeling depleted and less able to embrace the day.
Don’t stop or block stress because it creates more dissonance. Instead, transform that energy into something much more positive.
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