Stand Up Right

Overcoming back pain. Regaining mobility. Learning to stand up right.

Do You Want to Get Stress Relief? Then You Need to Give Stress Relief

by

Last week on Stress Relief Tuesday, I told you:

Stress relief isn’t science, it’s art and what works for one man doesn’t necessarily work for another.

I’ve been working remotely now for six months. As a part of my little project to create a course in how to make remote work effective for you, I take pretty much any interaction, social or business, as a chance to do a little research.

Sociable but Not Social

One of the things I have found is that a great people have difficulty with being cooped up at home, with their main source of social interaction confined to their immediate family. Shorter Aristotle:

Man is a social animal.

Generally, I am not. I’m sociable, but not social. This may seem like a distinction without a difference, but follow along.

When I’m in the company of others, I can do small talk with the best of them. That’s being sociable, but the thing is, I don’t generally seek out the company of others, which is the main property of being social.

This property of not being particularly social has driven a great deal of the choices of my life, with the exception of getting into RMC. How in the hell was I expecting to be an anti-social Navy officer? What was I thinking? Fortunately, that particular avenue closed off and I was able to pursue my mostly solitary lifestyle. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, not being a particularly social being.

Stress Relief in the Pangolin Panic Pandemic

Fast forward to today, wherein the Pangolin Pandemic Panic has played perfectly into my lifestyle. How perfectly? For the first time in my adult life, in my 50s, I have normal blood pressure. In February, my doctor was worried that it was time to start me on BP meds. Six months without having to suffer the office and suddenly, “Your BP is perfect, you have nothing to worry about.”

That was six months where I spent almost my entire life in the company of my wife, kids and, on cottage weekends, my parents. For most people, family is a source of stress. For me, it’s one of my great release valves.

…what works for one man doesn’t necessarily work for another.

But this all doesn’t address the key point that I’m trying to make. If you want to get, you need to give. This holds in so many areas of life, but here we’re talking about stress relief.

  • My wife was stressed from work, the kids, the pandemic, etc. To help her out, I took over a pile of the household chores. Do I like cooking, feeding the boys, doing the dishes, cleaning, vacuuming, etc.? No. But I put in my ear buds, turned up the tunes, and did it, for her. Her stress relieved, my stress relieved.
  • My parents were, naturally, suffering a lot of stress from the cottage sale. I went up as many weekends as I could, and helped clean, organize and sort. When the final week hove into view, I blew an entire Saturday, and my lower back, getting the heirlooms and antiques taken care of for them. Their stress relieved, my stress relieved.
  • My little guy was having a terrible time adjusting to the incredibly stupid new school arrangements. It was getting so bad I was on the verge of pulling him out and home schooling. Fortunately, he loves running and playing on the jungle gym in our local park, so during the adjustment period, every day after dinner, “Daddy, can I go to the park?” was immediately answered with “Let’s go.” I hate watching them in the park. The little monsters running around suffer a severe lack of parenting, and keeping the little turds under control, when their own parents wont, is a serious source of stress for me. But my little guy needed it, and seeing him de-stress and make the adjustments he needed made the stress of other people’s children bearable.

Do you want to relieve your stress? Help someone else relieve theirs. I doesn’t have to be some grand gesture. Do the dishes. Clean the toilet. Take the kids for an evening so she can hang out with her girlfriends.

Do you have healthy stress coping methods? Then get in the way of someone else’s stress. Take it on yourself, and deal with the stress when you can. You might even find that simple the act of giving (through taking on their stress) relieves the very stress you’re taking on.

You want to get?

You have to give.

Nutrition Friday – Can Better Eating Lead to Better Stress Management?

by

Nutrition is more than just about the fuel and building blocks you need for a heathy body, it’s also about the needs of a healthy mind. With that in mind, let’s combine two regular feature around these parts and discuss nutrition and stress.

Nutrition and Stress

In general, I’ve written about stress management in terms of what you do, not what you eat, but stress can have a huge impact on your diet. The term “stress eating” didn’t become a thing by accident. First off let’s be clear that I’m not talking about binge eating crap because something went wrong:

  • No pint of Ben and Jerry’s because of a bad breakup
  • No pound of chocolate because
  • No six pack and four bags of Doritos because your team lost the Super bowl

No, what I’m talking about is things that have the potential to help you with your stress, without adding 10 pounds around your middle, so, without further ado, foods for stress.

Turkey

You know that “turkey coma” you get on Thanksgiving? It comes from the amino acid tryptophan, which helps produce serotonin, a neurotransmitter that aids with feelings of happiness and wellbeing.

Oatmeal

Oatmeal also helps produce serotonin, and additionally it is a complex carbohydrate. This means it’s slower to digest, and won’t cause a spike in your blood glucose levels.

Yogurt

Yogurt, particularly probiotic yogurt, can help with your gut bacteria. A small study out of UCLA indicated that eating probiotic yogurt helped reduce brain activity in the areas controlling stress.

Salmon

One of the main effects of stress is increased stress hormone levels. Omega-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory properties, which fight the effects of your stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. Salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids.

Dark Chocolate

Another food that helps reduce your cortisol levels is dark (greater than 70% cacao) chocolate. It is also a terrific source of antioxidants, which can help relax your blood vessels and reduce your blood pressure (one of the primary symptoms, and causes, of stress).

Vitamin D

Yes, Andrew is pushing vitamin D, again. A long term (50 year) study on the effects of vitamin D levels found higher levels of vitamin D were associated with a reduced risk of panic disorders.

Life is tough, and we’re going to get stressed out. But you’ve got to eat, so why not fine tune your diet to help manage your stress, rather than contribute to it?

Do You Want Stress Relief? Then You Need to Focus

by

Last week on Stress Relief Tuesday, I gave you a symphony of stress relief, in four pictures. In my own words:

So rather than blather on, I’m going to give you a symphony of stress relief; a four movement symphony in 4 pictures.

Followed by four pictures of me out enjoying; nature, a cigar, a hobby and music. You may be asking, “What does that have to do with ‘focus?’”

Not a damned thing.

Stress relief isn’t science, it’s art and what works for one man doesn’t necessarily work for another. By way of example, my kung fu teacher cannot stand fishing, whereas I can fish the whole day long, and have. Seriously, there have been days when I lost track of time and almost broke an ankle stumbling out of the river, and up the bank, in the dark.

Just as not every stress relief technique works for every man, not every technique works every time. What worked yesterday might not work today, so you need more tools in the belt, more arrows in the quiver, more bullets in the magazine.

Focus

Which brings me to focus. “Focus on what?” you might ask. “It doesn’t matter,” I might answer.

  • Puzzles
  • Knitting
  • Needlepoint
  • Quilting
  • Tying flies
  • Gardening
  • Weeding
  • Rebuilding an engine
  • Painting (art or house)
  • Balsa wood modeling
  • Throwing pots

Do you get the idea? Every one of the activities listed above is a hobby widely used for stress relief. And every one of the activities listed above requires intense concentration to do it right.

It’s not the particular activity you choose, which relieves your stress. It is the intense focus on that activity, which relieves your stress.

Stress Relief – Depression, Sleep, Stress and Heart Health

by

My normal Monday post is “Posture Monday,” in which I lay out an exercise to help you correct your posture. Unfortunately, yesterday there was no Posture Monday post because I have been sleep deprived, stressed and depressed.

Interestingly, another thing I’ve been known to spill a pixel or two about came up through this sleep deprived depression, my resting heart rate. Last week, I began to feel the effects of the approaching school year, and the impending final good-bye to my parents’ cottage (which has been in the family since 1943).

Sleep Deprivation

One of those effects was that it became harder to fall asleep. Another was that the quality of my sleep dropped, precipitously. This led to the sleep deprivation and one of the effects of sleep deprivation is heightened cortisol levels, i.e. stress.

In turn, one of the effects of stress is depression. It’s all linked together; your body and your mind are coupled, and what affects one affects the other.

  • Being sad made it hard to sleep
  • Being sleep deprived stressed me out
  • Being stressed out made me depressed

Even worse, my number one stress busting technique is exercise, and I was too tired for that. Eventually I began to get stress headaches, which also mean no sleep and no exercise.

Heart Health

But Andrew, you mentioned something about heart health, didn’t you?

Yes I did. In just 3 days my resting heart rate went up 4 bpm.

Then Sunday, I began the turn around.

  • I spent the day enjoying time with my family
  • I picked a small (very small) something from my to-do list, and did it.
  • I spent some alone time with my wife
  • I watched a couple of episodes in the BBC miniseries, “Pride and Prejudice”
  • I went to bed on time, and got a decent night’s sleep
  • Then yesterday I attacked another thing on my to do list, and then another
  • StandUpRight and I watched more of “Pride and Prejudice”
  • I got another, even better night’s sleep
  • I went for a good, hard run
  • Finally, I attended to a much larger item on my to-do list, by getting my JV campaign going.

And you know what funny little thing happened through all of this? The peak of my stress, exhaustion and depression coincided with the peak of my heart rate.

Conversely, as my stress went away, my sleep got better and my heartrate is dropping right back to its normal levels.

  • Socialization
  • Exercise
  • Tuning out
  • Family
  • Lifting the weight of the unfinished business

They all reduce your stress and they all work in a virtuous cycle to keep you healthy, happy and (relatively) stress free.

Teach Your Gift

Finally, if you have ever had any interest in creating a side income through teaching your unique expertise to the world, consider joining Danny Iny’s “Find your winning idea challenge.” I give you a lot more details here.

Or, you can get the word straight from the horses mouth here: https://mirasee.com/2020/tyg/challenge?AFFID=463550

What’s at the Top of Your Stress List?

by

When I ask the question, “What’s at the top of your stress list?” I don’t mean what is the number one source of stress in your life. The answer to that is generally pretty easy, our top sources of stress are (in no particular order):

  • Money
  • Job
  • Kids
  • Spouse
  • Commute

I say “in no particular order” because, while they are the biggies, your individual biggie might be different from mine. What’s more, it will probably change over time.

As it happens, for me number one is my kids. I love the little goobers more than life itself, but they are stressful:

  • Keeping them fed
  • Keeping them occupied
  • Keeping them out of trouble
  • Raising them to be independent
  • Letting them learn to take risks, while keeping them (usually unwittingly) safe
  • Endlessly repeating, “brush your teeth,” “practice the piano,” “stop jumping on the furniture,” “turn off the computer,”
  • Etc.

This is now. A few years ago, it was money, a few years before that it was my job, and before that, my wife. As I said, your top source of stress changes over time. You adapt, you change, you develop coping strategies and that top source changes with you.

No, what I’m talking about is an important, yet unfinished task. Something that is bugging you, but not enough to get you to actually do it. Ask yourself the following question:

What task have you not done, that you need to do, that you are stalling over, and that is causing you stress?

We all have them, I can think of six, right off the top of my head.

Before I sat down to write this, I had seven. There was a problem with my Canadian Tire points reward card, and it’s been bugging me. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been bugging me enough to actually, you know, actually do something about, only enough to cause me to fume about it.

Well, before I took the boys for our noon walk, I said, “Enough Andrew, you’re being stupid, DO SOMETHING.”

So I did. Then a funny thing happened, customer service fixed my problem, and it turns out that it wasn’t just one problem, it was three. It took ½ an hour, but when all was said and done, I went from torqued about the problem to happy with the solution.

Now, how did I know this was stressing me? When I called customer service, I was snarling at the CSR. The problem wasn’t her fault, so I really shouldn’t have been growling at her. Plus, I’m really not the type to get angry with CSRs. I know they’re just regular people earning a living, fixing angry people’s problems, problems that come from policies way outside their control.

I (almost) never speak to CSRs in anything other than a normal conversational tone, and I’m not happy that I started out that way. That I did is a measure of how much this problem was bugging me. Fortunately, I caught myself, and explained that I was not upset with her, apologized for my rudeness, and made myself calm down.

So, we’ve established that I was stressed by the problem. Can we establish that I was de-stressed by solving it?

How about this; from the moment I hung up the phone until I began to write this, I haven’t thought about Canadian Tire, or my reward points problem. Problem solved, weight lifted, stress gone, mental energy devoted to fussing about it diverted to something useful.

So, how about you?

What irritating tasks do you have left undone? Stupid little things that will consume time and resources, that you don’t want to do, but leaving them undone is stressing you.

Pick one.

Do it.

Trust me, you’ll feel better for it.

Categories

Archives