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

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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?

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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

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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.

Vacations, Sleep, Stress and Heart Health

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

Yesterday, instead of a yoga posture, the exercise I gave you was to walk your ass into the nearest mattress store and get yourself the best mattress you can afford. Obviously, in the context of Posture Monday, that was because a good mattress is good for your back and posture.

Well, in the context of Stress Relief Tuesday, the same advice would be in the context of getting a good night’s sleep, to help you control your stress.

Sleep away the stress

How good is a proper night’s sleep for fixing your stress? Well, I’m on vacation, which means I’m running myself ragged, particularly on this vacation, because it’s the last one I’ll ever have at the family cottage.

It being our last hoorah at this joint, I’m burning the candle at both ends, and in a couple spots in the middle, to ensure the best possible weekend for my boys, and for me. I want our last memories here to be happy ones.

Vacationing and having fun is one thing. Vacationing and ensuring that the last go around is one of joy, and happy memories, is exhausting, and stressful. And, in case I haven’t mentioned it more than, oh, a hundred times, the beds up here suck. No good, stress, relieving nights of sleep for ol’ Andrew.

Or are there?

Actually, yes, there are. The bed isn’t the most comfortable, and my back is aching, but I’m still getting good enough sleep that my stress is, for all intents and purposes, gone.

How gone?

The last couple of nights, after I banged out a little something for you to read, I pulled up season 7 of Last Man Standing. I saw Tim Allen on the comedy circuit way back when, and thought him mildly amusing. I watched a few episodes of Home Improvement, but never really took to it.

Last Man Standing, however, generally hits me dead centre on my funny bone, and sitting in this uncomfortable wicker chair, binging season 7, trying not to laugh out loud and wake the whole joint, I find myself checking my heartrate.

My stress is so low right now that my spot heartrate is lower than my daily average heartrate. That normally happens only when you’re asleep. I’ve gotten so relaxed these last few days that my damned heartrate dropped 4 beats per minute in two days.

So, yes indeed, get yourself a first rate mattress. It will help your back and posture, it will help you get better sleep, and that better sleep will help you everywhere else. You’ll be more patient, you’ll keep better perspective, and you’ll be able to enjoy time with your loved ones all the more.

But for short periods of time, a less comfortable mattress will do. As long as you can get decent sleep, as long as the bed isn’t contributing to your stress, you’ll be able to cope.

At least I’ve been able to.

Stress Relief – Depression, Sleep, Stress and Heart Health

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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

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