Stress Reducers

We all have stress.  By any objective standard, I've had a fair amount of personal stress in the last ten years.  Right now, there is a great deal of stress coming from the wider world, accompanied by a strong sense of helplessness.

Cortisol is known as the "stress hormone". Chronic elevated levels of cortisol cause inflammation, affect insulin, and drive hunger. Through these means, stress leads to belly fat.  Stress disrupts your sleep, which also leads to belly fat. Stress makes us fat!

Stress isn't going to go away, not any time soon.  Sometimes, the stress cannot be reduced, only absorbed.  These are my go-to ways to avoid sinking into carbohydrate bliss when bathed in an internal cortisol bath:

1. Take Action

Whatever the source of stress, it is compounded by feelings of helplessness (especially true for me, who wants badly to feel competent and in control).  So figure out, "what is the one thing I can actually do to impact the source of the stress?" Figure it out, and do it.  This is the fundamental approach to resilience - shit happens, and how you respond is your business.  Find an employment lawyer for job stress, call your elected representatives for civic stress, find a nanny or a therapist for stress from your kids, read on the internet to get smart about the reasons the stress exists and so find other things you can do.  I've done all these things.  It may not fix the problem, at least not at once, but I think of it as starting to chip away at it. Control the things you can, which is what you do.  And as you fall asleep, think "at least I did something".

2. Run or Walk

Not just any kind of exercise, but moving through the world helps me a lot.  Running gets the heart rate up higher than anything I do and creates a cascade of good effects through the body.  I listen to music when I'm running, but running is so hard I cannot run and ruminate at the same time. Afterwards, the stress hormones are presumably lower (says the science) and good hormones and good tiredness fill your body.

Walking takes longer, but can also absorb me.  Walking has probably saved my life several times over.  It's sometimes the one thing I can do to take action  (as in #1 above), when my problem is me. I can walk to exhaustion, thinking, just being present, or lost in a good book through headphones.  The main thing is to get outside and get tired.  Not just tired, exhausted.

3. Write

I'm not a "writer", in that I'm not a professional, nor is it how I describe myself, nor is it part of my interior definition of who I am and what I do.  And yet, I find at times, that writing is my way out of a stressful dilemma.  When I'm ruminating, turning things over and over in my mind, writing can help. This is private writing, not blogging like this, though sometimes blog posts have been drafted or thought of in private writing first. I have been a journal-keeper in the past, starting in high school, but I am far from regular now. However, I have shelf of blank books in my bedroom, most of them filled with my scrawlings, some of them yet blank and awaiting my thoughts.  I believe that morning pages - the practice of daily writing at least three pages first thing each day - combined with the walking to save my life back when I lived in Chicago.

These days my writing is generally at a keyboard.  I can type faster than I hand-write.  When I'm using writing as a stress absorber, often the words come tumbling out and have to be captured as quickly as I can think them.  Some times, that isn't the case, and I want the sensation of my hand gliding over the page, using a lovely pen on quality paper.  Not often, these days, though.  In fact, sometimes when I want the handwriting feeling, I use longhand - but on my ipad.  (That is how I move through my work day, handwriting free-form notes with different colors and pen widths, then being able to refer back to them weeks and months later, because they are filed neatly in my pretty Notability app.)

These days, my version of morning pages will be done on 750words.  This minimalist site is inspired by morning pages, but captures your words in a private session. It's slightly social, in that it posts who has written.  Of course one of the things I like is it counts words for your, and even does some elementary sentiment analysis on your words.  You make badges for consistency (number of days in a row) which everyone can see. Every month is a "write daily for the entire month" challenge with its own badges and encouragement. Having un-interrupted streaks is not so very important to me (though I've done the one-month challenge successfully a few times).  But when I use the site, the length is about right for me.  

Writing gets me out of repetitive cycles of ruminating thoughts, able to build on one thing written down, and move forward, instead of simply repeating over and over again.

4.  Meditate

I took a class called "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction".  MBSR is an 8-week class structure developed at Boston University by Jon Kabat-Zinn specifically to help patients coping with chronic, severe, or fatal illness.  I am neither religious nor spiritual, but this is very practical and doesn't go far into the woo-woo stuff that puts me off.  Later, my friend Kim introduced me to 10% Happier, by Dan Harris, who makes a skeptic's journey through the land of meditation.  Harris has developed a meditation app, which I now use regularly.  

An app for meditation, you say? Huh?  This particular app features brief (2-8 minute) video lectures or discussions on aspects of meditation, followed by guided meditations.  I find it helpful, and of course I love that it logs my minutes of meditation and gives me a record of how much I'm actually doing it.

I got into the meditation game persuaded by science that meditation "works". I believe it has helped me reduce self-imposed stress, by cutting my ruminations, and also helps me better handle the stress I can't reduce but have to live with. For me, that is working. 

5. Escape

Allow a book or movie to transport you out of yourself and your own problems.  Look at someone else's for a change.  However (and this is key) do NOT allow yourself to eat during this transportation. Eating doesn't have to be totally mindful all the time, but there is huge danger combining stress, food, and the silver screen.

6. Run Away

I do this from time to time.  Get in my car and go away. Sometimes for days. I have a couple of places that are my special places of power.  I gain strength by being outdoors and alone.  I don't want to talk to anyone, I disconnect, I go away.

I did this on election day.  I took the day off and took the dog for a long hike / rock scramble.  We were gone for six hours. I went home and dropped off the happy but tired old dog and walked to downtown to eat alone in a restaurant wearing earbuds for isolation, and then walked home - about a 3 mile round trip.  I was still jangly anxious, unable to sit down, and the dog was game for more travels around the neighborhood.  I went to sleep very early, woke up just after midnight, and only then broke my self-imposed isolation to check the phone. (Sadly, of course, the stress has only mounted since then.)

These are the things that keep me going in the face of stress.  I fight the impulse to succumb, to lie under the covers and ruminate, by some combination of the above things.  I imagine I can feel the cortisol coursing through my veins and I use these things to absorb it and move forward.