These are stressful times…
If you are like many people, you may be dealing with job stress, entrepreneurial stress or facing an unexpected event. Or you may suffer from chronic stress for many other reasons, such as financial struggles, unhealthy lifestyles and relationships.
All the demands you must deal with can make you feel beaten, drained and worn out — losing connections with yourself and others is easy.
Whether you are a parent, a student, an employee, employer or a healer, you can feel the pull of mindfulness training. You want to make your life better – to enhance your performance or mental clarity.
Maybe you want to manage stress and feel more balanced.
If you’ve been looking for mindful ways to manage stress, so you can accomplish your goals more effectively, then I will do my best to help you.
Here’s my approach: I am committed to helping you by learning and practicing mindfulness and stress-transforming techniques. I will be sharing what works for me, and hopefully, some of those methods will be suitable for your situation.
On this site, you will find info, tips & tools about stress management, stress relief, mindfulness, meditation, resilience and healing.
What happens when you are stressed out?
Your body produces stress hormones. Your mind tends to race; it becomes hard to focus. Your heart beats faster, and your breathing gets shallow. Your muscles tighten. The alarm sounds — prepare for fight or flight.
The fight or flight stress response has been with us since caveman times. It helped us survive hostile environments.
In modern times, our stress response hasn’t changed much, but our environments have changed drastically.
Short-term stress hormones can motivate you to overcome problems. Sure short-term stress can cause symptoms, but it’s the long-term stress that you should be worried about — it chokes the life right out you.
The rush and pressure of modern life can beat you up
Today, it’s not the threat of lions, but the rush and stress of modern life can beat you up real bad.
Almost daily our bodies are flooded with stress hormones which lead to instability because the frequency and intensity of stress are too much for us to handle.
But you can shift away from that…
The best starting point is by getting things under control, either by reducing stress, or learning how to manage stress so that it doesn’t manage you.
4 Quick Ways to Find Your Calm & Manage Stress
Life is stressful — stress management is less about getting rid of stress than it is about learning to handle the stress you will you undoubtedly encounter.
The first step is to identify your stressors — situations that trigger your body’s stress response. Being aware of the warning signs that you are becoming stressed will allow you to make adjustments to your lifestyles and activities — so you can create a stress-proof life.
Stress management tools can give you relief so you can better care for yourself and others. Here are just a few:
Breathing. Your body is always breathing. It is the most universal of mindfulness practices. Becoming mindful of your breath can calm your mind.
Breathing practices can allow you to examine your breath. As you learn to be steady your attention on your breathing, you will learn how to pause for a moment. Your mind and body will relax. Take it one breath at a time.
Meditation. One of my favorite daily practices to stress-proof the brain. Meditation is about training the mind — not about forcing it to be calm; it’s about bringing your mind to a natural place of rest.
Meditation is about focus, but it’s not about stopping thoughts or eliminating feelings, but about changing your relationships with passing thoughts and feelings. Meditation won’t change the stressful events, but it will change the way you relate to it.
Yoga. In Yoga, many techniques provide relief for stress. Yoga helps you slow down and tune into your breath. Yoga also uses an integrated approach — the core principle of yoga is that your body and your mind are connected.
Yoga can have a positive effect on your nervous system; it can aid in lowering your stress hormone levels and help you feel calmer.
Exercise. One of the most powerful stress management tools. Your body is designed to be active. Just by getting up and moving you can neutralize the stress response.
Exercise releases powerful chemicals in the brain that build up during the stress response. It’s like meditation in motion. After a rousing workout, you will ease away all your tension. Regular exercise can also boost your resiliency to stress.
What The Stress Factor is NOT
Mindfulness involves training the brain to deal with stress and negative emotions using various techniques such as meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga.
We are not about taking drugs
There are natural ways to overcome stress without medications. However, becoming stress-proof doesn’t happen overnight. What works for me might not work for everyone. I am not making medical claims.
The Stress Factor is NOT a Substitute for a Mental Health Professional
In spite of the undeniable benefits of mindfulness stress management, not everyone suffering from chronic stress will benefit from meditation.
Therefore, mindfulness is not a cure-all for mental illness. In the case of severe depression and anxiety, adjunct therapies may be needed. Please be advised: some therapists, inspired by Buddhist philosophies combine mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavior therapy. Further, studies show that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is beneficial for general psychological health and stress management.
Stress Management essential #1
The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Online Course (MBRS)
Learning Mindfulness will help you relate directly to whatever is happening in your life, and systematically work with your stress and the challenges and demands of everyday life.
There are a lot of options for mindfulness training, but we’re recommending MBRS.
People who complete the MBSR report an increased ability to cope more effectively with both short and long-term stressful situations.
MBSR has benefited people with stress from work, school, family, finances, illness, aging, grief, and uncertainty about the future.
Stress Management essential #2
Meditation Assistant: Meditation works to relieve stress. Studies indicate that people who are meditating have lower blood-pressure, slower breath and brain waves that signal a deep relaxation.
There are many forms of meditations such as sitting yoga meditation, mantra meditation, mandala meditation, and my favorite mindfulness meditation.
Although there are broad categories of meditations, It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. Modern life promotes an unfocused mind; meditation is about the honing of focus.
To get the most out of meditation, you should make meditation a daily habit. Here are here are two products that make it easy and possible to do it anywhere.
Headspace App
A personal meditation guide
There are over 2000 meditation apps out there, but Headspace is one that’s ideal for people just starting a meditation routine.
Headspace advises: You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings. You’re learning to observe them without judgment. Try Headspace.
Muse – Your Personal Meditation Assistant
The Brain-Sensing Headband. Do More With Your Mind
Muse teaches meditation and makes it easy and more enjoyable. Real-time EEG based neurofeedback helps you measure and strengthen your ability to focus. It uses soothing sounds to keep you calm and gently guide you to a meditative state.
Stress Management essential #3
Discover How to Pay Attention to Your Breathing
When stressed, people tend to breath short and shallow. The problem: you don’t realize how you are breathing until after you lost your calm.
Rapid shallow breathing — usually chest breathing — is often associated with the stress response and can result in, headaches, light-headedness, racing hearts, panic attacks, agitation and more.
By increasing your awareness of your breathing patterns, you can shift away from chest breathing to stomach breathing, and become balanced quickly — it’s the easiest way to bring about the relaxation response.
There are easy ways to be mindful of your breathing with wearable technology.
Spire Stone — Wearable Stress Management
Spire stone is a small, wearable device that tracks your breathing. When Spire senses a change in your breath — when your breathing is short and tense — it sends a notification to your phone — to guide you slow down and normalize your breaths. Heading off tension before you even realize it’s happening. Spire Stone helps you understand what, where, and who causes you to be stressed. Try Spire Stone.
Now is the time to make a breakthrough…
By learning to draw upon your inner resources and natural capacity for balance, you can reframe your negative thoughts into something more authentic so you can see stress differently.
True health is found in a peaceful mind…
In a positive attitude toward life that refuses to be defeated by anything.
The moment you loosen your grip on your negative thoughts, you are free.
I Appreciate You!
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE
I’m here for you as both a guide and as someone who is just like you.
I want to hear your stories. I want to know how else I can help you. I want the Stress Factor experience to be our experience.
That’s how we all learn and grow together.
D.E. Boone