9 Ways to de-Stress

7/27/2019 9 Ways to de-Stress

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9 Ways to De-Stress

Zen is not my middle name. I apply obligation and pressure the way other people apply sunscreenuntil

it seeps through my pores. Then, my stress alarms start swirling like the red light on a police car: Youre

late. The fridge is empty. The deadline was yesterday. Even on Sunday, when I lie, sarcophagus-like,

under a pile of restful newspapers, at the back of my noggin I see the glow of the red light. My brain just

wont shut off to give me a blinking break from feeling like the cartoon character with her finger in an

electrical socket, frazzled up to my fractured eyeballs. For once, Id like to know just what all the stress is

about. Why do our bodies churn like angry turbines? Is stress just some antiquated throwback we dont

need? Is its internal commotion helping or hurting us? Is it something we have no control over or can

we harness it, parceling it out only when we need its motivating force? Im on a mission to answer these

questions.

Stress, THE GOOD GUY

So, what exactly is this monster called stress that keeps me up at night and driven by day? For starters,

its not a monsteror at least its not trying to be. Stress, in the short term, is my defender, says Gabor

Mat, M.D., a physician in Vancouver, British Columbia, and author of When the Body Says No: Exploring

the Stress-Disease Connection (Wiley). Acute stress is simply a necessary self-protective mechanism

the bodys fight or- flight response, he says. An emotion like fear may trigger the response, but its a

physiological reaction that you may or may not be aware of. This fight-or-flight response was at its best

for our forebears facing hungry lions. A stress episode then was a shortalbeit complicatedburst,


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revving up every body system to win a battle or get away. My forebears brainin particular the frontal

cortex, the brains executive centersent a red alert to the hypothalamus, the hormonal control center,

triggering a flood of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. The cortisol elevates blood sugar

levels, mobilizing energy for a quick escape, says Mat. The adrenaline provides more energy to fight.

At the same time, this cocktail of stress hormones prompts the heart to quadruple the amount of blood

it pumps, from about 5 quarts to 20 quarts a minute, providing more energy. But the blood travels a

different route, away from the skin, gut and kidneys to the muscles, so that energy can be used to fight

or flee. Blood pressure, heart rate and breathing rates increase, the airways dilate, and the liver starts

converting glycogenthe raw material of our bodys fuelinto glucose, or blood sugar, again for power

to battle or retreat. In modern times, of course, were not confronting hungry animals. But our bodies

react exactly the same way, say, if a car swerves into our lane or our child slips off the seesaw. Our

entire body mobilizes to turn away from the feckless car or catch the falling child.

However, despite these crucialsometimes lifesavingbenefits of stress, most of us obsess about it like

we do the bad neighbor we cant get rid of. And so do the media, either telling us constantly how

stressed out we are or giving us something else to stress about. Every ad I see is for some illness or

disability in the body and spirits, says Judith Orloff, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry at University of

California, Los Angeles, and author of Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions

and Transform Your Life (Three Rivers Press). The media program us to be stressed out and sick.

When good stress GOES BAD

We no longer live in a world of the occasional threat. Our lions24/7 access to information, long work

hours, traffic jams, tough marriages, errant kidsare everywhere. But even seemingly innocuous

aspects of our lives are stressors, says Brad Lichtenstein, N.D., a naturopathic physician and assistantprofessor at Bastyr University in Seattle. Stress is any force exerted on the mind and body,

Lichtenstein explains. So, by definition even gravity is stress, exercise is stress, eating is stress.

Unfortunately, our bodies havent caught up with modernity, and they are paying a scary price for the

fairly constant fight-or-flight response our frenetic lives seem to require.

Candance Reaves, 55, a writer in Seymour, Tenn., spent 10 years caring for her dying mother. After her

mothers death two years ago, Reaves developed depression, anxiety, and a constant pain in her

shoulders and neck. That was where the stress manifested itself after my mother died, she says. It

was the culmination of the stress that I felt being pulled one way or the other over 10 years. I didnt

have a life. What Reaves enduredand what most of us experience to varying degreeswasunremitting stress, a modern phenomenon that takes a very different toll on our bodies than a quick

burst of stress that resolves within minutes. The problem with a chronic stress response is that you

produce so much cortisol that your adrenal glandsthe factories that produce and regulate our stress

hormonespoop out, says Lichtenstein. The result? Constant fatigue, emotional chaos and decreased

immunity. In fact, a number of studies have shown that stress has a direct effect on the immune system.

For example, research conducted at Ohio State University in 2008 found that older caregivers of family


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members with dementia did not respond well to vaccines, had less defense against viruses as well as

more inflammation and accelerated aging of their cells compared with adults who were not caregivers.

A similar 2004 University of California, San Francisco, study of middle-aged mothers looked at their

telomeres, DNA proteins that are markers of biological aging. Thirty-nine moms were caring for an ill

child and 19 for a well one. The chronically stressed mothers with sick kids had shorter telomeres than

the moms of healthy children; researchers surmised this was about a decades difference in terms of

aging. And the effect of chronic stress on the immune system is just the start. Adrenaline increases

blood pressure and damages your heart, increasing your risk of stroke, says Mat. Cortisol gives you

ulcers and puts fat on your body in a way that promotes heart disease and diabetes. In fact, Mat

believes that chronic stress plays some part in all chronic illnesses. The psychological ravages are just as

brutal. As Judith Orloff notes, long-term stress depletes the body of serotonin, a feel-good

neurotransmitter: That makes you depressed and cloudy, so you cant concentrate. With chronic

adrenaline, youre also hyper and more irritable. Everything becomes a big deal because its hard not to

sweat the small stuff.

Leslie Levine, 51, a writer and mother of two in Northbrook, Ill., knows all too well the dangers of

sweating the small stuff, as she stresses over whether to take store-bought or homemade cookies to a

lake-side picnic. I wish I was one of those mothers who wouldnt think twice about buying the cookies

at Costco. But me, I think, Do I take the cookies out and wrap them in aluminum foil so it looks like I

made them? Such indecision doesnt come from wimpy genes. Its because sometimes I have to be

three places at once, says Levine. I often find myself wondering, What do I have to do today so that at

5 oclock when my kids get home, Im not a bitch on wheels?

Trading bad stress FOR GOOD

What we need, of course, is to get a handle on stress, to ease it back like we do a fussy child. Our health

will suffer if we dont, and so will our ability to respond to stress when necessary. After all, good stress is

our on light, the power behind meeting deadlines, getting the dinner cooked before the guests arrive,

or exercising instead of reaching for the ice cream. It powers motivation.

Certainly, thats true for Erin Munroe, 35, a child and adolescent therapist and mother of an 11-month-

old in Boston: I used to have a job with summers off, and I didnt know how to function without some

stress. I needed to find a way to be productive. But Munroe hit her limits when her son cried nonstop

for his first 14 weeks of life. I was still working full time, taking care of my child, keeping the houseclean and trying to be perfect. I was breastfeeding and felt really ill, and I ended up with a breast

infection. Munroe had reached the point, as Mat describes it, when the body says no. If were on all

the time, our motor no longer revs. Thom E. Lobe, M.D., founder and director of the Beneveda Medical

Group in Beverly Hills, Calif., describes it this way: When were stressed, our adrenals glands are spent.

And then we press the gas when we really need to go and nothing happens. In a sense, we become less

attuned to our own bodys alarms, says Kim Turk, LMBT, director of massage services at Duke Integrative


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Medicine in Durham, N.C. Its called somatic numbingwhen the mind and body are completely

disconnected, she says. Like a mom in a grocery store whose kid is yelling at her but she doesnt hear

him anymore, we stop listening to our bodies. Or when youre tight in your neck and shoulders, but you

have no idea that you are.

So, how to get to our happy place? We know that stress, good and bad, is part of life. So how can we

control the worst of it so that good stress can work for us when we need it? Here are the key steps

experts insist on.

1. Run a priority scan

Once you know whats keeping your lights on 24/7, you can figure which ones to turn low. When her

mother became ill and died seven years ago, Rebecca Brooks, 40, a mom of two sons and president of a

public relations firm in New York City, knew family had to be her focus. I realized thenthat I couldnt

manage everything myself, she says. Brooks learned to delegate and prioritize. She beefed up her staff,

and she started leaving work at the office. Now when the kids have something school-related, Im

always there, she says.

2. Listen to your gut

Part of stress reduction is learning to listen to what your gut tells you about your life, about people,

about a situation, says Orloff. Ask, Does my energy go up or down when Im around this person? My

stress level? How do I feel about this job? Did I leave the job interview feeling sick? Factor the answers

into your decisions. Mary Saunders, L.Ac., an acupuncturist in Boulder, Colo., agrees. You have to ask

yourself, Whats going on that makes me feel this wayoverwhelmed, bitchy, shorttempered? she

says. In other words, you have to face whats stressing you out rather than turn away from it.

3. Calm your system down

Of course, it may take more than a little introspection to right your cart. Candance Reaves tried

antidepressants, poetry and physical therapy before hitting on a yoga-meditation class that restored

what grief and fatigue had robbed. The class allows me to have that out-of- the-body experience when

I can look at things differently and really focus, she says. When I feel stressed now, I sit down and do

deep breathing for 10 minutes. At the end Im focused about what I need to get done first. It gives me

energy and peace. Even three-minute meditations can re-center you, says Orloff. She practices them

throughout her daya way of turning off stress and turning on endorphins, the bodys feel-good

neurochemicals. Find a comfortable place, she says. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths andbegin to quiet your thoughts. Picture yourself breathing in calm, breathing out stress, and find an image

that relaxes youmine is the night sky. This quickly turns off the stress response because youre slowing

down your system.


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4. Drop stressful de-stressors

One persons de-stressor is another persons toxin. Driving to a gym, circling for a parking space,

pumping iron and returning to a ticketed car, for example, isnt my idea of relaxing. Erin Munroe had a

similar experience. I was taking hot yoga at 5 a.m. to help me chill out. It was all type-A people and very

competitive. The class made me crazy; I would get mad that someone could do a Tree pose better than

me. Now I take hatha yoga with people in sweatpants and Ive realized I dont need to exercise 9,000

hours a week.

5. De-stress your diet

Even if we cant change the traffic or long work hours that shred our nervous systems, we can change

habits that frazzle them. For instance, I love coffee. But adding stimulants to my body is like adding

rocket fuel: I orbit all night. So, I limit myself to one cup, switch to black tea after that and sleep like the

stress-free baby Im not. Thats an approach Terry Courtney, M.P.H., L.Ac., dean of the School of

Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine at Bastyr University, advises for her frazzled clients. Caffeine

stimulates the same stress hormonescortisol and adrenalineyoure trying to reduce. And sugar

offers an energy rush, soon followed by fatigue as your blood sugar drops. Youre left without

resources for building energy on your own, says Courtney. Caffeine also interrupts sleep, so you wake

up tiredwanting more caffeine and sugar. But Courtney doesnt recommend going cold turkey,

knowing shed give a coffee lover like me the shakes. Just look at your patterns and see whats

reasonable, she says.

6. Supplement your stress

Take a good multivitamin, one that includes a B vitamin complex with folate, says Donna Bryant

Winston, R.N., an herbalist and nurse at Donegan Clinic in Bethlehem, Pa. These vitamins help in the

production of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, which relieve anxiety. Vitamin B-rich foods include

whole grains, nuts, dried fruits and eggs. Folate helps stabilize our mood and can be found in dark leafy

green vegetables and beans. Turkey contains an amino acid called L-tryptophan, which also helps

increase serotonin levels and calm us. Saunders also recommends magnesium. Its probably the best

supplement for calming the nervous system overall, she says. Its very alkalizingand the more

alkaline the system, the more resistant the body is to illness and stress. To alkalize the body, limit highly

acidic foods (coffee, alcohol, meat and sugar) and load up on highly alkaline foods (vegetables and fruit).

7. Let the sunshine in

Sunshine stimulates the production of vitamin D in our bodies, essential for replenishing the adrenalglands, says Lobe. Go outside for 20 minutes a day without sunscreen or sunglasses; Lobe also

recommends taking 4,000 to 8,000 IU of vitamin D a day.

8. Exercise

When Im really stressed, exercise is a big outletand I have a better workout, says Brooks, who

spins, walks, kick-boxes or does yoga before work five days a week. It helps me get my aggression out.


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Saunders also exercises regularly, practicing yoga and taking daily hourlong walks. In Chinese medicine,

we say that physical movement helps to move the qi, or energy, through the system. In fact, according

to a 2010 University of California, San Francisco, study of stressed-out women, most of whom were

caregivers, the women who exercised vigorously for an average of just 13 minutes a day had fewer signs

of agingthe longer telomeres againthan their inactive counterparts.

9. Cultivate active rest

Thats very different from collapsing at the end of the day, says Lichtenstein. Thats just exhaustion, he

says. Active rest is spending time relaxing in a way that rejuvenates youhanging out with friends,

listening to music, reading or meditating. All of these are a form of meditation that gives focused

attention to the moment. In a 2009 study conducted at West Virginia University, 35 stressed-out

people were taught mindfulness techniques, such as deep breathing and meditation. At the end of three

months, they had a 54 percent drop in psychological distress and a 46 percent drop in medical

symptoms (high blood pressure, aches and pains among them). The control group had little reduction of

stress and an increase in medical symptoms.

Use stress to your advantage

Theres a difference between a positive growth response to stress and using stress as a defense, says

Saunders. If itsthe kind of stress that promotes growth, Im all for it. For instance, Saunders

sometimes finds long meditation retreats stressful. But I know that inner work is promoting growth,

she says. Thats a different stress than forcing herself to do something just because she thinks she

should. I hear a lot of women say I should do this job or keep this marriage going, Saunders adds. We

have this idea that its selfish to say no. But you have to learn to say no, to set boundaries so you havetime to do what sustains you. All of this stress dissection has been strangely calming. With a little

attention from mesome slow breathing, a pinch of thankfulness, a no-weekend rule about e-mails

Im finally realizing that stress doesnt have to be my personal rumba 24/7. I may always have a higher

idle than Id like, but knowing that I can make some stress work for me injects a little pride in my two-

step. It helps me relax. And yes, even stress less.

9 Ways to de-Stress

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