Stress Free: Completing Your Stress Cycle

Stress free.

Can you imagine what it would feel like to be stress free? Is there even such a thing?

I mean from a biological standpoint, when we do any sort of movement, this puts stress on our body such as our heart as it needs to pump harder. But this is the function of your body. It was made to handle these situations of stress. So can we ever be stress free as long as we’re alive?

Maybe trying to achieve a stress free life is the wrong goal. Especially when there’s so many things in this world that are out of your control, both big and small, such as the weather, climate change, traffic, etc. Stress is a normal part of life and everyone experiences it.

If you shift the goal to completing your stress cycle, this is a more achievable goal. So what is your stress cycle?

Your stress cycle is your body’s automatic response to a stressor, also known as the thing that causes you stress. This thing that causes you stress could be something happening outside of you (such as a traffic jam) or inside of you (such as a thought or indigestion). 

So whether you like it or not, when your body notices a stressor, which it can sometimes do before you consciously notice it, it prepares for it by starting your stress cycle. Your body begins to shift its energy so it’s ready to fight, flight, or freeze - whichever is needed in the situation to best help you survive the stressor.

Eventually the stressor will go away (either permanently or for a short time) and give you a break. An opportunity to relax and stop being in survival mode. But how do you get your body to relax?

Unfortunately, you can’t just tell yourself to relax, though it would be nice to say “hey body, the stress is gone, relax.” Trust me, I’ve tried this. I can remember sitting on vacation, telling myself that I had x amount of time to relax so I needed to chill out. And I spent the entire vacation thinking about all I had to do once my vacation was done, anxiously counting down the hours until I had to go back to work, being miserable the whole time.

When your stress response cycle is triggered you need to allow the cycle to finish. Just as your stress response cycle starts automatically, completing the cycle finishes automatically. There are things you can do to let your body know that it can finish it’s stress cycle and relax.

How to Completing Your Stress Cycle

• Physical Activity

 

• Deep, slow breathing

 

• Positive social interaction

 

• Belly laughter

 

• Affection

 

• A big ol’cry

 

• Creative expression

And just in case you’re wondering, I still to this day find that I’m better some days than others at completing my stress cycle. There are days when I’m struggling to keep my eyes open some nights and the moment I lie down in bed and close my eyes, boom, my mind turns on and I’m wide awake. This is when I know I didn’t regularly complete my stress cycle that day. 

So working on completing your stress cycle is a regular practice. And some days you’ll be able to do it better than other days and that’s okay.

If your stress has become too much for too long, check out my eBook "A Way Out of Burnout". It offers simple and practical steps so you can start your burnout recovery today so you can feel better ASAP. 
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