9 Ways to Find Relief From Stress
Let’s dig deeper into why it is very important to have a balanced stress mindset during the lockdown in a world pandemic.
Photo by nikko macaspac
Originally published on Medium.
Primarily because we know now, that traumatic stress can be passed down and if not treated or healed; can cause short-term and long-term problems known as mental terminal diseases. For example Alzheimer’s and dementia.
This is what my family and I personally experience as caregivers of my mother who died last year, at a young age from these two terminal illnesses. I’ve seen what trauma, repressing feelings or voicing your concerns, constant stress, and not seeking help can do to a human brain. These are deadly if you don’t take care of them. I hope this article helps you be kinder to your mind, as you deal with stressful situations brought forward since last year in March.
Although at your own pace.
Living and surviving through a world pandemic plus working from home or not. It’s not easy. Financial, emotional, and physical extreme or chronic stress, are huge for those who are suffering due to internal and marginalized unequal systems.
S1:E6
Now, here is why editing podcasts, creating content, and writing blogs have been affecting productivity since the new year started. Because as a woman of color environmentalist and spiritual activist, I cannot stay silent while my people are suffering and dying.
My daughter's and children's futures are on the line. And if I can do something about it. I will.
Integrity and truth are my core values and fortunately, are gifts from God and my ancient spirit; I would NOT let this city or these F*& systems take it away from me. If I can save the people I love and those who are voiceless somehow, I’m going to do it. There are dumb, greedy, selfish bigots “leaders” controlled by Billionaires and they ALL need to be held accountable for their actions.
This is for those who still think “systemic racism”, “inequality”, “sexism” and “white supremacy” don’t exist...
Yeah, tell that to those suffering and living it every. single. day…
Sexism, patriarchy, police brutality, injustice… This is normal for y'all?
Do you think this is fair? Where is the empathy of the Quebec city population?
As in my previous blog about online school is better than forcing kids and teachers to risk their lives during a world pandemic. The school has been open for less than a week. My point is, lack of leadership and rotten, greedy, racist, and white supremacy leaders should NOT BE IN POWER.
These already are the few stressors in themselves. Plus adding on top, being a parent. And yes, stressors vary in magnitude and it does matter; if you have a disability, homelessness, dealing with abuse at home while in lockdown, single parenting, parents with disabled children, or people who take care of someone with disabilities or a caregiver.
Please is not sane, to try to keep the same work habits, expectations, and just the same mentality as before. Watch out for employers, or any company enforcing this mental insanity. Remember, if you die or something happens to you. The company you work for will still function as is. They don’t give a crap about you. Take care of yourself, have boundaries to honor your well-being first, with everything, and be kind to yourself as you are with everyone else.
In order for change to occur in the world, it must start with us internally. Self-awareness plus creating more space for consciousness can help you with the process. Remember, working on your mindset helps you immensely with managing your emotions while dealing with stressful situations.
What is stress and what causes stress?
Stress is your body’s response to a demanding situation. Your brain causes hormones to flood your system. These increase your heart rate, regulate your blood pressure, expand or constrict the capacity of your lungs, and tense muscles. Before you are fully aware of what is happening, your body is primed for action. When a stressful episode is over, your body comes off “high alert” and returns to normal.
Good and Bad Stress
Stress is a natural response that enables you to deal with challenging or dangerous situations. The stress response begins in your brain. Beneficial stress enables you to act or react quickly. A certain amount of stress can also help you to reach your goals or to perform better, perhaps during an exam, a job interview, or a sporting event.
However, prolonged, extreme, or chronic stress can harm you.
When your body is repeatedly or constantly on “high alert”, you begin to suffer physically, emotionally, and mentally. Your behavior, including the way you treat others, may change.
Chronic stress can also lead to substance abuse and other unhealthy means of coping. It may even spiral into depression, burnout, or thoughts of suicide. For example, here during the lockdown, all stores must be closed, except for “essential items” in some stores but the liquor and weed stores are open…can someone explain to me this logic? There isn’t. Injustice and oppression are considered normal and that needs to change.
While stress may not affect everyone in the same way, it can contribute to a wide range of diseases. And it can affect nearly every part of the body.
9 Ways of How to Deal with Stress
Photo by Ty Williams
To deal effectively with stress, you need to think about your physical health, the way you interact with others, and your goals and priorities in life — that is, what you consider to be truly important.
These 9 I’ve started to apply to my hectic single mom, creative entrepreneur, and Environmentalist spiritual activism. It has helped improve some aspects of my life (still a work-in-progress), created more self-awareness and daily healthy mental habits. I hope it helps you in some way while we are in lockdown.
1. Try to Live One Day at Time.
This, my mom, used to say all the time, it wasn’t until we were further into the progression of her illness, that we started to understand the meaning of this.
It is very important to keep working on this daily and apply it to anything you want or need to do. Meaning, daily anxieties are part of life. But do not increase today’s anxieties by adding tomorrow’s to them. Try to live one day at a time.
Stress can cause anxiety.
So try this: First, recognize that some stress is inevitable. Fretting over things you cannot prevent increases your stress. Second, understand that quite often things do not turn out the way we may fear they will. Third, write down what’s urgent to do and what's important. This has been helping to simplify and create mental clarity during these times. Be kind to yourself and do one thing at a time. A great book that helped with this:
2. Set Reasonable Standards
This I had to learn the hard way as I was a perfectionist. Do not be a perfectionist. Avoid setting unrealistically high standards for yourself or others.
This is a daily and constant progress, for people who have suffered any type of abuse as a child or have grown up with narcissistic family ecosystems.
It’s not your fault, but it is YOUR responsibility to heal and work on this.
Narcissistic abuse, judging, lying, using hate speech, and manipulating are toxic traits and should not be untreated.
In other words, parents of today; if you are reading this. Get counseling or a trauma therapist to help you deal with and raise healthy plus conscious children. I love my parents and now as I am one, understand their past actions.
I forgive them because I know now what they didn’t know then; with no resources or a support system to rely on. However, I don’t forget that I survived 6 types of childhood abuse. Priorities are different once you are a parent or you are in charge of kids.
We get to choose once we are aware, change the toxic behaviors, and start healing. Especially, if we don’t want to pass down toxic patterns to our kids or children who are in our care (teachers, educators, educational administrations, daycares, nannies, and caregivers).
Remember, just like some stress is inevitable, so is passing down unresolved and unhealed abuse from childhood. Ex: In Spanish or Latino cultures. There is the term called “Chancla culture”.
Chancla culture, as I define it, is the use of oppressive strategies — including corporal punishment, shame, and fear — to manipulate children into behaving, which causes significant harm to a child’s development and emotional development especially when employed long-term. In a concrete sense, La Chancla is in reference to a sandal or flip-flop, and in Latinx culture, it is frequently referenced as having been used by our immigrant or Latina mothers to get children to change behavior by either threatening or actively using it to physically hurt us as children.
Through colonial violence, there were very real attempts made to subjugate, convert, and divide the people who were originally on this continent in order to acquire resources and wealth. Again, these strategies of intrafamilial oppression, often traumatic and harmful to growing brains, can be traced back in previous centuries to European childhood and its effects on growing adults. Therefore, chancla culture is another plague brought by colonizers that we continue to fight, heal from, and now must decolonize. _Shannon Melero
Decolonization of parenting and education is vital, which can help set reasonable expectations. Less internal and external judgment, guilt, or shame.
Be modest, set reasonable standards, and know both your limitations and those of others. When you do this, you will reduce stress all around and even encourage greater success. Also, keep a sense of humor. When you laugh — even when something goes wrong — you relieve tension and brighten your mood. Keep smiling and be reasonable with yourself and others.
3. Know What Stresses You
Photo by Kelly Sikkema
Negative emotions can cloud clear thinking, so try to stay calm in any situation.
Identify what stresses you, and note your response. For example, when you feel stressed, note your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I record my stressors. This has helped with becoming more aware of my response to stress and helps deal with them more effectively. Everyone is different and the way we deal with stress varies tremendously.
Another one that has helped, is to eliminate stressful things from your life. If that is unrealistic, look for ways to reduce their impact, perhaps by managing your tasks or time more efficiently. This is a working progress for most of us, so be gentle with yourself while you find ways to decompress from daily stressors.
Try to see things in a different light, what stresses you may not stress someone else. The difference is from your perception of it. Suggestions:
Do not be quick to assume bad motives.
See the positive side of a situation.
Keep the big picture in mind. “will this problem be a big issue tomorrow or next week? Distinguish between minor or short-term issues and more serious ones.
4.Try to be Orderly
Try to maintain and nurture order with some flexibility in your life.
We, humans, are creatures that can adapt and change habits rapidly.
Creating a reasonable amount of order can help improve your life.
From experience, I suggest that if you must procrastinate do it with an intention in mind.
Because this can contribute to disorder — and stress — which procrastination with lack of motivation or lack mindset. This leads to a huge growing list of unfinished tasks or anything you want to do. Suggestions I started before the year: 1. Make a practical schedule, and stick with it! 2. Identify and correct any attitudes that cause you to *procrastinate.
*Any creative, artist, musicians, managers of operation, marketing, and filmmakers/content creators; procrastination is part of the creative process.
If you must procrastinate in order for any projects or ideas to flourish. It is vital that you do. Don’t listen or work with people who devalue the creative process. Good quality is better and it always yields higher returns. People cannot demand good quality and expect fast results. If they want fast results, they must specify to what extent. Here also depends on experience. You must hold true to yourself (integrity) and be clear, especially if you lack experience, that you can do it fast, but it won’t be good quality. Creativity cannot be rushed. This also goes for writers, painters, illustrators, and any designers. Do your thing at your pace and be clear with others' expectations of you.
5. Pursue a Balanced Lifestyle That Works for You.
As a workaholic and others who have embraced the “Work hard Hustle, hustle, hustle” mentality. We can often deprive ourselves of the benefits of the “two handfuls of hard work”.
In other words, we often have no time or energy left to enjoy what we work so hard for. This I came to realize last year, which is one of the many things I’m so grateful for learning to unlearn during a pandemic. Suggestions that have worked:
Have a realistic view of work and money. More money does not mean more happiness or less stress. In fact, the opposite can be true. “The plenty belonging to the rich one does not permit him to sleep,” says Ecclesiastes 5:12. Try to live within your means mindset. It helped me reduce financial stress when I didn’t have a place to live for 6 months last year.
Make time to relax. You relieve stress when you do things you enjoy. Ex: I started painting again, and I find it therapeutic whenever I’m too overwhelmed or anxious.
Keep technology in its place after you are done working, be aware and mindful of your consumption on social media channels.
In other words, don’t let the media, advertising, and sucking your time platforms; control you. It must be ALWAYS the other way around.
YOU ARE THE PRODUCT AND YOU ARE GIVING YOUR INFORMATION FREELY.
Avoid constantly checking emails, texts, or social media when you are in your zen or focus. It disrupts clarity.
As a digital marketing consultant and content creator, this was really hard to prioritize. However, is working on my self-discipline for a while, has helped me recognize that self-discipline is a rebellious act of self-love; while everything externally is trying to bring you down. Self-love is vital while doing inner work, dismantle oppressive systems, and spiritual activism.
It is why I started to reduce a lot of my time and of my team, on any of the platforms. It must be with intention and impact in mind if it is not. Then, it doesn’t need to be posted or wasted time scrolling. Mindful scrolling is better, it helps to only follow accounts you love and support. But also, that they reciprocate the same love, values and support you, as you do them. If it is not there, don’t waste your time.
6. Take Care of Your Health
Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart
Meaning, regular exercise promotes better health. These 3 things have helped keep my health a priority these days.
Develop healthful habits. Physical activity lifts your mood and improves your body’s responses to stress. Eat nutritious food, and try to avoid skipping meals. Be sure to get enough rest. (This is a working progress, but is vital for our survival during a world pandemic).
Avoid harmful “solutions” to stress, such as alcohol or hard-core drugs. In the long run, this heightened stress, perhaps by robbing you of your health and hard-earned money. Note: Smoking weed after work and when everything is done, (moderately, don’t get stone all day or do it every day and do nothing. That doesn't help you or those around you. Do it with intention and never smoke when you are depressed, sad, or too stressed. It causes the opposite effect.) and CBD or essential oils have been helping a lot during these times.
See your doctor if your stress becomes overwhelming. Getting professional help is not an admission of failure. My therapist saved my life last year, don’t ever feel ashamed for seeking help. It’s self-care for your brain. Do it.
To the people of Quebec that Gyms are closed. Do not let that stop you from doing your regular routine for your body at home. Watch on YouTube or if you had a trainer before, keep your routines on zooms or facetime. There are a lot of amazing coaches creating daily challenges. Ex: my favorite is Yoga with Adriene. My daughters and I love her yoga teaching. We are doing this month her BREATH yoga 30 days challenge. Here check it out :)
7. Set Priorities
Meaning: Carefully consider your priorities.
List your tasks in order of importance. This will help you focus on the more important jobs, and it will reveal which ones you can put off, delegate, or even eliminate.
For a week, keep track of how you use your time. Then look for ways to make better use of it. The more you are in control, the less pressured or the overwhelming expectations you will feel.
Schedule some downtime. Even short breaks can reinvigorate you and reduce your stress.
As well, add in that schedule, dishes, getting groceries, laundry, cleaning; If you are a parent: time to be more present with your kids, helping them with homework, helping them deal with this fuck up system that does not care about them. Decluttering your space and ecosystems, unfollowing toxic people, creating a list of BIPOC owned businesses to support, donating, and helping others in need, self-care time, phone calls, facetime, or zoom in with loved ones. Yep, prioritize your schedule that should reflect empathy for yourself and others.
8. Get and Give Support
United Nations COVID-19 Response
“Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give”-Unknown.
Kind, compassionate words from others can lift your spirits.
Talk things over with an understanding person. A confidant may help you to see things differently or even to see a solution you overlooked. And just unburdening yourself can make you feel better. But, remember to check first if that person is emotionally ready to hear you. It is kind to respect people’s boundaries and emotional well-being.
If a work associate or family member stresses you, look for ways to improve the situation. For example, could you kindly and tactfully tell the person how he or she makes you feel? If they still continue to stress you and disrespect your boundaries. Time to let go and cut it off. Trust me, your mental and emotional well-being will be much better because of it.
Ask for help. Can you delegate a task or share the workload? This is something that I was weird to write about because I’ve been working on my own for a long time. It was hard to delegate to my team in the past. However, It slows the process of growing. Another thing, I don’t feel comfortable asking people to help me when I can’t support them financially yet during a pandemic. In the same way, I would not appreciate someone asking me to help them with their work, spend time and space while I’m struggling to survive. It’s not fair and encourages Inequality more. Which is why I don't.
However, there are many people who can afford to help others and it doesn’t affect their survival. They want to see what happens if we all build equity and a circular economy, together. If anything, they want to help but their voices are not being heard. People still living with their parents, students who want to grow, white allies of BIPOC communities who are tired of injustice and they want to use their white privilege to keep amplifying, elderly ❤ people with disabilities who want to make a difference too. Those who have reached, from listening to this episode. I love you and yes, we are going to make magic together. Stay Tuned!
9. Care For Your Spiritual Need
As humans, we need more than food, clothing, and shelter. We have a spiritual need. To be happy, we must be conscious of that need and attend to it.
Meditation and prayer can be of big help. These two daily practices have brought as a result a deep inner peace that I never thought I would find during these times.
Reading and writing a lot too. Listing to podcasts, Youtube spiritual coaches, and reading spiritual uplifting things has helped immensely. These can bring practical inner wisdom and create clear thinking abilities. Try it for a week and let me know how you feel ❤
Teaching my daughters this as toddlers now, which has been helping my oldest daughter deal with the strict guidelines inside her school. As well, that she is a very sensitive child. She might be an empath like me, which is why I’m teaching her early to understand what her emotions are and when she’s feeling and absorbing someone else's emotions.
She’s been telling me about how teachers are meaner and super stressed these days. Which is understandable but not excusable (deal with yourself first). They have kids at home as well and don’t want to get the virus.
Again, this is preventable if we had better leaders running this city. This pandemic is affecting the mental and emotional well-being the most, of those in the front line, BIPOC communities, and essential workers right now. Lack of leadership and staying silent is violence and it is NOT sustainable.
Be kind to your planet, to you, and others.
Love and Light,
_AO.
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