5 Pillars for Managing Stress
We are beautifully complex creatures, and we need a variety of things to keep us flowing in our lives. As someone who has struggled with stress and creating the space in my life to take care of my wellbeing, I have spent countless hours of my free time reading books and listening to podcasts in pursuit of the knowledge to bring greater equilibrium into my life. I completed my first teacher training in ashtanga and hatha yoga in Rishikesh, India, and have since completed a teaching apprenticeship here in London, as well as specialised training courses on Yoga and Depression, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Injury & Pain Management and take new courses each year. 2020 led me to study Coaching for Personal and Professional Mastery and add coaching to my toolbox.
Everything I share in my work, I have tested in my own life. I know that more is possible for you, and it is my aim to share the knowledge I have gathered and continue to gather, with you in an accessible way.
To manage stress and increase flow, I prioritise these 5 pillars:
1. Rest
To busy people, sleep can sometimes feel like an inconvenience. Convenient or not, rest is productive. With adequate rest we are able to be more efficient, get more done and prevent burn out. Rest is also more than just sleep. Steven Kotler’s work on flow talks about how regular active recovery – things like, going for a walk, gentle forms of yoga, meditation or a bath - along with regular access to flow state and decent sleep make it near impossible to burn out. Unfortunately, many of the things we do to relax like Netflix or a few after-work drinks, actually make it harder for us to get good quality sleep (as deceptive as they are).
2. Movement
We know that exercise supports our physical health, but the less talked about benefits of movement is that it shifts the energy in your body, helping you to shift your mood. Sometimes, when you’re stressed or stuck in your thoughts, the best thing you can do is move your body. Sometimes it’s an intense Power yoga class, sometimes it’s a few deep breaths and a walk around the block. 9 times out of 10 you WILL feel differently, and the emotion you felt before is either lighter or has changed completely. The body and mind are ONE, so when you find yourself stuck in your head – moving the body is a simple way to create a shift in your mind.
3. Attention
The stress we experience in our day to day life is often psychological and can be persistent.
Just like your body, your mind benefits from it’s own kind of “workout” drills and one way we can do this is through meditation.
Meditation that involves focus on the breath MBSR and mindfulness training have been shown to reduce amygdala activity (the part of the brain responsible for identifying threat and fight/flight), not just during meditation but afterwards, and the neural pathways that govern stress and recovery. And meditation that focuses on the breath can help to strengthen our focus or cognitive control, and our working memory, helping us to be more efficient and effective with our time.
The more you meditate, the greater the benefits, but you don’t need to meditate for hours a day to start to see these benefits. Just 10 minutes of mindfulness can improve focus in the short-term, especially for multitaskers.
4. Nature
In 2019, a study taken of 20,000 found that those who spent at least 2 hours a week in green spaces were significantly more likely to experience positive physical and mental wellbeing.
Especially for us work-from-home city-dwellers, many people aren’t reaching this target, and it’s impacting our health. Some argue that our separation from nature may be contributing to mental health epidemic.
Countless studies have shown the benefits of being in nature. One showed that “office workers with a view of nature liked their jobs more, enjoyed better health and reported greater life satisfaction.”; another, that hospital patients recovered more easily and quickly when they had a view of trees out their window instead of a wall.
The nature you interact with doesn’t need to be wild nature. Even simply looking at images of trees and water has been shown to put people at ease.
Terry A. Hartig, PhD, MPH has studied how people who had exhausted their “directed attention capacity” had better performance and more positive emotions after spending time walking in nature
5. Reflection
When you don’t address stress and emotions, they build up inside of you. Reflection and processing, whether that be in the form of journaling, spending time alone to reflect, or working with a professional, helps you to understand how you feel, why you feel how you feel, and move through those emotions so you can let them go and take whatever necessary action.
Wherever you are in your journey, know this:
· Just like your body, your mind is malleable. Just because you have habits or tendencies does not mean “that’s just who you are” and you will be that way forever. We often expect our future based on a certain perspective of what has happened in our past, but the future literally has not happened yet, and we underestimate the power we have to shape it.
· Whatever you practice, you get better at. Whether it is flexibility, handstands, focus, or coping with stress. Goals that feel out of reach are often not out of reach, they just require more time and steps for you to get there. As James Clear “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
It’s my mission to help you feel less stressed and find more FLOW in your life. If you feel constantly dragged around by life’s crashing waves, I want to help you reclaim your power and your peace.
What do you need today? If you’re looking for support:
For processing and taking action, subscribe to my bi-weekly coaching newsletter for journaling prompts and other helpful coaching tools. You’ll also receive The Power of Limiting Beliefs, a workbook to help you identify and unpack the beliefs holding you back.
If you’re ready to invest in personalised 1:1 coaching, I work with clients on mindset, tackling their internal obstacles, and taking action, through strategy and accountability, to create the change they want in their lives.
For a practical exploration of specific topics – view the Workshops Schedule.
For yoga, view the range of classes and participation options here.