How is your stress affecting your work, relationships, career, health? If you had no stress, how would your life appear? Are you more stressed or more anxious? Have you recognized the distinct states within your in relationship to your work life?
Let’s define the two states:
- Stress: a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.
- Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
Stress is inherent in our culture, but the long-term effects create anxiety. We can be anxious about the future, our jobs, a new date, the stock market, etc. We tend to be accustomed to stress, almost like it is a habit. If an event happens that has caused stress in the past, we get stressed. Take traffic as an example. If there is traffic, we tend to get stressed as our unconscious mind tells us to be stressed. It is not the traffic that is stressful, as the cars and the cement are not stressed… Your conscious mind chooses in a split second to respond to the event (traffic) and tells your body to behave and act stressed. The traffic itself cannot induce stress; it is your mind’s reaction to the traffic. What happens if an event occurs over and over is that the memory goes into the subconscious and unconscious minds, and before we know it we are stressed from the event and we skip the conscious mind and the decision to become stressed—we just are stressed.
Each person has a unique stress and anxiety pattern. You have the ability to change the pattern by doing simple techniques right as you feel the onset of stress or anxiety. Say you get stressed 5-7 times a day. Ok, maybe it is more like 9 times a day. If you can re-pattern your nervous system and how your body responds to stress, you can bring the unconscious stress habit to a conscious stress habit.
1-3 Minute Exercise to Ease Anxiety
A simple, very effective way to help yourself calm down and release anxiety. This is great for anyone anytime anywhere. It also adjusts the nervous system and the jaw.
- Come into your favorite seated position, with your spine straight. If you are in a chair, bring both feet flat on the floor.
- Close your mouth and keep your lips closed and begin rolling your tongue in a clockwise direction, pushing your tongue firmly against the inside of your cheeks. Continue for 30-90 seconds.
- Reverse directions and continue for an equal amount of time.
- Relax and enjoy.
Try this whenever you feel stress or anxiety starting and you can do it 1-10 times per day. Watch after a few days your stress pattern will completely change as your nervous system relaxes, and then you can choose when you consciously want to be stressed and not—instead of the common unconscious stress pattern.
By Mahankirn – Meditation Consultant to Fortune 500 Companies
Mahankirn is taking the MOVE challenge this Movember and working with the Wanderlust network to help keep Mo Bros and Mo Sistas focused on fitness throughout the month.
For more information visit Mahankirn.com
Find out more about wanderlust here.
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