Welcome back to our series on mastering stress!
Five weeks ago, I posted our original Stress Response Article, which gives an overview of the biggest takeaways from dealing with stress in our Christian walk. To expand on these ideas, we began by Assessing Your Stress (Part 1), then Understanding Your Stress (Part 2), then examined our survival brain processing function answering the question, "Am I Safe?" (Part 3), and most recently, we addressed our emotional brain processing function and answered the question, "Am I loved?" with Gratitude (Part 4), I highly recommend you read through those before this article. Either way, I am excited to share today's final installment with you!
First, we'll address the final level of brain function, the executive or logical level, and get some ideas for how to respond and master stress in the moment at that level, in the same way we looked at responding to stress in our survival and emotional levels.
Second, we'll look for ways to increase capacity and decrease demand proactively, setting you up for success when you hit those inevitable stressful situations!
Let's do a quick recap:
I'm going to tie together the two major steps we've learned.
When you have your acute stress response, your brain initially starts processing in the survival level of your brain, asking, "Am I safe?" You can respond to that and silence the mental alarm bells by breathing to inform your brain you are safe and taking it to the Lord in prayer. I am safe in God.
Your brain will then move the processing to your emotional core, asking, "Am I loved?" You can respond to that by practicing gratitude in that moment, and pointing out to yourself the goodness of the Lord. I am loved by God.
Finally, now, our brains can begin processing in the executive level of our brain! And this is where we can focus in and plan and act without the stress response fogging up the soundness of our mind--as II Timothy 1:7 says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a SOUND MIND." (Emphasis mine)
So, now that you have your brain back, what’s the next step?
Stress: Focus and Adjust
Once you're ready to address your stress at the logical level, you can finally focus on problem-solving the actual stressful situation. To begin, be curious. Ask yourself, "What is one thing that would be the most helpful to do right now to use the energy and information my stress is providing?" (Remember, your stress response is actually trying to help you by providing that little boost of adrenaline, narrow focus, and speeding thoughts.) In other words, look at your situation, assess it, and form a plan.
For example, sometimes the sheer volume of projects and needs in my home makes me react by just...freezing. I go numb and can’t seem to prioritize or function productively at all (which doesn’t help with my overwhelmedness!). When I have responded in a “freeze” stress response initially, I regain control of my brain with the breathing/praying/gratitude steps, then I can formulate a plan. Sometimes it's a s simple as prioritizing the needs of the people in my home over the chores. Sometimes I just need to make a to-do list to help me prioritize immediate next steps
Another question you might ask yourself in that moment is, "Are my expectations realistic?" That is to say, is the stress I am currently experiencing a result of me taking on expectations or burdens that are not mine to take--they are not given to me by God, but rather by one of my enemies (the world, the flesh, or the devil)? In the example above, I often find that I’m subconsciously hoping to get a whole season’s-worth of chores done TODAY before that event this weekend—stuff that is completely unrelated and unnecessary for the event! I can scale back my expectations to chores in the space and with equipment that we will actually use (I don’t REALLY need to also prep my garden bed RIGHT NOW).
Again, we need to always be adjusting and reframing our “stress lens.” We can consider the likely outcome of our stressful situation--and in your common, garden variety stress, even the worst case scenario outcome is probably not worth the agonizing we give it. This goes back to keeping a sound perspective, as we discussed in part 4 (My house isn’t going to be perfect when people come over —oh no! Or wait...so what? We live here. It’s usually pretty clean. It’s going to get trashed with all the kids playing anyway...a light touch-up is fine. I don't need to deep-clean every surface!) Once we've been able to assess a probable outcome, we can ask ourselves, what is the next step we need to take? (Don't worry about the whole big deal--just the immediate, next step!) Then go ahead and take that step.
Demand and Capacity and Battery Life
I'm not telling you to "destress"--that is more of an escape mindset, and I want to try to help you get away from that in your thinking about stress. I want you to rather see your experiences as either draining or refueling your self--increasing that capacity and, where possible, decreasing the demand.
A recharge might be your traditional stress-reducing ideas, such as a massage, luxurious bubble bath, a treat for yourself, a vacation...but let's be honest, how often can we really do those things? We need something we can do in real-time in real-life!
Here are a few questions to ask to pinpoint where you need a practical recharege:
- Physical:
- Are you hungry?
- Have you MOVED today? (Done something that makes your blood pump?)
- Do you have nutrient imbalances/deficiencies? (Too much sugar/alcohol/not enough protein/fiber/whatever?)
- Are you sick or injured (your body is expending extra energy healing whether you "feel" it or not!)
- Emotional:
- Are you worrying or obsessing over something?
- Are you exasperated?
- Are you in a complaining rut or forgetting to practice gratitude?
- Social:
- Are you isolated?
- Have you had a draining or negative social interaction?
- Have you had the kind of positive interaction that leaves you feeling energized?
- Mental:
- Have you actually rested lately (scrolling on your phone is NOT REST)?
- Has your mind interacted with stimulating information lately or has it been lethargic?
- Have you "flexed" your mind recently? (Given yourself a problem to solve?
- Spiritual:
- Have you been reading your Bible?
- Have you been praying?
- Are you in some sort of discipleship or accountability relationship?
- Have you been walking in the flesh instead of in the Spirit?
- Exercise
- Make a to-do list
- Eat a heathy snack
- Drink water
- Drink hot tea or coffee
- Create something
- Play a game (in real life!)
- Read
- Connect with someone (even an email, a phone call, or through text!)
- Get outside
- Stretch
- Create order in a small way (like stack the magazines on your table)
- Laugh
- Sing
Start it like you want to finish it:
Reset; Don't React:
- Gratitude
- Joy and Laughter
- Spiritual Breathing
It’s nothing complicated or mystical. Basically, spiritual breathing is when you are struggling or realize you’ve fallen into sin and you stop, “exhale”—pray and confess your sin before the Lord and repent of it; and “inhale”—accept God’s forgiveness in Jesus and ask that the Holy Spirit would, again, be guiding and filling you. (Sounds familiar, right?!)
Comments
Post a Comment