How to Harness the Power of Stress
By Kateryna Voznyuk
April is Stress Awareness Month, so this week, we will be taking time to acknowledge the role stress plays in our lives and how to respond to it in a healthy way!
Stress is the emotional and mental strain we feel when confronting challenging situations in life. Many people view it as something bad that needs to be eliminated, but at its core, stress is what motivates us to act and address what is bothering us!
Most importantly, everyone experiences it, but it’s how we manage stress that determines how it affects our wellness. Reorienting stress as a motivator rather than a burden is the first step towards harnessing its power in your everyday problem solving and coping approaches.
Here are the top five tips from the Mayo Clinic on how to manage stress:
Physical activity: You don’t have to be an athlete to enjoy its positive effects! Exercise is a great way to use your stress to increase your natural endorphins that make you feel good and distract yourself by focusing on coordinating your body’s movement.
Eat healthy: Having a healthy diet is key to making sure you are energized and alert to take on the day’s challenges. Harness your stress by building a healthy diet plan, trying a new nutritious recipe, or going on a grocery run! Avoiding unhealthy foods and habits like smoking or drinking too much caffeine or alcohol is important in keeping you mind and body sharp to act on stress!
Mindfulness and meditation: Deep breathing, journaling, and light yoga can be amazing tools for refocusing your mind and clearing the mental clutter that overwhelms you. Each of these practices restores your sense of balance and peace, preparing you to tackle the day ahead.
Laughing with friends: When stress gets unmanageable, even forcing a laugh is a start to lightening your mental load and cooling down your stress response. Spending time with friends is also a great way to process your feelings and keeps you from loneliness that oftentimes makes stress overwhelming. Use your stress to plan a get-together or video call!
Understand your limits: Sometimes life’s challenges can be too much for you to take on alone. Talking to a professional through therapy can be a valuable resource to support you on your stress-management journey.
Embracing and harnessing your stress is a life-long skill to address life-long challenges. Famed American TV Host, Fred Rogers– affectionately “Mister Rogers”– reminds us of how to support others: "In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers."
