HOW TO WIN OVER STRESS AND MAKE IT YOUR FRIEND !

Since the time I can remember stress has been a foe to me. A friend that has followed me everywhere like a shadow and intervened with my work, health and decisions. But I always thought why whenever I am stressed I am not able to work effectively or why I just feel of it as a negative friend. And you must have your constant struggles with the stress, too!

This tension between my relationship with stress pushed me to explore what is this stress that is turning on my negativity and could it be possible for me to shut it off! As I have started time spending time with stress and tried to understand it, I have realised that it is not stress what is causing problem to me but how I am taking it!

Stress is as good as love!

Here is a fun fact. When you love someone or hug someone a chemical called Oxytocin is released in your body which helps in cell regeneration and is good for your health. The exciting thing is that the same chemical is released when we are stressed. And it forces us to think that if love is good for our health with Oxytocin then How come stress with Oxytocin is so bad for our health ?

I understand how stress can be too painful for us. It just feels like an extreme of everything with an exploding head. We don’t want to work anymore and try to hide in our own cocoon. As a psychologist certain revelation have been surprising to me. Research shows that people wh take stress positively live as longer who do not take stress and are indeed better at using stress for their benefits. On the other hand, people who have a negative orientation towards stress are more likely to have chronic diseases than others. As said, then it must come to only “how we understand and take stress, positively or negatively”.

How to make stress your friend

But then the question arises how to take stress positively or understand stress as something beneficial to us, when we have been told throughout life that it is negative and we should not be stressed at all. Well, it calls for a narrative change and in our understanding. To do that we need to realize what is stress and what happens in our mind and body when we feel stressed along with the points when we are stressed and when we are not stressed.

Let’s understand stress

So I want you to take a pause and remember the last times you felt stressed. Note them down. You can make a habit out of it. This will prepare your mind by already knowing that in a particular situation you are going to be stressed and thus you can prepare for that in advance! Also, we all are different and feel stressed in different situations, so it is important to know what makes us stressed or uncomfortable before we start dealing with it.

The next thing that will help is to realize how your body reacts to your stress. Generally, when we are stressed, our body starts pumping up more energy to deal with the threatening situation. Our focus increases to solve the problem and thousands of thoughts come crossing the mind from which we have to take the best decision. Our heart starts pumping faster and breathing rate increases to cope with the oxygen demand for high energy. All of this to provide choices for the decision and we need to choose the perfect one.

Apart from that, our body performs in its own way also. My body responds slightly different than your body to stress. To be aware of this difference and manage it we need to relax and look inward! But how?

How it affects you

This is where meditation helps. While meditation relaxes your body, re-calibrate your energy, it also decreases distraction and increases attention. It will help you to transform your negative energy into positive energy. With an increased focus and attention, we will be able to evaluate the thoughts coming up in our mind, see what the situation demands in reality, what needs to be done and then take the final decision. To learn the fundamentals of meditation and my experiences in meditation as a student and corporate person, follow my video below.

I want to emphasise that meditation is really an attentive process and makes you better at managing your body and mind. I live in Delhi. I work, I study, I party and I spend time with people. This is more than enough to make me stressed, tired, distracted and exhausted. But constant belief and practice of meditation has shown me that I can generate energy, manage my body as the demands of my work life. I am more peaceful now, can see what situation demands and I am more able to handle problems than ever. I am more confident of myself, my weaknesses and my strengths. Not only I can manage myself better now but i have found myself often helping people to clear their doubts. I feel happier and satisfied with myself now. And I feel stress as my true friend.

Let me now share some things which I do when I am stressed. Feel free to modify as per your comfort and needs.

Suppose I have to enter a room right now and three people, big in size and age, are going to ask me questions of various kinds and non-sense to which I have to give the best answer. My life depends on it as they will give me salary which i will use to pay bills. This is an interview and I am anxious/nervous !

• As a lot start happening in my body, thoughts coming and going, energy piling up and no idea as what to do. The natural response is to walk up and down the room. But, I stop myself, sit and breathe deeply. I consciously tell myself that it is a safe situation, I have done this before and I can do this again and I tell myself again and again, whatever tension and nervousness is inside me, is helping me and is not wrong or harmful.
• The next step is to relax your body. For that I sit in a comfortable situation and start meditating. Two minutes of meditation will be enough.
• Now I start thinking what can happen. What they can ask. And the last time i gave an interview, what mistake I did and what right thing I did.
• Then taking the positives I start writing negative things I did last time. I write down the answers. And now I can see that I am prepared better than before. Self-confidence clicks in.
• But still, there may be a fear that we can fail. For this Remind yourself that the last interviews you gave made you stronger and if you don’t do this you will not get better. So this is not a threatening situation for you but an opportunity. An opportunity to grow and make stress your friend for always.

Let’s start this today. To stop seeing stress as negative to us, but a very natural process to you. A natural thing as trees, sun, lights, darkness, people and animals natural as this earth. Once we see stress as a natural thing we can Win over it!