You’re ambitious and masterful. You have goals and the drive to achieve them. While this is all perfectly admirable, it can come with considerable stress in all aspects of your life, including your career. “Stress?”, you may say “I can handle the stress life. I laugh in the face of stress.”
Many people assume themselves to be the masters of their stress. Meanwhile it impacts personal health and well-being, unbeknownst to them.
Negative impacts of the stress life
Don’t misunderstand me. In small doses, stress can be a good thing. It can help you focus, prevent a decline into apathy, and bring out the best in you.
For many women in business, especially those who are also mothers, some of their finest hours have come from the greatest stress and adversity. Nonetheless, over time chronic stress can lead to all kinds of health troubles and complications.
Prolonged pressures on your shoulders, the emotional kind, I mean, have the potential to trigger your body’s inflammatory response. This activity may increase your risk of all kinds of chronic diseases and can even be fatal.
If you find your quickly lose your temper, and that this emotional response is happening a lot, it could be a sign you’re overwhelmingly stressed. Getting disproportionately angry about relatively minor things or the inability to concentrate are symptoms of chronic stress.
If that all sounds uncomfortably familiar, then it’s time to take positive steps to quash your stress and promote peace of mind instead.
Listen to the words of inspirational people
Even with the best of intentions, a person’s knowledge and resources are only finite. Still, you don’t have to rely entirely on yourself to manage mental strain and promote an inner sense of harmony.
Listening to the experiences of inspirational people is a fantastic way to grow, learn, and combat stress. That statement isn’t limited to only inspirational businesswomen either.
Take the time to listen to philosophers, religious leaders or peace advocacy groups like https://www.wopg.org/. Doing so can provide you with not only inspiration but also practical tips on how to manage periods of hardship and negative attitudes, while also promoting personal well-being.
Stress life? Meditate for 5 minutes every day
Meditation can make a positive difference to your sense of self and level of comfort. Yet, many people dismiss the practice and its powerful ability to calm the mind and slow down the pace of life as being fluff or unsuitable for them.
The reality is you don’t need to find a space where you can burn incense and chant. That’s a common myth.
Instead, meditation can happen anywhere you want it to, really. You can close your office door on a lunch break for quiet time or even take time for personal reflections while sitting in traffic in the car on your daily commute. You don’t even need to take your shoes off. Just 5 minutes a day is all it takes to make all the stressors you encounter throughout the day more manageable than before.
Get out from behind your desk
It’s much easier to let stress get too much when you’re inactive and sedentary at your desk. But getting out from behind your desk for at least a few minutes an hour can help mitigate the effects of stress (not to mention all that sitting) that a desk job can have on your health.
Even if you don’t have the time or the inclination to hit the gym, a quick power walk is all it takes to get the endorphins flowing and get you some perspective on what’s stressing you out. Try to fit in a 20-minute walk on lunch break tomorrow!
This is such a brilliant post, Christy! You are absolutely right on every single point.
Stress is a killer. Usually fear, anxiety and depression quickly follow behind adding to the detrimental effects on our health. The more we allow them to accumulate, the worse it becomes. We are even more susceptible to colds and flu, which I can attest to, is no fun AT ALL! :)
I love how you remind us that meditation doesn’t mean some big orchestrated ordeal. Truly, it is quieting ourselves, centering our hearts and minds on what is good and right. Simply being still, physically, mentally and emotionally. Lord knows we need it! Our consumption culture is killing us. Busyness and being “in the know” does not equal productivity or success.
Walking is a powerful weapon against stress too. I wholeheartedly agree! It is easily the activity I enjoy doing most to let go of what’s bothering me. Whether I felt stuck in my writing (as I’m sure you can relate to!), stressed out with life’s battles or simply feeling a bit out of sorts that day – a walk in nature becomes a healing balm.
Love you, Christy! Keep being your awesome self. Always a pleasure to read your writing! ♥
This is a very important post. Stress is a terrible thing that can affect us in so many ways.
Thank you for this post.
Sunshine. Sunshine. Sunshine. Fresh air and sunshine whenever I can. :)
Taking a 15 minute break at work can make a big difference when you deal with customers all day long, even if I’m just sitting in the break room reading a book on the Kindle app on my phone!
morning: meditate. Lunch: stare out the window. About 6 pm, computer sort of shut down but not really: 3 minute meditation with cat taking up my lap followed by tea and hour reading. 7:30 pm: cooking dinner. 9: zoning out with husband, bowl of ice cream optional. 11: DO NOT REVIEW DAY!!!…turn out the light
I went out on my bike with camera…total stress breaker..it was my best way I could deal with it
Exercise was the best stress reliever that I ever found.
We have a wooden ‘stage’ for lack of a better word in the backyard – it was meant as a foundation to a playhouse that never came to pass. It is now my favorite place to sit on sunny days – yoga, prayer, just closed eyes listening to the trees and birds and wind. So healing.