This week from Monday November 7th to Friday November 11th was The International Stress Awareness Week 2022. It's a major annual event focusing on stress management and campaigning against the stigma associated with stress and mental health issues.
In today’s short article I’m sharing my thoughts about what stress is and how to deal with it.
Stress is one of the biggest problems in today’s world. Stress is believed to be the root cause of 90% of all medical visits and it’s one of the main causes for all modern chronic diseases.
Not all stress is "bad"
We know two kinds of stress.
There's "good", hormetic, eustress that is intensive and last short amount of time and makes us stronger overtime.
And there's "bad", chronic, distress, which is chronically present and lasts for extended period of time. This is the stress that is one of the biggest problems in today's modern world and leads to many modern problems, conditions and diseases, including burnout.
Stress has many sources of origin
Stress also comes from many different sources. It can come from outside stimuli (inflammatory foods, toxin exposure, pressures at work...) or it can be of internal origins (overtraining, digestive problems, internal pressures...).
There are also different types of stress: there's physical stress (overtraining), psychological stress (chronic stress at work), mental stress (overwork), emotional stress (dealing loss, disease), environmental stress (toxins, artificial environments), sensory stress (artificial lights, social media), social stress (bad relationships), spiritual stress (lack of joy, passion and purpose).
The goal with stress
The goal however is not to eliminate all stress from our lives.
We need some stress to function optimally and to get stronger over time.
Chronic stress leads to burnout, hormetic stress however makes us stronger and consequently helps us conquer the burnout.
So our goal with stress should be to:
Reduce or eliminate most of the chronic stress: eating inflammatory food, food intollerances, overtraining, poor sleep, living and working in artificial environments with bright LED lights, bad air and no or little green space, being exposed to constant pressures (internal or external), constant distractions, notifications and information overload, dealing with angry, frustrated and emotional people and experiencing a lot of negative emotion, operating without the sense of joy, passion and purpose, …
Learn how to deal with stress with different lifestyle and psychological practices: quality nutrition, physical activity, mindfulness and meditation, breathwork, quality rest and sleep, disconnecting and recharging, time in nature, supplementing, etc.)
Add good hormetic stressors in our lives: working out, sauna, cold therapy (cold showers, ice baths), breathwork (eg. Wim Hof breathing), occasional cheat meal…
Today I also share with you some of the article about stress that I published here on Conquering Burnout in the past.
