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Stress is not always emotional; it can also be a physiological experience. Whether you dislike flying, giving a presentation, or venturing outside amid the pandemic, your stress can range from inconvenient to overwhelming. It can worsen when your body begins to defend against stress in a way that is out of proportion to the stressors. When you experience this stress response, it is commonly known as the fight or flight response. It is your nervous system's way of defending you against danger.
Such a response can become triggered, causing the amygdala (your security center of the brain) to send a message to the hypothalamus, the brain's command center. As a result, your body begins to produce hormones that enact your fight or flight response. Not knowing when a trigger can happen, you might find yourself succumbing to these responses quite often. If this happens, understand that there are ways in which you can use to help you overcome these responses.
Take Time to Breathe
Sometimes no matter how hard you focus, you cannot think your way out of a triggering situation. You try to tell yourself to remain calm; you might even use a mantra to shift your focus. However, nothing seems to work. The next viable option in a pinch would be to allow your physical tools to help you. Regulating your breath pattern can help bring you instant relief. When you are tense, your heart rate tends to climb, causing shallower breaths, which triggers a stress response. Focus on drawing in a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds, then exhaling slowly. Doing so helps redirect the body's response and promote a feeling of relaxation. The next time you're in a state of high stress, take a few minutes to focus on your breathing and calm yourself down.
Practice When You're Not Stressed
In the throes of high stress, you might forget the things you learned that help you calm down. Your stress may get the best of you, and you might think you will remember these practices and therefore wait until an episode before putting it to practice. However, practicing relaxation techniques will help condition your response to a stressful situation and help you feel more relaxed. Try to create a routine to sit down and practice mindfulness, yoga, and other meditation forms - and don’t forget to focus on your breathing. Doing so helps you become less responsive to stressful situations and helps you better understand why you respond to certain situations in specific ways. Knowing your triggers can significantly reduce the likelihood of a fight or flight response.
Residual Energy
Stress takes a heavy toll on the nervous system, meaning your body can feel stressed long after the situation has resolved or when you're no longer thinking about it. Not minding this backlog of energy can become counterproductive to your efforts to move on from the stress. If you are experiencing uncomfortable residual stress, you can practice yoga or exercise. Though it may sound weird, getting your heart rate up through healthy alternatives such as exercise and yoga helps your body recycle some of the negative energy and bring about a sense of calm. It might even enact the rest-digest response, which will further distract your mind and body from sitting in the negative energy.
Shift Your Perceptions
If telling yourself that you can handle this has not worked, try shifting your perception of the situation. Instead of living in perceived fears that haven't and likely won't happen, weigh your outcomes using logic and rational thinking, then work on a plan to overcome them. Research shows that focusing on what you can do rather than what you cannot do helps shift your mind from feeling helpless to proactive. First, try to think of a situation where you were uncomfortable or stressed, but you managed to overcome. When you understand that you possess resilience in you, you can then extrapolate this example and practice how to handle unforeseen challenges. You might even reach a place where you may not even view stressful situations as threats.
Minding how you feel and what you say to yourself before entering a stressful situation is also essential. For example, if you fear driving on the highway, focusing on how you are sweating and shaking before you get in the car, you are placing your mind in a negative space, which will not help your outcome. Instead, focus on how you have driven on the highway before. Focusing on positive outcomes is critical.
Whenever you feel as though you can not endure on your own, it may be time to seek help. Reaching out to friends, family, support groups, and professionals can provide you the insight and help you need to overcome your fight or flight responses. At START UP Recovery, we provide an environment that will help you face everyday stressors and teach you how to overcome them. We do this by helping transform you into a self-motivated and self-reliant person. We believe that everybody possesses the traits to achieve their highest success, it just takes the willingness to do it and the right people to help them start. Whether your fight or flight responses surround your professional life or personal life, START UP Recovery is here to help. With 24/7 admissions, there is never a wrong time to reach out. Remember, your recovery always comes first. To learn more, call START UP Recovery today at (310) 773-3809.