By Steve Price
There is a litany of issues facing us every day that can exacerbate our stress tolerance, from minor annoyances to major trials that reshape the fabric of our lives. The stressors that play on us from day to day, whether major or minor, contribute to general feelings of unwellness and uneasiness when left unchecked for long enough. Sadly, in a world where stress is at an all-time high, stress maintenance techniques are so infrequently taught as to be almost unknown outside of the community of psychologists and therapists. Sometimes, the stress of life becomes so great that it begins to impact our physical health, wearing us down mentally as well as physically and becoming a burden too great to ignore. Often times, finding help from a licensed counselor or therapist becomes the only recourse to combatting this difficult, invisible foe.
This is why learning how to manage stress levels for the betterment of your physical health and wellbeing is so important, and why we here at Well-Sewn are devoting ourselves not only towards helping you make better choices in cuisine and fashion, but also in your personal lives as well. Learning how to cope with stress need not be the challenge that it has become for so many people out there, and certainly not the level of challenge that impacts our physical health. Using our minds to combat the invisible threat that is stress can be an excellent mitigation tool towards warding off the worst effects of stress and help you live a more balanced, healthy life.
Counseling is both a practical and therapeutic experience to partake in for individuals facing down excess stress, and those who have mismanaged their stress levels can learn much from a licensed therapist. Well-Sewn greatly encourages those battling stress or other mental conditions to seek professional help as a means of alleviating the challenges that they face; if for no other reason, than to find a helping hand in the fight that we all face down. The stigma around seeking out counseling has dissipated tremendously over the last several years as public awareness over mental heath has expanded, making it far less embarrassing than it may have been years prior. For those questioning their personal fortitude over having to go to counseling, even the strongest among us need help on occasion.
Beyond counseling and therapy however, there are a number of techniques that can help individuals manage their stress load and find a semblance of peace in a hectic world. One such technique is resourcing, the utilization of coping mechanisms to combat internalized stress. The best part about resourcing as a strategy is that so many different things may apply to this field: learning how to utilize the senses to overcome stressful patterns and thoughts can become a powerful tool during your daily life. For example, using aroma therapy as a form of stress relief can be considered one form of resourcing; so too can using your imagination to calm yourself by picturing your ideal destination, be it a mountain hideaway or a tropical paradise.
Resourcing involves the usage of the mind to combat the stress that the mind accumulates during the day. This involves a degree of mindfulness that is important to learn and embrace. Mindfulness is the art of becoming self-aware of one’s thoughts and experiences throughout the day, learning to explore how certain stressors can impact your mood and thought processes. We practice mindfulness when we use music to calm ourselves down when we know we are on the verge of getting angry, or when we turn the radio off before the news talk host upsets us with the latest bad news report. Freeing ourselves of stressors through mindfulness exercises can be a tremendous help in the fight to help us weather the trials and tribulations of the day better.
Of course, no article exploring mindfulness and resourcing techniques would be complete without one of the most popular and well-explored strategies of them all, meditation. Many people have a misconception that meditation must include some sort of religious significance, or that it must involve prayer of some form or fashion. While meditation is used in some religious settings, meditation can also be used by individuals simply seeking to tune out the world for awhile and center themselves. Learning how to bring balance to the body through meditation can be an enormous help when dealing with the everyday stresses of life, bringing a bit of peaceful harmony in the midst of the chaos that can sometimes swirl around us.
If you have never attempted to meditate before, set aside a half hour when you have the free time one day to do so, find some calming music on your phones, plug in your headphones and simply exist for a little while. Clear your mind of racing thoughts and allow the mind and body to reset themselves for a time, wiping away the stresses and bringing a level of tolerance that can help take the edge off of the day. These strategies will not make you forget about your problems or help them go away; rather, they will help you learn how to manage them more effectively by freeing your mind to do what it does best: tackle problems. In the end, that is what living your best life is all about in the very end, being free to be your best self.
