Making Peace with Stress
It has been said that there are only two times when we feel stress – daytime and night-time! Let’s face it. Stress is part of our everyday life. We experience some level of stress every time our expectations are unmet. We CAN transform our relationship with stress. Learn to let it go and cultivate more peace, joy, and calm in its place.
What Is Stress?
What Is Stress?Stress has been part of human life since our earliest days on the planet. Although we no longer experience the stress of living in cold, dark caves and fighting off dangerous cats (fight or flight), we do experience emotional turmoil in our relationships, challenges balancing our daily lives, and a multitude of physical health concerns. When we encounter situations that we interpret as stressful, our body has the same reactions our ancestors had tens of thousands of years ago:
- our blood pressure rises
- we begin to perspire
- our breath becomes shallow
- our heart-rate increases
Our body activates its fight-or-flight response…
It can take at least twenty-four hours for the body to recover its equilibrium. Many people live in a state of chronic stress and imbalance, which contributes to emotional and physical dis-ease. Through the practice of mindfulness meditation, we can activate a different response, one of restful awareness, intuitiveness, and creativity. Meditation takes our body and our mind from a place of hyperactivity, fear, unrest, and uneasiness – to a state of inner calm, peace, and less ‘noise’.
In meditation, as we cultivate the ability to witness the activity of the mind, we spontaneously make more conscious choices. We’re able to access the response that best supports our own health and well-being – stress then becomes something that we can observe and release.
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, and not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. – The Buddha
For more advice or guidance on meditation and other strategies for managing this and others aspects of stress – or any other emotional imbalance – please feel free to contact me.
Bob Brotchie is a counsellor, mindset consultant and creator of Conscious Living by Design™. He writes for Anglia Counselling, is featured on various other websites and introduces us to many guest writers all covering topics related to mental health and wellbeing.
Bob provides bespoke counselling services to clients in the privacy and comfort of a truly welcoming environment at his Anglia Counselling company office, located near Newmarket in Suffolk, England. Bob also provides professional online counselling, for local, national, and international clients. The therapeutic models offered are bespoke to the client’s needs, especially those in receipt of 'childhood emotional neglect' (CEN), whilst integrating a mindful approach to psychotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) principles. For clients experiencing trauma and/or phobia, Bob offers EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).