Top ways to deal with stress

Melody Fourie unpacks the reaction stress causes in the body and offers five easy ways to combat stress.

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Stress is often a missed root cause of illness and there is such delight in helping clients explore the many dimensions of stress and how stress may be contributing to the imbalances they are experiencing. 

Grab a cup of chamomile tea, put on some soft music, and find a quiet place to relax as you read a little about where medicine and dragons meet. 

Simplifying the term stress

The most simplistic way to describe stress is that it’s a shapeshifter taking the form of something you can see and touch (an angry boss) as well as something you can’t see at all but still affects you in an equivalent way (caffeine). 

A medical explanation is that stress sets your adrenal glands to flood your body with adrenaline, a hormone that charges you with emergency energy. This energy would be most welcome if you were fighting a dragon but what happens to that energy when there is no dragon at all? 

Understanding stress is like following Alice down the rabbit hole. Let us quickly jump into the magical place where neuroscience and reality meet. For the purpose of demonstrating how your body automatically responds to the external environment, think of an apple. What colour is your apple? Move your attention to your mouth, see how there is a little more saliva than there may have been before. 

The neuroscience part of this demonstration: your brain thinks in holograms and when you thought of an apple, your brain flashed a projection of this apple in your mind’s-eye. We can easily prove this as your apple had a colour and you validated that colour while reading. 

The reality part of this demonstration: your brain sent a neurological response to the saliva glands in your mouth instructing them to begin producing saliva to prepare for the first phase of digestion with the first bite. The body followed the mind. 

Back to the dragons

There are dragons we can see, such as the angry boss, or you may find yourself having to navigate through a life-threatening predicament. This stress will set your adrenal glands to flood your body with adrenaline. 

We also have dragons we can’t see, such as beverages that stimulate stress responses within the body like mega-doses of caffeine designed to give you an adrenaline rush, or the dragons of strong emotions putting strain on your adrenals. 

Events such as financial stress or a broken heart can sometimes be enough to act as a trigger. Experiencing fear, for example, forces your adrenals to produce a form of adrenalin that is destructive, and over time will wear down both the glands and other vital parts of the body. You get my point; these unseen stresses will also set your adrenal glands to flood your body with adrenaline. 

Everyone feels stress now and then, in both big and small ways. Some have a higher sensitivity to it than others. Every single soul on this planet is dealing with some form of post-traumatic stress resulting from unpleasant situations.

Techniques to manage stress

Managing stress should form part of your everyday wellness regime.

The holy grail of well-being is the gut

• Don’t eat when you’re stressed. Your body has redirected energy away from the digestive system to your extremities to fight those dragons. 

Immerse yourself into the wild spaces 

• Nature stimulates all your senses, reminding you of sounds and smells so deeply engrained in your DNA. Think of how the smell of rain makes you feel.

Artistic expression 

• Art therapy is such a wonderful way to isolate your thoughts. Just you and your piece of art. 

Move that stress out

• Partaking in gentle exercise to avoid overloading your adrenals, such as Tai chi, Qigong, yoga, or walking, allows you to destress through the art of movement. 

Tapping into the divine

• Prayer, meditation and service to humanity all offer well-documented shifts in brain chemistry.

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