Six Things To Do To Manage And Lower Your Stress Levels With Dr Rachel Hanson
Managing stress is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. If there was ever a time we needed to stress this it would be this month as April is stress awareness month. We are all in the pursuit of how to best manage the stress of our lives.
How better for us to help you to do this thanby speaking to Dr Rachel Hanson, Clinical Lead in Spectrum.Life;a whole-of-health digital partner that guides organisations and their people to thrive, delivering clinically backed digital health, mental health and wellbeing (in short – a provider of mental health and wellbeing services such as counselling / therapies online). She is a highly accomplished Clinical Psychologist with a strong background in leadership and extensive experience within the NHS in Scotland who holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.
In our conversation with her she shared the six things to do to manage and lower your stress your stress levels. Read on for this essential piece…
Be intentional about what your body consumes
What are your hydration levels like? Are you starting the day with a healthy breakfast. Are you relying too much on caffeine? The pace of life is so fast nowadays that it can be easy to eat on the go regularly, skipping meals or grabbing convenience foods when we are stressed and feel we don’t have time to cook or limping from one coffee to the next to keep our energy levels up. Planning ahead about what we are eating and when we will have our meals is a great way to tackle this and it often alleviates stress when you have food at home to eat or even meals that are prepared in advance. This helps us to feel more in control of our lives. Additionally, our bodies thank us too when we’re eating balanced meals rather than regularly consuming processed foods high in salt and sugar and our energy levels tend to be more stable than allowing us to get through our day without major energy peaks and troughs.
Be intentional with what your mind consumes
How much time are we spending consuming news, social media, television, gaming. These are low energy and low reward activities. There is nothing wrong with spending some time on these activities however, it’s good to put in boundaries as they can eat up a lot more of our time than we intend to spend on them, and they can take us away from other priorities and meaningful activities that are more in line with our goals and values. I avoid looking at my phone including social media or news sites for at least the first hour of my day as I noticed previously that when I woke up and scrolled my phone i was not only feeling negative about world events from the moment I woke up, but i was often then running late as time ran away from me and I started the morning stressed. This one step for me has made a big difference to my whole day. I am also mindful about the kind of accounts I follow. I have replaced celebrity accounts which left me feeling not good enough about my lifestyle and my body image with interior design, photography and creative accounts which make me curious about art and inspire me. My advice would be to check in and notice how you feel after seeing certain reels, posts etc and navigate these accordingly.
Thought Challenging
There are some common unhelpful thinking styles that we all unintentionally engage in when we are feeling low, stressed, or anxious. Catastrophizing is the thought process by which we assume the worst possible scenario is what’s going to happen e.g. I will fail my exam and won’t get a job as a result. Mind reading is when we think we know what someone is thinking about us without hearing this from the other person, e.g. this person thinks I’m stupid/weird/ not good enough. While these thoughts feel very real, they are not facts, and we need to weigh up the evidence for and against these thoughts to identify if they are accurate or not. You may notice that you are engaging in these thoughts more often than others or it can feel like the volume is turned up on them. This is an indicator that you are stressed, anxious or feeling low. Engaging in some of the other tips here can also be helpful when you notice this happening.
A Sense of Belonging
Research shows that the greater our sense of belonging, the better our overall wellbeing is. Human beings are pack animals and social connection is therefore central to our wellbeing. Belonging helps us manage stress better and increases our resilience. If you feel like you do not have a strong sense of belonging just now there are steps you can take to improve this. Joining clubs, groups, saying yes to an invitation to a social gathering or making the effort to arrange a meetup with old, new or potential new friends is a good way to foster connections with others. Being authentic in your interactions with others and genuinely curious about other people allows us to be our true selves while being open to accepting others as their authentic selves. We can feel vulnerable when trying to develop new social connections and at times it can feel exhausting to put ourselves out there, but we know that positive social connections enrich our lives and are the foundation of all belonging.
Good Quality Sleep and Daily Movement
Get as much good quality sleep as you can. Experts recommend we get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Having a good nighttime routine can really help us to wind down and create the necessary conditions for good sleep. Removing blue light devices, e.g. phones, tablets, laptops an hour before we go to sleep helps our brains to switch off. I have never been a great sleeper and the two things that really help me are a good nighttime routine and getting sufficient daily movement throughout the day. Daily movement doesn’t have to mean intense exercise, I try to get a few small walks throughout the day to increase my step count and that is what works for me right now with the time I have available. Exercise can be a big stress reliever. It helps us burn off cortisol and adrenaline, our stress hormones which help us sleep better, think more clearly and reduce stress levels.
Looking after our mind
Are you getting time to yourself for mindfulness, meditation, hobbies and getting out into nature? These activities all have huge health benefits. Mindfulness and mediation have been shown to improve stress levels, mood, productivity and problem-solving skills, which can be useful in the run up to exam season. If you are new to mindfulness, I recommend starting with 2min exercise. It can be difficult to keep engaged initially, but this is often a sign that we really need this exercise. There are some great mindfulness exercises available on our Spectrum.Life platform. Gratitude diaries can also be very helpful if we are feeling low or stressed, it trains our brain which is hardwired to focus on threats, to focus on the positives. It can be felt overwhelming to juggle all of these aspects, however, a short amount of time dedicated to these practices can go a long way. Reducing screen time by adding an alarm/reminder to stop scrolling can give you a significant of time back that can be used on other things which are more beneficial to our wellbeing.
Dr Rachel’s counsel could not be more timely. We are inspired to better manage our stress and will be putting these six things into practice.
Many thanks to Dr Rachel Hanson, she is Clinical Lead at Spectrum.Life.