Stress-Awareness Month
- judypanning
- Apr 3
- 3 min read
Days, weeks, months . . . who decides what the focus will be? I don't usually pay much attention, but stress awareness hits close to home for me.
Stress is everywhere. The hustle, the rush, the push to get things done. The constant workload of his and hers businesses in the family. The multi-tasking we all feel the need to do. The bragging we hear when friends / family / colleagues trumpet their accomplishments, and we run to keep up.
We start our children young. Try out each sport this year. If you don't start young with basics, you're behind in skill development by middle school. Balance sports and music—and keep up your grades. Yes, it's everywhere!
Then, how do most people handle stress? Coffee in the morning, a glass of wine in the evening. Bingeing on Netflix to power down before bed. Waking up tired in the morning to repeat the cycle until we take a break for vacation. And often those aren't very restful.
I could go on. But what if I could stop?
The key to beating stress in my world is to stop. Regularly. Not for very long, but allowing myself to come to a full stop. My nervous system calms, my breathing resets, and my senses are much less overloaded by the onslaught of daily tasks. Don't be fooled, though, I'm not a Zen sage who spends the day in uncomfortable poses attending to my thoughts.
Granted, it might seem odd to stop a task, look into the distance to let my eyes adjust, reset my posture to relieve tension, and allow a couple breaths to regulate my nervous system. It might also seem odd to put my back on the floor in a semi-supine position for 10 minutes to reset my upper back and allow the spinal disks to rehydrate. But those are small changes I can make to allow my stress to subside. And they've been worth it for keeping my productivity high. I run a business that requires quite a bit of energy working with people, and every meeting requires a plan. In addition there's administrative and promotional work. It's plenty to keep me busy.
What I use is the Alexander Technique. It teaches first awareness of habits, then stopping, then a process for creating a better way to accomplish something. But first, stopping.
Even to become aware of a habit, I must stop to examine it. Once I've made some changes, I'm constantly stopping to be aware of how I move or think or work. After I stop I can make a little change to make the movement, thought process, or task a little easier. It's the best stress-buster I've ever found. It's not perfect, because I still have to decide to stop, but having the toolbox has been helpful for changing this constantly stressed, tight-muscled, driven worker into a much more sane thinking, relaxed-bodied, and balance-minded worker.
Not perfect, mind you, but dealing with much less tension and far less pain, sleeping much better, and able to get myself off the constant merry-go-round of rushing to the next thing.
It was a life-saver for me, so I trained to teach it. Let me know if you'd like me to let you in on the secret.
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