Stress Free Mama

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The Truth About Stress You Won’t Want to Hear

Woman giving stress support to a friendYou do it to yourself.

That’s it.

That’s the truth.

You create your own stress.

Yes, there are challenging events and difficult circumstances and lots of demands.  Yes, it’s tough.  But stress… worry…  In the end, the upset is entirely your creation.

But why do you do it?  How do you stop?

These are the questions that we all Google, ask our Gurus, and journal for answers.

Why?  If you know you create the stress in your life, why is it a daily challenge to cope?

One solution is to get help.  Find some stress support. [Read more…]

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What is Stress?

All around us, people are coping with stress–our friends, our family, our co-workers–even our children. But what is stress? And what about stress debilitates us so much?

As mothers, we are particularly susceptible to stress because of the many and varied responsibilities we carry. As I write this, I am trying to build a website, monitoring the kid’s homeschooling, planning what clothes they need for winter, preparing myself for my next client, ignoring my dirty house, making sure we have what we need for dinner, mediating my children, and, to top it off, today I am trying to plan a yoga class so I can relax. Am I prone to stress? You bet.

What is Stress?

The term stress is used popularly to describe two different things.

The first definition of stress is the events, environments or stimulus which we perceive as endangering us and which cause us to react. These can more accurately be called “stressors”. The second use of the word stress is about our bodies’ and minds’ reaction to the stressors, and can more accurately be called “stress reaction”.

The distinction between stressors and stress reaction is important because we are always surrounded by stressors, yet we don’t always go into a stress reaction.

Once we recognize this, we can begin to manage our bodies’ stress reactions.

Stress + Modern Life = Chronic Disease

Most of the time, we recognize stress by our outer symptoms–headaches, sore muscles, irritability. It’s important to understand that these symptoms are not the only results of stress, but are, in some cases, the least significant effects of stress. Constant, unabated and chronic stress is a lead player in our modern melée of disease.

Diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis, and colds all can result from chronic stress. And while stress may not cause many other diseases, it can set the stage for inflammation which can then cause disease.

Stress forms a partnership with many factors of our modern life (poor nutrition, lack of exercise and toxic overload) which leads to chronic disease and conditions which we now view as inevitable or expected.

Your physical body is not the only victim of stress. When our bodies are under stress, the chemistry changes and this can so deeply affect us that we can not control our emotions any more than a pregnant woman can keep from bursting into tears. Our bucket is full.

One extra drop and we spill over, wetting everything and everyone around us.

When chronic stress takes its toll, our health, our jobs, our relationships and our sanity are at risk.

To learn about Stress

Chronic Stress: Chronic stress results from bodies ill-adapted to modern sustained stress environments.

Stress Cycles: Stress cycles around and around, creating more sensitivity to stressors and therefore increasing our stress.

Stressed Moms: Stressed moms have unique challenges to begin to relax. Why is it so hard to take time to slow down?

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Improving your Sleep and Relaxation Naturally

There are many ways to improve your sleep and relaxation that are natural and healthy. Obviously, the first step to alleviate your stress related insomnia is to reduce stress. But once you can’t sleep, try these ideas to get your rest and feel refreshed.

Nine Ways to Get to Sleep

  1. Pretend you are sleeping. When you have sleep problems, remain lying down with your eyes closed. Pay particular attention to the wonderful night noises and give thanks for being awake and blessed with experiencing the night.

    Do you Listen to the ‘Experts’?

    Many experts advise getting up when you can’t sleep and doing some quiet activity. “There’s no point in tossing and turning,” they say.

    I have found this advise to be silly and this tip is the exact opposite. Experiment. See which works for you.

    Staying down is directly opposite advice that many specialists give, but in the morning, I find that I was not really as awake as I thought. I was actually dosing off and on all night and by staying down, I could take advantage of my little naps. I have also observed this in other people when they say “I was awake all night”.

    If you get up, you are definitely not sleeping and will be tired in the morning. Try pretending you are asleep and see if you can grab a few winks.

    2. Woman needing sleep and stress relief

  2. Intend to tire your body. If you must get out of bed, do it with the intention of tiring your body for rest.

    Working at night is fine if you enjoy it, but with insomnia, your goal should be sleep and relaxation. Don’t get to work on your to-do list, and don’t get sucked into a movie you have always wanted to watch. Your purpose is to tire your body and get back to bed. Do a quiet activity only until you can sleep again.
  3. Keep a pen and paper next to the bed. When your mind is racing or creativity is flowing, keep a pen and paper next to the bed in an easily reachable place. If you have a “to do” thought, write it down, but keep your eyes closed. Do not turn on the light. Stay sleepy but write down your thought and erase it from your mind.

    When creativity is flowing, and a great story idea or poem scrolls through your head, write it down too. If possible, write it down in the dark and make an effort to lie back down right away and go to sleep. Try not to fully awaken.
  4. Child’s Pose. This advice for sleep and relaxation was born when I was pregnant and insomnia because my belly was too big. Lie in your bed in the yoga pose “child’s pose” until you fall asleep. This pose never fails.

    There is one caution: this method is only for very fit people. When you fall asleep in child’s pose, your circulation to your legs is cut off. Eventually you wake up slightly and roll over, but your legs tingle and burn as the circulation returns. If you have circulation problems, don’t try this technique.
  5. Homeopathy. Homeopathy works great for improving your sleep and relaxation. Hyland’s makes an excellent sleep remedy called Calms Forte (affiliate link).

    Homeopathy is based on the idea of “like cures like.” When you take a remedy of a plant which can cause symptoms like insomnia, it will cure insomnia. In Western medicine, this a bit similar to how vaccines work, but with homeopathy the doses are incredibly minute, so dilute that they are almost nonexistent. Homeopathy is safe and very effective.

    You can find Calms Forte at most health food stores that sell homeopathy.
  6. Drink warm milk. Milk has calcium which can help you sleep and relaxation. Plus grandmothers have been advising this for years. I find it works well. Try adding a little vanilla extract for flavor. You may find this better than teas because it doesn’t make you pee right away.
  7. Herbal remedies. There are many herbal remedies, teas, supplements and tinctures which can help your sleep and relaxation. Try chamomile, catnip, hops, kava kava, valerian or passionflower. If you don’t know what to try first, go to the health food store and see which remedy pops out to you. Often your intuition is the best guide.
  8. Melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone which naturally occurs in your body. This remedy is particularly suggested when your sleep problems are due to a disruption in your regular sleep schedule. If you have worked late or have jet lag, try melatonin. Take the supplement 30 minutes before bed.
  9. Ignore your mind. Sometimes your thoughts are so busy marching around in your head that you can’t sleep or relax.

    Practice ignoring them.

    Notice when your thoughts take you to your typical story, the same old dialogue, your regular worries. When you see this pattern direct your attention back to the quiet of the night.

    Notice how your feet feel. You can not be able to simultaneously feel your body and fret. It is likely that you will have to repeat this over and over, just like teaching a child, but eventually, you will become more skilled at keeping your thoughts quiet.

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Troubles Sleeping for Women in Bad Marriages

Women in happy marriages get good sleep. Sleeping for women in unhappy marriages–not so much. How can insomnia help you improve your marriage and your life?

Woman with stress and insomniaWomen in happy marriages were 10% more likely to get a good night’s sleep than women with unhappy marriages concluded a recent study by Wendy M. Troxel, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

Wendy reviewed questionnaires from 2000 women who participated in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). The women reported on their sleep quality (how often they had trouble falling asleep, if they stayed asleep, and how early they woke up) and the quality of their marriage.

The women with happy marriages had less trouble getting to sleep, were more likely to stay asleep, had fewer sleep complaints and had more restful sleep. Sleeping for women in unhappy marriages was not as good.

Is it a surprise that poor marriages and poor sleep go together?

…After all, these women are in bed with the person they are not happy with.

…After all, relationships are very important to many women and relationship issues are bound to trouble women.

…After all, an unhappy marriage is bound to increase stress.

Wendy points out that her study does not examine which comes first–the bad marriage or the bad sleep, but only that poor sleeping and women in unhappy marriages go hand in hand.

While this study comes dangerously close to stating something so intuitively obvious that it doesn’t need stating, there is a deeper point you can learn.

Too often we look at the pieces of our lives and forget the big picture. No doubt some of these women have gone to doctors with sleep issues and have received medication for insomnia. No doubt some of these women attribute their sleep problems to the many stresses (besides their marriage) in their lives.

But at the core, these women are not happy in their marriage. And some of them are not happy at all.

If you view the symptoms of your health as clues to your deeper needs, then insomnia becomes an opportunity to ask, “What is really going on with me?”

If you view the symptoms of your health as clues to your deeper needs, then insomnia becomes an opportunity to ask, “What is really going on with me?” Instead of shouldering your stressful life unquestioningly, look at your health and assume that you most likely, barring the whims of fate, would be healthy. If you can’t sleep at night, then ask why not?

It is hard to look at your life without blinking, and as a woman, harder still to face the cold realities of a troubled marriage. But in doing so, and accepting what is really happening, you become free to both improve your relationship, and get a good night’s sleep.

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What is Chronic Stress?

Humans have always lived in a world with stress, and our bodies are adapted to deal with stresses. However, through evolution, our bodies are most suited to deal with acute stressors, not chronic stress. And because of this quirk, our modern life which sustains stressful situations for long periods of time, creates lots of chronic stress related disease.

Fight or Flight

When we humans were more controlled by our environment, we developed a marvelous and quite miraculous system to survive. This is called our “Fight or Flight” response. In general, a threat, such as a lion or a troupe of enemies armed with pointy spears, would trigger a series of chemical events which ready our body for immediate fight or immediate flight. It worked great.

Now our dangers are, well, less “pointy”. A really surly boss does not pose the same threat as a mammoth and fighting or fleeing is not necessarily the most beneficial or the most productive solution. And while meeting a deadline at work would appear to be directly related to survival (not losing your job which pays for your food), as say, killing the deer, the fight or flight response is still a tad inappropriate.

So our bodies have yet to catch up with our modern life.

Or better yet–we have yet to learn how to use our bodies to our advantage in modern life.

Eustress

Some people use stress to gain peak performance. This “good” stress, which enhances your abilities instead of disabling them is called eustress.

When in peril, your body mounts an immediate response to prepare for action. Your breathing and heart rate increase, your blood pressure goes up, your pupils dilate (to see the threat), and you begin to sweat (to cool the body for the coming battle). At the same time, the brain starts excreting hormones like mad, to coordinate the muscles, nervous system, and endocrine system so that you are at peak performance. Digestion ceases and your energy is diverted to your muscles.

After the threat leaves, all of this reverses itself, and your body goes back to a relaxed state. You eat the deer and talk about how brave you were fighting the lion. Everyone laughs and you go to bed happy.

General Adaptive Stress: Stress Gone Mad

But in our modern world, our stressors do not have finite end. After the surly boss leaves and you get a call about a new deadline. When you hang up, the school nurse calls and you must pick Jimmy up from school. You stop to get dinner as you go home; you have a fight with your teenager about homework; your ex calls to change plans for the weekend. You go to bed angry and worried and get up the next day to do it all again. Your heart raced all day, your blood pressure was up and your hormones were nuts from all the stressors, real and imagined.

Hans Seyle

Hans Seyle is the Father of Stress Research–much of our understanding of chronic stress begins with his research.

This constant state of stress arousal leads to General Adaptive Stress, or GAS.

When the Nervous System is Constantly Vigilant

Our nervous system has two parts to it.

The somatic manages the body’s movements and processes external stimuli. This is under our conscious control.

The autonomic system functions in the background of our consciousness, and this is what functions during stress.

There are three parts to the autonomic system. The sympathetic system is in charge of emergencies. The parasympathetic is in charge of resting, relaxation, and “normal” metabolic function. The entericsystem manages digestion. To understand stress, the relationship between the sympathetic and parasympathetic system is important.

Our sympathetic nervous system switches on in emergencies. It keeps us acute and ready for action. It is yang, energizing, active, aroused and short term oriented.

The other part of the automatic nervous system is the parasympathetic system. This is yin, calming, and soothing. The parasympathetic system has a long term view for growth, maintenance, and health. It should be operating most of the time.

Chronic stress is when we operate in the sympathetic nervous system long term, without end. This never ending “alert” is called General Adaptive Stress.

Phases of General Adaptive Stress

There’s an alternative stress reaction: “Tend And Befriend” and mothers do it naturally.

There are 3 phases recognized in General Adaptive Stress:

1. Alarm– This is the initial fight or flight stage. The body readies itself for action. The hypothalamus in the brain activates the hormones, especially the adrenal glands. Steroids flood the blood. The heart begins beating faster and the bronchial tubes dilate to increase breathing. The liver releases sugar into the blood.

2. Resistance– If the stress continues, we enter resistance phase. This stage is tricky because from many indicators, our body adapts to the stressor and we appear to cope. The initial alarm cycle recedes and the adrenals return to their normal size. However, the body is still over producing hormones and this puts wear and tear on all organs and makes fertile ground for inflammation and disease. Cortisol levels remain high. Here we are at the “I’m at my max” state of mind. Defense mechanisms and coping strategies all increase and we are ready to crack at the slightest event.

3. Exhaustion– If the stress still has not stopped, we enter exhaustion phase. Here our alarm reaction may reappear, with increased respiration and heart rate, sweating, etc., but we have no reserves to feed it. We are exhausted, depleted and often not thinking like ourselves. Our immune system is worn down; the heart and blood vessels are weakened. There is nothing left.

In this final stage, the risk for disease and illness is the greatest, although as one advances through all the stages of stress, the body make break down from abnormal hormone levels and metabolic activity.

But even more important, chronic will affect a person’s emotions, making all our personal relations strained.