WW Activity: Managing Stress
The wonderful @Bee has written a post about managing stress that was just too good not to share!
"Managing Stress
Recently I’ve found myself in a couple stressful situations at work: either the phones are ringing non-stop and I have a huge to-do list with not enough rostered hours to get them done,
or I’m looking at something and my brain just cannot seem to figure out what I’m meant to do with it. Or I feel like I’m chasing my tail…
It’s times like these when my brain has gone into stress overload that I need to pause for a moment and take a break, take a breather and calm my nervous system down.
This week I wanted to focus on things we can do while we’re at work or while we’re out in public and don’t have the space or time to do a self-care method that works for us. We know that pausing for a moment to focus on our breath can be helpful to calm our nervous system down and give us a moment of relief, but what about when that doesn’t happen? When things are so overwhelming that your Fight, Flight or Freeze system is encroaching? And the clock ticking feels like a bomb ready to go off in your brain…. Stress has this way of really targeting us and tightening its grips until we break. But there are things we can do to stop stress from fully taking over our minds.
I want you to think about and try something to help calm you in a stressful situation. It doesn’t have to be big, or elaborate, just something that works for you. Because everyone is different."
Comments
Love it!!
I've recently found out about a technique called Willing Hands, which simply involves taking a moment to stretch out your hands, palms upwards. It's a way of demonstrating open body language, which signals to your brain that you're safe. That's what I'm trying to use this week 🙂
Loving everyone's answers! 😄
When I’m stressed at work I literally stop and breathe for a minute or two. I tell myself that it’s okay to take my time and everything will be okay.
When that doesn’t work I try to move to the next task I have to do, or I take a break, I make an excuse to either walk around the office or go downstairs and back up again to tell my body that it’s not in danger I’m safe.
Really good one @Bee ! 😄 I feel like it works really well to get us thinking ahead of the GR about relaxing and calming nerves too, which is a nice coincidence!
What sometimes works for me is just breaking things down and taking it moment by moment so it's not all something I have to deal with at once. For example if deep breathing isn't working for me on say, public transport then I try think of it as:
- get off the tram, then
- walk to the train station, then
- go down the escalator, then
- go through the gates, then
- go to the platform, then
- get on the train, then etc.
so that I only have to focus on the next couple of minutes or so at time, i find it really helpful 😄
Interested to see what everyone else has to suggest! 
Great activity this week @Bee !
It's so true that having little things to do in a stressful day make ALL the difference!
For me a good strategy to counting - if I'm stuck in traffic and late for something this is especially useful. Slowly counting up to 10 and then back down from 10 helps to ground me in the moment.
Another thing I could do if I'm having a busy or stressful day at work, is to sit back and look for something I think is pretty - could be the sunlight hitting something nicely, or a plant, and just focus on it for a few seconds.
This activity has prompted me to remember to actually DO this!
What do you/ could you do @Bee and @lokifish ??
@gina-RO i really love your second one. that is really cool. its often lifes little pleasures that we forget about until we take a step back
something that helps me is to take a few deep breaths, do some exercise, baking, painting, drawing or crochet are my main ones that help me to manage stress either long term and/or short term
I agree with @scared01, because I'm mainly an arty person. But @gina-RO has a good strategy too.
Another thing I like to do, is to come onto the RO forums. Either, for self-care activities, or to talk talk about my stressful problem. There's the games, too.
Watching TV is another big one. Just sitting there and relaxing is a great way to release stress. I went to the movies today, with a friend, and I enjoyed just being with her, relaxing.
