Stress Reduction 101
By Sharon Sklar
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n my youth, I remember feeling so stressed I could not breathe. Feeling so stressed I could not think, sleep or eat. My heart felt like a brick, my head hurt and my shoulders were up around my ears with tension. I’m not sure if it is just stress management skills that developed or if age mellows us out, but that doesn’t happen anymore. We are all having some sort of COVID stress; months of somewhat isolated lives, no getting together with friends. Trips to the store are something we now plan and think about with organization. I am fully aware of people who stand too close in a line and of crowds gathering. This is our daily stress. We are learning to cope and live with it, adjust to it and it has become “normal” after all these months. My clients are showing up with stressed bodies which play out as stiff or painful backs, hips and/or shoulders. Some are coming in with headaches and prob-
lems with sleeping through the night. New clients arrive with a list of similar issues but not quite understanding that their problems could be very related to their structure and their body’s inability to get to neutral which lets stress pass through. We all have to be concerned with our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems at this point in time. A quick explanation. Someone cuts you off in your car and you narrowly escape a collision. Your heart rate speeds up, you blast the horn, you might mouth off. That is your sympathetic nervous system charging you through. Your parasympathetic nervous system’s job is to rise up, lower the charge and bring you back to neutral off-setting the upset. If we go through enough stress and trauma and our systems are not engaged to balance each other out, we mount up with stress. Remember years ago, when people went “postal”? That expression came from a few postal workers who had mounting stress
and without a way to lower that stress, started shooting everyone around them. The job of the parasympathetic nervous system is to bring you back to a normal level. Stressful things happen, we respond, we get over it and the day goes on. It is our job during this chronically stressful time to do our best to stay calm. There are ways to strengthen our parasympathetics, doing yoga; getting bodywork; using a flotation tank; deep, conscious breathing; and plenty of sleep to name a few things. What we need to do is find that stress-lowering ability to have life coming at us, but the capacity to bring ourselves back to center and move beyond. The best way to release stress is to develop an attitude of moving through it instead of going around it. The only way out is through. Identifying what is really going on is crucial. Is it family stress? Is it job related? Is it socially induced? Is it due to an illness or pain? Is it COVID related, a www.NaturalNutmeg.com
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