Sometimes it helps to have something you can take, to help you de-stress, even when you have a lot of personal-growth tools you are using already. I find a nice cup of herbal tea can help, and there are also herbs you can take, internally and externally, that will help shield you against the stress…
Category: Stress
Self Knowledge & Stress
Self knowledge and self awareness go a long way towards preventing, or at least mitigating, stress. Knowing that you’re a social introvert, for instance, allows you the freedom of spending time with people, as long as you also create space for decompression and recharging your batteries, so to speak. Knowing that you are not a…
Stress Management for Parents
Being responsible for another life form can be stressful. Our society puts a lot of pressure on parents who care; the standards can feel impossible to meet and, honestly, they probably are. Whether both parents work outside the home or now, the obligations of today’s parents are immense. I am constantly in awe of people…
Stress and the Relaxation Response
(sorry for the lack of article last week, the Fourth of July seems to have messed up my schedule) Now that we know a whole lot about the science of stress, let’s talk about it’s antidote: The Relaxation Response (coined by Dr Herbert Benson in 1975). While some feel that this is just a fancy…
Understanding Stress
Let’s look at the physiology of stress. When you encounter a perceived threat, say, getting attacked by a sabre-toothed tiger, your hypothalamus goes to work. It lives for this stuff. It sends out nerve and hormonal signals to your adrenal glands (which are at the top of your kidneys, for those of you who don’t…
Web of Information
It’s the late-night blogs, written when my household is asleep, that can give you insight into my motivations, my values, and how my mind works. They’re not generally the well thought out entries, the ones that get researched and planned. No, these posts are off the cuff, welling up from the darkness, still oozing the…
Sex as Stress Relief
I think we’re all in agreement that stress is something we’d like less of. Stress does bad things to us – physically, emotionally, mentally. It messes up our work, our personal relationships, and our ability to cope. I’ve been discussing this for weeks, at this point. I was going to write about exercise this week,…
The Best Antidote to Stress
Note: for a great recap of everything we’ve talked about so far in the series, see last week’s post. Gratitude is the best antidote for stress I have found. Not feeling nebulously grateful, or doing a three-item gratitude list every night, but finding gratitude for things within the stressors themselves. Has an old pattern reared…
More on Stress
For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring stress, its impact on us, and what we can do about it. Let’s recap what we know so far: Stress is what happens when the body responds to physical, mental, or emotional pressure by releasing stress hormones (such as epinephrine and norepinephrine) that increase blood pressure, speed…
Stress in the Home
This is a part of a weekly series, posting on Wednesdays, about stress. Today’s installment focuses on techniques for mitigating stress in the home. The body responds to stress by releasing chemicals that raise your blood pressure,speed up your heart rate, and raise your blood sugar levels. Evolutionarily speaking, stress came from perceived threats, like…
Stress and Your Energy Levels
Each person has a finite amount of expendable energy at any given time. Stress will eat up some of that energy, giving you less to work with. This can lead to even more feelings of overwhelm, and more stress, which uses up more of your energy… You see where this is going, right? The way…
10 Reasons You Might Want A House Clearing
I have been approached recently by people who are curious as to what a house clearing entails. While I bring many tools to the table, here are some reasons why you or someone you know might want to have a house clearing. (1) You just moved (or are moving into) a new place and want…