
Manage Stress by Monitoring Your Body’s Reactions to It - prostoalex
https://hbr.org/2017/10/manage-your-stress-by-monitoring-your-bodys-reactions-to-it
======
louprado
The body provides many signals when you are stressed. But for those who are
chronically stressed the signals are always present and therefore
undetectable.

It wasn't until my mid-30's where I was able to have some downtime and learn
what a healthy mind and body truly felt like. With a healthy baseline I can
now quickly detect stress signals. This can be a subtle as feeling my face is
wrinkled, a slight acid/burning feeling in my veins, absent mindedness,
depression, quick/aggressive responses, flatulence, slight backache/tension,
sleeping poorly, etc.

When I detect any of the stress signals I use one of the following techniques
depending on the severity: I make "no" my default response to any new
requests. I take deep breaths and softly smile. I switch to 100% selfish
thinking; "what do I want ?", "what are my short and long term goals and what
is my next step towards them ?". I plan. I make the gym and sleep a priority.
I triage my todo list, cancel trips, and communicate with anyone who might get
impacted. I avoid the news. I drink more water. I focus on anything beautiful
immediately in front of me (usually the beauty of my meal since my mind tends
to wander while eating).

------
micheljansen
The "lookouts" they describe sound surprisingly similar to concepts of
vipassana (mindfulness) meditation. Being aware of your own responses
(physical and mental) at a meta level increases your ability to deal with
them.

~~~
SwetDrems
This is what I thought as well.

Mindfulness is a skill to be practiced. Similar to how your heart strengthens
through running and your muscle-mass increases through weight training, your
ability to recognize physiological and physical responses to stress will
sharpen with continued mindfulness practice.

------
pizza
Far better to have one stressful day every 30 than to have none at all. But
unimaginably worse to have one stressful day every other day, etc.

------
danharaj
We live in a world where we should manage our stress instead of avoiding our
stressors.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Not really. It depends on the stressors you have. It isn't like everyone can
avoid their stressors, like death of a loved one. Some stressful things aren't
really things one wants to avoid either - Entering a new marriage or moving
can be really stressful.

I had all three of those particular ones within a short time frame. My father
died one May, I got married in July, and moved overseas at the beginning of
August.

Other stressors have more flexibility. My ex-husband causes a _great_ deal of
stress, and I eventually left him. After that (and before I moved away), I
avoided him.

Managing or avoiding really depends on the situation. And really, being able
to avoid stress (when possible) depends on a person being able to manage their
own stress enough to say enough is enough.

