Normalizing Stress – Wendy Coven Blanchard, M.S., INHC, NYCPS
A stress mindset, or the belief that stress has debilitating consequences such that we believe that we are being “threatened,” or a belief that outcomes will be toxic or unfavorable and negatively affects our overall health, performance and even our emotional state, reveals our beliefs about the nature of stress itself, and how it shapes our expectations when we become stressed.
We need to observe the explanation that we tell ourselves as to what is happening when we’re stressed and why it’s happening. We need to seek to become motivated in allowing ourselves to perceive the stress in real time, to allow ourselves to feel it without feeling threatened, and to observe our physiological response. To just observe our body’s response. Then we may ask ourselves what we need to do in real time to self soothe as we allow ourselves to experience the feelings and emotions that which connect to real time stressors.
When we attempt to avoid stress, and to suppress the body’s stress response, we actually intensify and heighten the stress. This makes the feeling of stress and anxiety intensify and heighten, and will most likely have a longer lasting effect on our wellness.
In addition, we need to keep in mind that as a person of influence in any room, most especially with youth, others will sync their emotions with ours.
Let us demonstrate for every one that we access, especially our younger generation, that we do have control over how we respond to stress. We want a positive stress mindset versus a negative stress mindset in order to connect with, and to teach the people that we influence. In this space and mindset, we have the opportuity to change the climate and tone of our stress perception, and therefore our stress response, through self-awareness, social awareness and engaging in mindful healthy practices in order to normalize stress, and to embrace stress, as opposed to trying to escape and resist a very typical part of every day life.
As the person of influence, we have the ability to create a global shift to wellness when we are inclusive of stress in our everyday thinking. We can create this shift when we observe stress as a challenge that lifts you to a “higher level of energy and performance,” where the stress response is used to observe our phsyiology, remind ourselves that we are safe in the moment, and to learn new tools for coping with real time challenges.
Where there is no resistance and we have the willingness to experience the experience of stress, and have the certainty of our resilience to recover, we normalize stress.
Try this for 66 days to create a new healthy lifestyle change. Write it down. Memorialize your daily experiences.
Set your day up today for success.
It is all about how we choose to experience our experiences.
Love and blessings,
Wendy
