75% of people say they experience this in a way that negatively affects the quality of their life.
STRESS
We all know that stress affects our life, but we may not know how deeply it affects us. Each time we are “stressed” out, cortisol is released into our body. Increases in cortisol over time lead to a weakened immune system, which accounts for the fact that 2/3 of all doctor visits are related to stress.
Every unresolved experience in your life gets stored in your body as tension.
For example, if you have an argument and walk away in the midst of it saying you “don’t want to talk about it anymore,” that stress stays with you until you go back and resolve it.
It remains stored in your body beneath your conscious awareness, and accumulates over time.
Anything that you “hold onto” rather than working through, gets stored in your body as tension.
This includes blaming others for what is wrong in your life. It includes any negative self-judgments about who you are and what possibilities you have. It includes sadness, fear, guilt, shame, and anger.
If you hang onto any of these mental-emotional patterns they get stored as tension in your body.
What you think you are “ignoring” or “avoiding” gets shoved inside, into your cells and tissues, eventually becoming the 95% of medical symptoms that are stress-related.
FOUR STEPS TO MANAGE STRESS
STEP ONE: Become as aware as you can of all your feelings. Don’t shove them aside thinking that you’ve got more important things to attend to.
Learn what your feelings are telling you about what you are holding onto and what actions you need to take right now to move forward.
STEP TWO: Become aware of stress, tension, and conflict arising with others and work through it.
Work things out, instead of letting them linger and fester. Communicate even when it feels hard to do. Handle conflict honestly and directly, as soon as possible. Learn the skill of assertive communication. The more you practice it, the easier it gets!
STEP THREE: Understand that you won’t always do this perfectly or handle things well.
Don’t let being imperfect stop you from trying to communicate or taking action to improve your situation. Other people won’t always cooperate with you or be as ready to communicate and resolve things as you are. Don’t let that stop you from finding your voice and speaking up.
STEP FOUR: Learn to let go on your end, even when others aren’t able to.
Practice relaxing your body, calming your emotions, and quieting your mind at some point every day; this will help train your body to handle the inevitable stresses in life.
