What are the ways of coping with stress?
Ways to Reduce Stress and Protect Your Brain
American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association), approximately 25% of Americans are under high levels of stress, on the other hand, while another 50% reported that under moderate levels of stress (as assessed on the 10-unit scale).
According to John Medina's Rules Brain Rules imiz, our brain can cope with stress for about 30 seconds without being damaged. That is all.
Simply put, our brain is not designed to cope with long-term stress.
Stress almost damages all existing cognitive functions. Damages memory and player functions.
If we spend a long period under stress, this will prevent the immune (immune) response of our body from occurring - so that we can get sick more often.
In addition, stress adversely affects our ability to sleep, which adds to its previous negative effects.
When stressed, a hormone called cortisol is secreted in our body. Cortisol helps the brain cope with life-threatening situations (runaway or war response). Overloading cortisol causes neurons to stimulate very often and neurons begin to die.
Cortisol not only kills brain cells, but also greatly reduces the rate at which new brain cells are produced. The net effect is that when we're under stress for a long time, our brain gets smaller!
Since we do not want our brain cells to die or shrink, it is important that we learn how to deal with stress.
Learn relaxation techniques
Relaxation techniques can help keep your mind running so you can react less to stress. As a result, you will be able to stay calm and peaceful throughout the day.
Typical relaxation techniques include activities similar to the following:
Meditation
visualization
Deep breathing
Tai Chi
Yoga
Progressive muscle relaxation
In addition to relaxation techniques, several other methods of stress relief are given below.
Exercise and stress
Physical activity is helpful in reducing and preventing the effects of stress.
Exercise triggers the production of dopamine, serotonin and endorphin. The so-called ’runner's high yarat creates these chemicals.
Researchers at Duke University have shown that exercise can cure anxiety and depression symptoms as effectively as prescribed anti-depressants.
Just make sure you don't overdo it. Exercising can actually trigger excessive cortisol production! Excessive exercise increases your cortisol level. However, adhering to a regular, progressive and sustainable exercise program will gradually “teach ud your body to produce less cortisol against a given workload.
Contact your senses
One of the methods I found to help with relaxation is simply to get in touch with one or all of your 5 senses.
Do not touch
Tasting
Sniffing
Seeing
Hearing
At any time of the day, for example; you can get in touch with one or more of your senses and experience more of the moment you are sitting in a conversation, driving and stopping and getting into traffic, or in the middle of a tough discussion.
For example, suppose something is tampering with your mind, which makes you nervous. All you have to do is get in touch with one or more of your 5 senses (touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, hearing).
Combined with heavy and deep breathing, this is a very powerful technique.
Here are ways to get in touch with your 5 senses and how to reach a calm and peaceful mind.
Follow these steps in sequence:
Start by breathing a few heavy and deep breaths.
Touch something with one hand. What you're going to touch can be the top of the table, the fabric of the steering wheel, chair or seat, your other hand, your fingertips, your leg, your clothes, your arm, anything. How is the texture of what you touch? Is it flat, rough or has a variable surface? Is it hot, cold, normal?
The same goes for your feet - how do you feel at the moment? Is there cramping, hot or cold? Can you feel anything with your toes or heels? What do you feel? Can you identify it?
What are you enjoying right now? How does it taste?
What do you smell? Take a deep, heavy breath. How does it smell? Take a few more heavier and deeper breaths and try and see if you can catch any odor or aroma. Is the air you inhale hot, cold or normal?
What do you see? Open your eyes fully and look carefully at the place you are in. Bright or dark? What's the brightest thing you've ever seen? The darkest thing? Do you see a shadow you've never noticed before? What colors do you see? Is there any movement, or is everything in place?
What do you hear? What does that sound like? Is it loud, light, close or far? Are there people in the background talking or buzzing machines? How many different things can you hear? Can you identify what they are?
Now, come back; Start with touch from the beginning and follow all the steps of your five senses again. Do this many times and spend as much time as you desire for each of your senses. Be sure to continue to breathe slowly and deeply from beginning to end.
By contacting one or more of your senses, you get away from your thoughts that cause stress and anxiety, and you live the moment you are in more. This has a great calming effect.
Make sure you get enough sleep
The importance of getting enough sleep isn't counting.
Sleep and stress are linked. Stress makes it difficult to sleep and insufficient sleep makes us even more stressful. This creates a destructive cycle.
Sleep gives your body time to relieve stress and discharge.
In addition, sleep is essential for your brain's ability to learn and remember. During sleep, the brain consolidates and stores memory. Thus, it makes it possible to remember in the future. When we can't get enough sleep, our brain has difficulty understanding and remembering any new information.
According to the University of California Berkeley (UC Berkley), inadequate sleep may lead to the accumulation of toxic proteins associated with Alzheimer's (Alzheimer's) disease.
Researchers say we try to sleep 7-8 hours a night. Sleeping regularly is very important for your brain health.
Here are some useful tips to help you get a good night's sleep:
Set a regular sleep and wake time and stay connected even on weekends. This helps your body and mind gain a rhythmic and healthy habit
Turn off all the lights and sleep. Any light that enters your eyes, even if it passes through your eyelids, can affect your melatonin level and disrupt your sleep.
Avoid caffeinated food at least four hours before bedtime.
Try to eat at least 2-3 hours early for the last meal of the day.
Avoid bright lights, especially blue lights (TVs, computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets) at least 1-2 hours before bedtime, as this will affect melatonin secretion. You may want to consider installing a blue light filter app on your computer and / or smartphone.
Take bright daylight for at least 30 minutes per day, preferably towards the evening, but better than never at any time. This will help you adjust your natural biological clock. If for some reason this is not possible, you may consider buying a blue light emitter. Philips produces a tan called goLITE BLU. (You can find it on Amazon.) A small light therapy device that you can put on your desk.
If possible, sleep on your side. This position helps to clear your brain from accumulated metabolic waste throughout the day.
If you snore or can't wake up rested, you may want to have a sleep exercise. There is a possibility that you may have sleep apnea that causes your brain not to get enough oxygen. This can damage your brain and your overall health.
There are some apps that record your nighttime breathing to see if you snore and how bad the situation is. At night, if you think you may be breathing or snoring, one of these applications may be worth trying.
Develop a Positive Perspective
If your thoughts are often negative, it is likely that your outlook is pessimistic.
Studies; it shows that there is an increase in the amygdala activities of those who mostly focus on negative thoughts or interpret life in a pessimistic way. This activity is related to our war-or-few reactions.
Continuous negative thinking leads to the release of neurochemicals, which are highly destructive for your brain and your overall health, when over-secreted.
On the other hand, if your thoughts are mostly positive, you are likely to be optimistic.
Health benefits of being an optimist:
Long life
Low depression rate
Low stress level
Increased resistance to colds
Better psychological and physical health
Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular diseases
Better coping with challenges and stressful periods
Here are some steps you need to take to avoid negative thinking and learn to be more positive and optimist:
Stop listening to news from TV and radio - news is often negative and they don't say that much new stuff anyway. The same old “news görünüyor seems to rewind over and over again for many days. In half an hour or less, you can fully understand and follow the situation. Do this only once or twice a week, if possible. For example, you can only browse headlines from the Google news site. In all cases, interrupt TV and radio news as much as possible. You will notice that your stress level decreases over time.
If you can, avoid spending time with negative people. Motivation speaker Jim Rohn says we are the average of five people we spend most of our time together. Why would you let negative people reflect all this sarcasm and negativity on you? Stay away from this disease.
The opposite of number 2: Try to spend time with positive, optimist people.
Get in the habit of expressing gratitude. Thanking you for what you have will help reduce the negativity. Thankfulness connects you to more positive and optimistic feelings. Take a day each day, for example, before bedtime, and make a list of things you are grateful for.
Stop comparing yourself to others. You will never, ever meet this standard! Leave this behavior as if your whole life depended on it - because it really does! This is a difficult habit to break because we compare ourselves with others and standards of others in our lives. It is clearly not possible to explain this concept in a paragraph. But as a start, simply realize how you constantly compare yourself to others and the standards of others.
Redefine failure. Michael Jordan once said: de I missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. I was convinced I was going to win the game and then I lost. I've lost it over and over and over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeeded. Şt I've heard that said before, you're not an example of failure until you stop trying. The so-called failure is just learning experiences that come your way. So learn from them and turn the wrongs in your path to the truth. Think of how many steering movements should I make when driving to work every day? To tell you the truth, you always make these moves to go “right yolda on the road.
Get help to reduce stress when needed
If you continue to feel exhausted, contact a psychologist or other licensed mental health professional who can teach you how to control past and future negative situations and how to deal with stress effectively. It can help you identify situations or behaviors that cause chronic stress, and then develop an action plan to change them.
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