April 2021 is Stress Awareness Month. The Stress Management Society has reported that 65% of people have more stressed since the restrictions began in March 2020.
Stress is a significant factor in many mental and physical health issues. From anxiety and inability to concentrate to eczema, IBS, insomnia and heart disease, so many of our issues are related to stress, but do we give it the attention that it deserves?
How often do we just accept that we have an issue caused by stress, and how often do we try to change the cause of that stress? For many years I accepted that my various forms of eczema were due to stress and I just went along to the doctor to get a prescription to solve it. Now I practice mindfulness regularly, I have reduced my stress, and I no longer have eczema. It never occurred to me before that reducing one might actually reduce the other, no matter how much I hated the itch. I just reached for the ointment and hoped for the best.
Although we cannot change many of the issues that cause us stress, we can certainly change how we experience them. We cannot change the uncertainty around the releasing of restrictions and the possibility of foreign travel. We can however change what we choose to focus on. It takes some practice, but the science shows that the practice will pay off.
Doing a short meditation each day will:
Increase your ability to focus on the present
Increase your ability to manage stress
Increase your ability to manage anxiety
Increase your ability to get to sleep and stay asleep
Increase your resilience
Increase your patience
A short meditation a day can change how you experience life and it is free. It is easy to do, you just have to find five or ten minutes a day to do it. That is not so easy.
Most people know that this can make a difference but are unable to commit to finding the time to practice it. That is when a trainer is useful, or a buddy system, something that ensures that you are accountable. Just how it is easier to go for a run with a friend, or to stick to your diet when you know you are going back to a group next week. Having support makes changing your behaviour much easier.
Many people have the intention to meditate, but it is putting that into action that is the problem. This was the case for one such person, let’s call him Darren, largely because he is called Darren. Darren Hignett is my go-to man for everything concerning websites and social media marketing. Darren had mentioned a few times that although he had the intention to meditate for twenty minutes a day, he often could not find that twenty minutes. I suggested that he just commit to doing a meditation each day even if sometimes it was just three minutes. That way it would become a habit, rather than an option.
This year he has tried that out and has gained his longest ever meditation streak. By deciding to meditate every day even if just for a few minutes, he has managed to make it a habit. Even if some of those are very short, they are still practicing and are still consolidating the skills that make this work, and are contributing to forming the habit. Darren said, “Previously, I had not been able to meditate for more than a couple of weeks consecutively, but now I am on 53 days and still going strong”.
It is better to have some five or ten minute meditations than none at all. And it is much easier to do a twenty minute meditation when you have been practising regularly. And much easier to find the time for it when you have been reminded repeatedly of how much better you feel for doing a short meditation.
Meditation is one thing that you could start doing today that would reduce the amount of stress that you experience on a daily basis.
Long story short, as the kids say, meditation has taken me from being an eczema ridden bundle of stress with road rage to someone relatively stress free. Once I met someone who lived near me and as I introduced myself he said, ‘Yes, we have almost met before, I believe you nearly drove off the road yesterday’. He smiled. He was nice about it. But inwardly I cringed and thought, ‘Ah, yes, I remember that’. I was in a hurry. He was driving, slowly, arguably sensibly. I was judgemental and wired for rage. I was running on adrenaline and already annoyed with everyone really. It was logical, it made sense to get past, I thought, but it wasn’t really going to make any difference. Then it turned out he was a policeman. I thought, “Maybe this is time to change”.
But even then it turned out that it wasn’t, and I didn’t, because I had too much on, and was too stressed.
And then one day I did change. And I still know him and I hope he has forgiven me. And now I can laugh at myself. And now I experience absolutely no road rage. Or queue rage. Or email rage. Or child rage. Or really any of the rages I used to experience.
Contact me if you would like to let go of some stress, or some rage