HAPPY HABITS
COPING WITH STRESS
Stress can be your body's reaction to a new challenge or an unfamiliar demand. This response is natural and is designed to keep us safe. As humans have evolved over the centuries, our reliance on this system has lessened. Not every threat is a risk to our life anymore. However, our stress response hasn't evolved
to adapt to our modern life.
So, when faced with a situation that can be challenging, our brain doesn't know it isn't life threatening and sends the same alarm signals to the body. This is when you may feel your heart pounding, your breathing increasing and your arms and legs tingling in order to fight or flight the danger. Sometimes our body just freezes to zone out of the situation it cannot handle. When this is done regularly, it can be harmful and disrupt our normal bodily functions.
Knowing how to manage stressful situations and teaching your body to relax or reevaluate perceived threats may easily become one of your new super skills.
William James
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."
HOW DOES A SESSION LOOK LIKE?
This module is broken into 10 sessions, each lasting 60 minutes. We discuss what stress is, the role it plays in our lives, how it is affecting us now and how it can impact us in the future. We guide you in becoming aware of where you hold stress in your body and the patterns you get stuck in which are contributing to even more stress. You will learn coping strategies to help you in the moments of overwhelm and work on building a plan to thrive in the future.
In each session you are encouraged to look within to discover your own personal stress triggers and your abilities to interrupt unhelpful thought patterns that are keeping your stress response alive. If you understand the origin and the strategy underlying your stress, you are able to cope and thrive. Knowledge is the precursor for the experience and we find with education many people find the way to access their own resources again.
This contributes to building new neuro-pathways as we repeatedly explore and apply techniques to reduce stress. In parallel we will be working on increasing positive emotions as research has shown that they do not only feel good in the present moment but serve as a buffer against potential stressors in the future. Positivity therefore is at the core of building of resilience.
