Stress is like the weather, you can’t control it, but you can control how you dress for it.

If you want to boost your mental health, build mental resilience and handle your day to day with more self-confidence, then you need to master the art of managing stress and this is what this blog post is all about.

Chronic stress is why your body thinks everything is an emergency. It’s what keeps you in a constant ‘fight or flight’ mode, for whatever reason (work, money, drama with your ex).

When you are running on fumes and anxiety, your body’s natural “chill out’ system aka the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) basically forgets how to work.

Overtime this leads to a dysregulated nervous system (DNS).

Can you guess what a dysregulated DNS does to you?

It keeps cortisol levels high as a kite for too long, leading to poor judgement, trouble remembering what you ate for breakfast this morning, increase in anxiety for simple things like saying ‘you too’ when the waiter says ‘enjoy your meal’ and spiraling for three days.

It weakens your immune system making you prone to more colds, more illnesses. High BP, weight gain especially around the belly area, muscle aches, headaches and an overall feeling of arrgghhhhhhhh.

That’s what happens when your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) keeps working overtime – no breaks included.

Learning how to differentiate between the types of stress you feel, allows you to regulate your nervous system better.

Stress can be positive (eustress) or negative (distress).

Eustress is that feeling of excitement like starting a new job, or getting married. It’s often short-term, within our ability to cope and leads to improved performance and growth.

Distress however, is like trying to adult while your nervous system acts like a toddler who missed naptime. It makes you feel anxious, overwhelmed, steady worrying and on edge. It’s caused by things like financial issues, loss, chronic illness, your passive aggressive colleague.

It’s often chronic, buzzing in the background of your life, exceeds your coping capacity and leads to decreased performance, unhealthy habits and fatigue.

Horrible I know. And in this post whenever I mention stress, I’m referring to DIS-stress.

But the great news is while stress may be inevitable, you get to choose how you handle yourself in any distressful situation or event. This you can control!

And in the face of some seriously stressful stuff like your landlord raising rent again, or whatever fresh hell the news is serving today – your ability to handle yourself with curiosity, deep breaths, a splash of humor, kindness and compassionate action is what builds your stress resilience, preparing you for the next spicy stuff down the road.

Without further ado, here are my top 3 tips for managing stress in a way that helps you self-regulate and move on to the next asap.

1. First notice how you handle stress

I’ll say this again for the umptieth time; ‘self-awareness = better self-management.’

When it hit me that my stress response to daily child care – excused as ‘me time’, was excessive scrolling and overeating way past 18:00. I started working towards changing how I spent my time after the kids have gone to bed. I replaced the binge cycles with writing blog posts which I actually enjoy and continuing my herbalist course.

What is your current MO for handling stress? Do you react, ignore or try to mask the stress with unhealthy habits that you totally regret later?

Or do you take a moment to process why this stresses you out and try to calm yourself down in safe and healthy ways?

If the former is your current MO for managing stress, start growing in self-awareness by asking yourself; (write it down)

• What is the biggest source of stress in my life right now?

• Who is responsible for this stress?

• Why does this situation/person stress me out so much?

• How am I coping with this stress right now? (Be honest with yourself)

Understanding your default setting for handling stress, allows you see through your BS approach, so you can begin the next step of updating the program to something more zen.

First notice how you handle stress.

2. Update your stress response

This boils down to learning ways to calm your nervous system the heck down. We do this by activating the other part of your nervous system responsible for rest and digestion (the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)

This involves 3 things;

1. Behavioral shifts and physical techniques.

For instant calm, diaphragmatic breathing; A deep inhale through the nose followed by a long slow exhale through the mouth. Start with 5.

The 3-3-3 method; inhale by nose for 3 seconds, hold for 3 seconds and exhale for 3 seconds through the mouth.

Splashing cold water on your face, or holding an ice pack to your neck triggers the ‘dive reflex’ slowing your heart rate = instant calm.

Dancing or shaking for 5 minutes on the Release playlist on Calm&Courage, instantly takes my cortisol levels down a notch.

Daily meditation, digital boundaries, prioritizing sleep. Holding a warm cup of tea. Calling a friend, cuddling your pet, or any other form of connection.

Pick one calming technique to start and focus on that, until you build the momentum to include more coping tools in your stress management toolbox.

2. Nutritional support.

Food is like the software update for your hardware. Good code runs smooth, buggy code crashes the system.

What you eat literally programs your mood and energy.

Feel free to do your own research, but even making simple changes to your diet like including a ½ cup of kefir topped with flaxseeds/chia seeds to your breakfast. Increasing your magnesium intake with foods like arugula/spinach salad with your lunch. Or indulging in some dessert of strawberries dipped in at least 70% dark chocolate – can make a big difference in helping you better self-regulate your NS, if done consistently.

Long story short, finding simple ways to include; magnesium rich foods, omega 3’s, antioxidant and mood boosters, fermented (gut-friendly) foods as part of a nutrient dense, anti-inflammatory diet can help regulate your stress hormone cortisol.

Limit caffeine, alcohol and the usual blood sugar spiking foods (cue French fries drenched in seed oils + sprite), you know the drill. Start small, scale up when you can, your body and mind depend on it.

3. Find the root cause of the stress and do something about it.

It helps to take a moment to lay on your bed, no phone, or airpods, just staring at the ceiling in silence and ask yourself; What is the real cause of my stress?

Is it really your passive aggressive boss who is behind your distress? Or is it the fact that you feel unfulfilled at your job and deep down you know you want to do something more meaningful?

Maybe it’s not your partners communication style that’s increasing your stress. But your insecurities from past hurt and low self esteem?

Understanding the root cause of your stress, allows you to take whatever action you can to totally eliminate the stress, or reduce it to a speed bump instead of a brick wall.

This will free up a lot of mental energy, release physical tension, and push you to engage in healthier coping strategies in other areas of your self-management as well.

Update your stress response.

3. Fail, Try again, Rinse and Repeat (until something sticks)

We all have our phases. Sometimes you handle stress like a pro at life with your shoes tied and your chest held high.

Other times you find yourself downgrading to your old OS, scrolling to ignore the stress, eating a bowl of pasta at an ungodly hour, to avoid getting to the bottom of the pain.

Listen, all of it is okay.

After the kids have retired for the night, somedays I still spend hours going down conspiracy theory rabbit holes, or stuffing my face with some honey garlic noodles and ginger beer.

But I’ve learned to accept myself in those low moments, I apply a hefty dose of self-compassion and see the next day as a new beginning, to try again on the ‘healthier’ path.

When you fall back (which you will), accepting that two sides of you can co-exist is freeing. This gives you the space to not judge yourself harshly which only leads to more slacking off and greater misery.

Personal growth is not about perfection, it’s about constant practice, tweaking, falling, picking yourself up, adapting, unlearning, relearning, until one day you realize you didn’t spiral for 2 days from stress, but self-regulated in under 20minutes. (Progress!)

It’s about coming from a place of radical, obsessive compassion for yourself because you’re only human after all; you tell white lies, you try, you fart, you slack off and sometimes overindulge.

Totally human!

Remember self-discovery, growth and stress management is a life long journey, not a destination.

Fail, try again, rinse and repeat (until something sticks)

Bottomline

Stress may be inevitable and unpredictable, but your stress response can be less “end of the world” and more “well this is annoying but survivable”.

Instead of spending your precious energy stressing over distressful situations, try becoming your own PI of stress, searching for clues as to how you handle increased stress, why it happened in the first place, learning news ways to calm your nervous system pronto to heal your mind and body.

To make your life relatively easier moving forward, constantly be on the lookout on how can you reduce or ditch the daily stressors in your life and environment – whatever is within your control always.

I know, being consistent and disciplined is like keeping a plant alive – you’ll forget, you’ll overdo it, but if you keep trying, eventually something grows.

I’m rooting for you.

Self-improvement enthusiast, CBT therapist, with 4 years of experience helping people prioritize their mental health and reclaim their lives. Basilia uses her proven system for retraining the mind, offering practical tools that help people become the version of themselves they need to joyfully thrive, not just survive. It's okay to lean on me.

Basilia Frankel

Good Old Therapy I CBT

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