When you think of self-care, what comes to mind?
Do you think of typical stress management suggestions like exercise, yoga, a mani-pedi, massage, a warm bath, or treating yourself?
Although these things are nice acts of self-care and can be part of navigating your wellbeing, these typical stress management suggestions keep you running around your stress instead of learning how to be the master of your own energy.
If you work on managing stress, you will likely be managing an external situation – one you may not be able to change – and will need to rely on ‘something else to do’ to manage stress, which further burdens your load.
Managing stress as a consistent way of life is like managing misery.
This is why I am not a fan of traditional stress management.
A note of caution. Beware of stress management gurus who preach superficial tactics like just do one nice thing for yourself a day, take a vacation, or keep a gratitude journal as a solution for chronic stress. This isn’t the full story.
I tried every Monday for months to just do 3 simple things: eat lunch at my desk everyday, talk a walk 3x/week, and pee when I needed to.
I couldn’t even do those seemingly simple things because I was relying on external self-care goals, a rigid check-list of what I thought I needed to do to feel better. What I really needed though was to learn how to not plow through my day and expect the methodical evening walk would solve my problem.
I needed to learn how to be aware of and gently respond to my sensations, breath, activity level, and triggers so I could stay within a safe zone of stress.
To begin to experience relief from chronic stress, it’s important to understand stress physiology and learn how to navigate your external circumstances and internal experiences to stay within a safe zone of stress.
If your attempt every Monday to start taking care of yourself falls short, I offer you a different approach called self-regulation.
To begin, let’s start with increasing the awareness of your stress tempo.
Your stress tempo is how your body and mind speeds up or slows down in response to stimulation.
1- Are you so rushed and busy you feel high, adrenalized, or like you are constantly buzzing? You may be Buzzing Becky!
2- Do you go-go-go until you crash and then binge on food or Netflix, get sick, or have a panic attack just to ‘pull yourself together’ and do it all over again? You may be Deep Swings Suzy!
3- Or do you have a steady engagement and withdrawal with your activities that leaves you with energy for the people and activities you care about most? You may be Sustainable Sara!
These are 3 basic stress tempos:
Buzzing Becky Deep Swings Suzy Sustainable Sara
Which one best describes you?
You have to learn to regulate yourself – not manage outside stress – to stay within your safe zone of stress. This is called self-regulation, and is a key to your freedom, contentment, and relief from an over-busy life.
One of the core outcomes of the Freedom from Chronic Stress Program is to learn to self-regulate yourself so you stay within your safe zone of stress 80% of the time.
By staying within your safe zone of stress on a consistent basis, you start to experience sustainable physical, mental, and emotional energy so you can relax and enjoy life more.
How does that sound?
Self-regulation is a different approach than stress management because it does not rely on rigid goals. It is very reasonable, possible, and increases your self-awareness so you are less likely to get over-loaded in the first place.
I can show you how to begin to self-regulate much more easily than I can write how to self-regulate.
Watch this free training video to identify your unique stress tempo and begin to learn how to keep yourself within a safe zone of stress.
I hope this is helpful and brings some new understanding of how to self-regulate. It’s a constant practice.
Enjoy!
Angela
P.S. This video is an excerpt from Module 3 in the Freedom from Chronic Stress Self-Study Program, a professional woman’s guide to stop allowing work, pressure, and other people rule your life.
