Why You Should Stop Trying to Get Rid of Stress

What if I told you that by changing the way you think, you can change your body’s physiological response to stress (🤯)?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve experienced your fair share of stressors both mentally and physically. Stress was a constant battle for me until I learned how to lean into it and deal with it in a way that didn’t leave me exhausted.

That's why today, we’re discussing:

• ⚠️ The #1 mistake people make when trying to deal with stress

• 😲 Crazy facts about your body’s response to stress

• 🥰 How social connection can actually heal your body from the effects of stress

• ➡️ Next steps for a better relationship with stress

If you’re freaking out over that fear food your dietitian just told you to tackle, are juggling school and work, or are just having one of those days with your kids, welcome, friend!

⚠️ Dealing With Stress: The #1 Mistake

Unfortunately, stress is unavoidable. The Global Organization for Stress found that 75% of Americans experience moderate to high levels of stress within a given month. Common stressors this organization found were:

• Work (85% of the number above)
• Finances
• Economy
• Family roles and responsibilities
• Relationships
• Personal health issues
• Safety

Since stress is so abundant, we naturally search for any and every way to get rid of it, but our tactics don’t always work. If we’re honest, we often make the situation worse instead of eradicating it, making ourselves feel hopeless and discouraged. Side-effects from stress include:

• fatigue
• loss of sleep
• irritability
• headaches
• indigestion
• muscle tension
• appetite changes
• disordered eating habits such as mindless eating and binge-eating

The #1 mistake I see people making when it comes to stress is trying to eliminate stressors instead of learning how to deal with stress effectively. 

Though we do have some amount of control over stressors in our lives, we can’t fully eliminate them. That’s why, in order to get out of the cycle of suppressing stress and beating ourselves up because it didn’t work, we have to change our mindset towards stress. If you can do that, you can actually change your body’s physical reaction to stress. 

The Crazy Facts 🤯

If you think of stress as a bad or dangerous thing for your health, then that belief might be the real issue that’s leading to so many other problems!

The directors of a study done on over 30,000 adults over the course of 8 years asked the participants one question: “Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?” Participants were then directed to rank their perceived level of stress as low, moderate, or high.

People who marked high levels of stress had a 43% increased risk of dying, BUT it was only true for those who believed that stress was harmful for their health. Those who marked high levels of stress but did NOT view it as harmful were no more likely to die; they actually had the lowest risk of death of everyone in the study, even those who reported low levels of stress! 

Think of the last time you had a sudden bout of stress. What did you feel like? You might have started to sweat, felt faster heart beats, had heavier breathing, and had higher blood pressure. We wouldn’t typically see these reactions as great markers for heart health, but your body was actually proving that it was energized and in the process of preparing you to take action. (For example, faster breathing gets more oxygen to your brain so that you can perform better!)

In the study we discussed above, the participants who learned to acknowledge their body’s response to stress as appropriate and helpful did not have constricting blood vessels, which means that their blood pressure didn’t skyrocket 🚀. Instead, their body’s response to stress resembled our usual response to joy and courage! Wow! 

Stress and “The Cuddle Hormone” 🥰

Oxytocin, aka “The Cuddle Hormone”, is a neural hormone that primes your brain’s social instincts in order to strengthen close relationships. It is released when you hug someone, helping you to crave that physical contact with friends and family. Oxytocin is also a stress hormone, which means that it appears when you're stressed out! Why? Oxytocin doesn’t only affect your brain, it also protects your cardiovascular system from the negative side-effects of stress, relaxing your blood vessels (lowering your blood pressure), and healing your heart from stress-induced damage!

This means that, the more you engage in social contact and support, the more your body will heal from the effects of stress! 

Conversely, the more you push away from people when you’re feeling confused and chaotic, the less benefits your body will reap from this “cuddle hormone”

God has given us this amazing built-in mechanism for stress resilience: HUMAN CONNECTION!

Takeaways 📝

Stress doesn’t have to leave you frustrated and hopeless, friend. Right after you’re done reading this post, look for areas where you can apply these next steps in your life: 

1. Stop focusing on eliminating all the stressors in your life and telling yourself that you shouldn’t be so stressed out. Instead, remember that stress doesn’t have to be harmful to your health and ask God to show you how to appreciate the signals it's giving you. 
2. Reach out to someone in your support system and tell them how you’re really doing. Shoot them a text, go out for coffee, or walk around a park 🌲. God knew in the garden that it is not good for man to be alone; he made us for community, and he uses it to heal us both mentally and physically. If you’re looking for food freedom support, check out these communities:

• The Food Freedom & Body Image Support for Christian Women Facebook group: This is where you can get food freedom and body image support from myself and other Christian women!
• Join me and a community of crazy incredible women inside the Joy-Filled Food Freedom Society!