Stress – The 2d building block: Part 1 – Handle your stress sources

There are 3 important building blocks of stress management:
1) regulate you stress level, se techniques in earlier post
2) handle stress sources and
3) use stress management habits.

The second building block, handle your stress sources, is about 2 main components: 1) secure sufficient recovery and 2) minimize stress sources or their intensity as well as the amount of new stress that is added per time unit. In the first component, night-sleep is the main priority to recover the brain and body from acute stress symptoms: Protect your sleep at all costs, go to bed in good time, unwind, se earlier post about sleep habits, and if possible wake-up naturally without an alarm as many nights as possible during the week, nap after lunch if that will not interfere with night-sleep or at least rest for 30 minutes right after coming home.

Introduce the tiredness scale, a scale where 1 = slight tired to 10= extremely tired. When more tired than awake (6 or higher), think of a balancing scale, focus on rest = restful and pleasurable activity experienced as recovering and healing with sparse number of stimuli or your stress-injuries will risk to worsen. When more awake than tired (5 or lower) focus on exercise, brisk walks or biking are first priorities, sine that will facilitate the brain and body to repair and recover as fast as possible.

However, if you have more serious stress injuries, including more severe memory losses like not remembering who you have talked to during the day, impaired recovery ability and sensitivity to stimuli, the natural healing time will be counted in months rather than weeks. It is important to have a realistic expectation of time required to heal, or this can be an extreme source of stress. Your body and brain are sufficiently rested when the symptoms are gone and you are back in energy level, not when you think you should be done with resting…

#stressmanagement #recovery #tiredness