Learn to manage stress – Session notes
Massive thank you to Laura Moore for speaking at Me Afterwork.
Undoubtedly inspired by the testimony that she spoke about her whole business literally going down in flames and having to rebuild. In that whole process, all that she went through taught her so much on how to manage stress and has become Laura’s mission today:
My mission is To make a massive dent in the rapidly increasing numbers of lifestyle-related disease and levels of distress that come as an unnecessary result of the highly stressed and pressured lifestyles we have become accustomed to today…
by freeing people from the mind
People typically express they are stressed in everyday life, but what are we doing about it? Going about your day doing that same thing, feeling stressed and hoping for change is the definition of insanity if you are not changing your cycle.
If you want to change in your life to feel less stressed, you need to do something about it. From Lauras’ many experiences of being stressed and then going on to research on the topic, here are the key points that she delivered:
How do you know you are stressed
When you are under stress, your body starts to send signals to hint that there is a problem.Your brain stimulates the adrenal gland to release cortisol and adrenaline. When you are in a state of stress, you release the hormones in an unbalanced manner causing other physiological problems to show up, in other word signs.
There are many signs that you can be aware off when stressed under four main categories which are:
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Cognitive Symptoms
Examples can be memory problems, inability to concentrate, poor judgement, seeing only the negative, constant worry. -
Emotional Symptoms
Example are Moodiness, irritability or short temper, agitation, inability to relax, feeling overwhelmed, sense of loneliness and isolation, depression or general unhappiness.
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Physical Symptoms
Examples are aches and pains, diarrhoea or constipation, chest pain m nausea and dizziness, chest pain, rapid heart beat, weight loss or gain, bloating. -
Behavioral Symptoms
Examples include eating more, sleeping too much or too little, isolating yourself, procrastination.
Managing stress starts by knowing when to out your foot on the sympathetic (flight or fight) system or the parasympathetic (relaxed) system. Identify five signs of above and write them down on a piece of paper.
Know your triggers
Once you have figured out what physiological signs arise you need to figure out what triggers these symptoms. So what makes you stressed? On that piece of paper and write down your top five things that triggers your symptoms.. Some examples could be money issues, your colleagues, not knowing, anxious about an event e.t.c.
Strategies to take when you get triggered
When you identify how stress manifests in your body and you identify the triggers, you immediately start to become aware that you are feeling stressed. This is when you can implement key strategies that you can apply to be able to control or get back to the balance.
These are the recommendations that Laura shared to help you defuse your stress levels and get you back into a state of relaxation and serenity:
Stepping back
Similar to a bow and arrow, when you want to shoot the arrow forward toward a target. You need to first pull the arrow in the opposite direction to create potential to launch if forward. We as humans are quite similar in that you need to step back sometimes to help motivate and analyse the situation, so that it can launch you forward.
We often feel like we have no time to stop because the deadlines are closing in. We keep pushing forward, everything starts to become hard and we make poor decisions. If we step back it is like pressing Ctl+Alt+Del with our brains. The brain then starts to see that there is no danger therefore not in fight or flight mode. Thus resulting in calm state, clarity and energy for you to keep moving forward.
Here are a few things that you can do to stop or step back:
- Torso breathing.
- Meditate.
- Set Boundaries.
- Do what you love.
- Eat calm and eat well.
There are numerous other more intense ways that you can do to step back. Laura’s stress management program focuses on all the key drivers that make up your life. The Uppy program is one-on-one coaching is over 12 weeks (each session is 90 minutes).
Are you feeling stressed? Do you want to change but don’t know how? Get in touch with Laura.
About the speaker laura moore
She is a Stress Management Expert, a dynamic, engaging speaker that draws an audience into the story that she tells. The founder of Uppy. She quickly realised that in actual fact most people are experiencing similar issues to some degree, and so she created Uppy, to help people break out of the cycles that are holding them back
Uppy is all about you and how you want to live your life. It was started after Laura experienced first-hand the effects that a highly driven mindset and lifestyle could have on the body. She put on weight, had periods of extreme fatigue, low mood, anxiety. She had to go through the journey of identifying what she needed to get into a better space.
She then trained in coaching and stress management, she now is a full-time coach where she has one-on-one coaching sessions.
