To control stress, it is vital to understand it. AnStress is not all bad.
Stress is needed for survival. In daily life, fear makes us alert, meet deadlines, prepares us for a meeting, presentation, or a date, make us focus, and achieve our goals. In extreme situations, stress is needed for “fight or flight.”
The sympathetic system drives that “fight or flight” mechanism, and it is part of the autonomic nervous system.
The Autonomic Nervous System
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) works automatically or without any conscious thought or effort on our part most of the time.
The ANS controls the inner workings of the body like heart activity, breathing, digestion, waste elimination, and sexual arousal. The ANS is divided into two parts. The sympathetic and parasympathetic system.
The Sympathetic System
As a reaction to environmental situations or demands, the sympathetic system makes adjustments to the internal organs to increase the blood supply to the organs that will be necessary to meet the added challenge. Those organs will be the heart and the brain.
It does this by redirecting the blood from the digestive system and skin towards the heart. This is done by changing the diameter of the blood vessels to control the blood flow.
The additional blood makes the heart beat more forcefully and faster. The breathing also increases to inhale more oxygen.
The increased blood flow to the brain increases alertness and focus. The skeletal muscles also get extra blood in anticipation of increased work.
The changes inside the body during the sympathetic activation can be felt physically like cooler skin, chest palpitations, rapid breathing, and dry mouth. The same symptoms of anxiety. It is not healthy to have the sympathetic system to work all the time. Something like the parasympathetic system needs to counterbalance it.
The Parasympathetic Nervous System
The other part of the ANS is the parasympathetic system (PNS). The PNS functions in the opposite of the sympathetic system most of the time.
The PNS system makes the body relax.
The PNS can slow the heart rate and breathing. It relaxes the brain and allows for sexual arousal. That’s why the PNS is called the “rest and digest” and “feed and breed” system.
The secret in stress reduction is that the parasympathetic system can be controlled by its component. The vagus nerve.
The Vagus Nerve
The vagus nerve comes from the brain to control the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the main organ for breath rate. The vagus nerve controls the diaphragm unconsciously but, if we want to, the vagus nerve can be activated to command the diaphragm to breath faster or slower.
As the vagus nerve slows the breathing, the other parasympathetic signals to the other organs like the heart and digestive systems follow. This slows down the heart rate and reduces the excess brain stimuli.
The reduction of neural input declutters the brain and allows the mind to focus on the task at hand. The blood going into the digestive system increases, and they start working again. It is just like recharging a “low-batt” cell phone.
That is how “rest and digest” can be made possible by slow breathing and modifying the parasympathetic system.
To control stress and anxiety, the vagus nerve has to be stimulated, and there are many ways.
Ways to Control the Parasympathetic Nervous System to Relieve Stress
- Breath slowly using the 4 x 4 technique. Breath in slowly to a count of 1-2-3-4. Hold that breath for another count of 4. Then exhale slowly for another 4, and lastly count another 4 as you stop your breath. Then start all over again. This technique is used by military snipers to relax before taking an aimful shot. Slow breathing can be coupled with other activities to increase the effect.
- Live the moment while breathing slowly. This can be done from sitting and meditating to doing a physical task. Concentrate on what you are doing and don’t think of anything else.
- Meditating on the words while praying works well with slow breathing. It gives the mind something to focus on other than the breath.
- Think about your blessings while meditating. What happened to you that day or recently that you have to be thankful for? Be grateful, no matter how small it is.
- There are many ways to relieve stress with your mouth. The first is chewing with either gum, vegetables, nuts, and fruits.
- Stimulate your lips either by kissing or stroking with your fingers.
- A genuine smile lowers the heart rate.
- Laughing. Watch a comedy or recall a previous funny experience
- Talking with a friend.
- Hugging someone you care about.
- Adequate hydration with non-sugary drinks slows the heart rate, improves digestion, and increases blood flow to the brain.
- Sleep clears the brain, and the brain cells make the necessary connections. That’s why solutions to problems appear after waking up.
- Hang out with your pets.
- Have a massage. Massage loosens up tight muscles that are contracting unnecessarily and decreases the excess adrenaline.
- A heating pad can also loosen tight muscles.
- Exercise uses up excess adrenaline. After the workout, the PNS takes over and allows relaxation. The higher the intensity, the more adrenaline gets used. Intense exercise also contributes to the deepest sleep called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Brain repair and regeneration happens during REM sleep.
- Play with children.
- Listening to slow relaxing classical music also decreases the sympathetic overdrive.
- Enjoy the outdoors, either at work or at home. Take advantage of your break. Go outside for some sun and live the moment and leave the stress behind.
- Cut down on caffeine to decrease the excess adrenaline.
Mental Ways to Reduce Stress.
- Prioritize what to do and finish the most critical first. Once done, the rest becomes easy.
- Write what you have to do that looks hard and break them into parts. It is easier to work if the steps are broken down rather than looking at it as a big project.
- Clean up any clutter and organize it. Removing physical clutter also clears the mind.
Social Techniques
- When invited for a gathering that you may not want to attend but have to go to, plan for an exit strategy. You can still go, but you don’t have to be stuck there the whole time.
- Say “No” if you are starting to feel overwhelmed or get help.
Life, like nature, needs a balance. Day and night. Fast and feast. Work and rest. Stress and anxiety are useful, and knowing they can be controlled makes for a healthy living.
Other readings you may like:
- 8 Ways Decent Dental Care Defies Dementia
- Make that Game Winning Shot that at the Buzzer!
- Physical Activity Correlates with Life Span
- How Does Exercise Prolong Life?
- The Benefits of Resistance Training
- The Surprising Benefits of Sweating
- The Good and Faithful Servant
- How to be Active from Sedentary
- The Story of KAATSU. The Incredible Technique for Muscle Toning and Hypertrophy
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- Tiffany Field. Pregnancy and labor massage. Expert Rev Obstet Gynecol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 Jan 1. Published in final edited form as Expert Rev Obstet Gynecol. 2010 Mar; 5(2): 177–181. doi: 10.1586/eog.10.12.
- Wilkinson S, Aldridge J, Salmon I, et al.: An evaluation of aromatherapy massage in palliative care. Palliat Med 13 (5): 409-17, 1999. [PUBMED Abstract]
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Photo Credits:
- The Autonomic System By Geo-Science-International – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47377075
- Praying Lady Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
- Exit sign Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash
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