Stress Awareness Month
Stress Awareness Month
Someone, somewhere had the great idea to have a Stress Awareness Month. I think that is the last thing that needed an awareness campaign. We are all keenly aware of how stressed out we are in our lives. Every time we see a news report about stress we stress out over our need to be less stressed. If we don’t figure something out with our stress our hearts will explode like the Death Star at the end of Star Wars (or the other Star Wars, or the other one…Seriously, there’s a Death Star in every other Star Wars movie, it’s time to quit recycling that plot line). Everyone already knows that they are stressed and that being stressed is bad. What we need is a Treatment of Stress Awareness Month, to let people know there are real solutions to the problem.
A piece of advice that gets shared on Facebook is to remove the stressors in your life. That is probably the worst solution possible; it is impossible to remove those things from our lives because those things are our lives. Make a list of what stresses you out and then count how many of those things you can get rid of without faking your own death. Chances are there aren’t as many as you would like. How do you deal with things that drive you nuts but aren’t going anywhere? Luckily, here are two proven ways.
STRESS SOLUTION #1
The best thing to do is treat the physical manifestations of stress. Tension, aches, pains, and irritability are all consequences of being stressed. A chiropractic adjustment helps those things by relieving pressure in the joints, improving range of motion, and releasing endorphins in the body. All of which will help you feel better, move better, and live better. Coupling an adjustment with a therapeutic massage is a home run. Some might say that this is a backwards way of dealing with stress, but I have found it iseasier to live if you feel well.
STRESS SOLUTION #2
The other great strategy for dealing with stress is changing your mindset. I can hear you moaning now, “Oh great, Aaron is about to tell us that the word for opportunity and problem is the same in some language that I don’t speak”. The truth is that all stress is the same to our bodies. Physically we cannot tell the difference between a wedding and funeral (and sometimes we can’t mentally, either). Stress is our body’s way of dealing with stuff, so applying a positive mindset really can make us feel better. I know as well as anyone that it is hard to stay positive when your kid writes in permanent marker on the new hardwood floors or puts a plastic plate in the microwave for five minutes for literally no reason at all. Complaining and whining is the popular thing to do, but it limits our ability to cope and to deal with stresses. Staying positive is more than a cliché saying, it is the truth.
Of course, there are other ideas for dealing with stress, but these two methods are tried and true. What has worked for you? Comment below and tell us how you deal with stress.
