It’s been about a month since I last talked about the work I’m doing regarding lowering my stress levels, so I thought I’d report in.

I had a couple of bad weeks, where I felt as though I was losing ground in terms of the work I’d done. Fortunately, I was able to turn that around and my stress levels dropped back down quickly. Plus, I still have some very stressful days. So while I’m making progress, the road’s pretty bumpy.

I figured I’d break this into the seven steps and where I currently am with each of them.

Check-in Three Times Per Day

I try to do this every day, though every once in a while I’ll miss a session during the day. (I use the app “How We Feel” to do an emotional check-in, and I follow that with a physical check-in.) When I started, I was shocked when I realized just how physically stressed I was all the damned time. My jaw was clenched, my shoulders were tight, I had tension in my lower back, my legs, and even my feet.

However, for the last few days that hasn’t been the case. I do the physical check-in and I find that my jaw is loose, my shoulders aren’t up around my ears, etc. It takes a bit longer to figure out where the tension is hiding. The work is more subtle. There’s even been a couple of times when I wasn’t tense. I’m still learning what that feels like.

Letting Go of Unnecessary Stressors

I do daily affirmations (my ten at ten) and one of them is to control what I can and let go of what I can’t. I knew when I started that this would be a life goal, and something I was always going to have to work on. So I continue to practice it daily.

Changing Your Attitude

When I see something big and potentially stressful coming my way, I have been pretty good at telling myself it’s a challenge instead of being intimidated. I still have issues, and this is another life goal for me.

Wim Hof Breathing

I’ve figured out that this exercise works best for me when I start out relaxed. Some days I sit for ten to fifteen minutes lowering my resting heart rate before I start. When I begin in a relaxed state, this exercise produces a profound state of calm and I feel so good afterwards.

When I don’t start relaxed, I don’t get that calmness afterwards. In fact, everything starts stressed and stays stressed. I don’t do this exercise every day, maybe five days out of seven.

In addition, because I’ve been doing this so often, I feel as though I’ve gotten better at it. One of the things that the guided part of the meditation say is to make the breath circular, and I actually feel like I do that now, like my breathing cycle is one big circle.

Nature and Awe

I get out into nature all the damned time. I live in nature. I continue to appreciate it and be grateful for my time here.

As for awe, I’m still trying to figure out what brings me a sense of awe. Joy is easy, and even overwhelming joy occasionally. Awe? I’ll find it someday.

Breathing and Meditation

I’ve had quite a breakthrough in this area.

The breathing exercise is breathe in for the count of four, hold for the count of six, then breathe out for the count of eight.

This did not work for me for the longest time. All it did was to raise my heart rate and stress me out.

I had to figure out two things to make this breathing exercise something I now do every night and it really helps me relax.

First: Inhaling activates the systems in your body that exist to wake you up, get you ready to go. Exhaling activates the systems for relaxation. By extending the exhalation, you’re trying to tap into that relaxation system.

According to the Internets (and my own experience) some people have difficulty tapping into the relaxation system. It just isn’t that easy to reach. I’m much more likely to be up and ready to go than relaxed.

The original exercise from the book said to do this style of breathing for five minutes. I finally realized that I wasn’t sticking with it for long enough.

When I started sticking with the breathing, I found out that it wasn’t until about minute four that I would actually start to relax. When I did it for six to seven minutes, my resting heart rate would finally start to go down.

I cannot tell you the number of meditations that I’ve tried that have this sort of breathing exercise at the start of them, where they have you do three to five breaths like this, supposedly to relax you. That just isn’t enough for me.

I’m hoping that I’ll get better at this breathing technique as well and that I’ll be able to start to relax more easily.

Second: When you breathe out, did you know that you’re actually supposed to relax? When you blow out all that air, and kind of let your body collapse inward, you can let go of all sorts of tension.

It seems obvious in retrospect, but it took me a long while to connect the dots. I was just doing sort of normal breathing, without a focus on relaxing while exhaling. Now, I work on staying calm while inhaling (which I can do so much better with due to the Wim Hof exercises), staying calm while holding my breath, then really relaxing when I exhale.

Three Things Morning and Night

In the morning: What are you looking forward to, what are you grateful for, and what social interaction are you having today?

In the evening: What brought you joy today, what are you grateful for, and what positive social interaction did you have, were you able to put a smile on someone’s face?

I honestly love this practice, though it is far from automatic with me.

I still wake up and wind up immediately about forty percent of the time, then have to reel myself back in, start with being happy instead. I spend time when I first wake up reminding myself to be relaxed, that I don’t have to start off the day completely tense.

I’m not sure why I get so wound up first thing. I’m starting to dig into it. Maybe once I figure that out, I’ll be able to stay relaxed after I wake up. Or maybe not. Maybe this is another life goal for me.

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So there you have it! Again, this work has been life changing for me. The stress was literally killing me. Being relaxed is still a new experience. I’m getting used to it.

One of the unexpected benefits of lowering my stress levels: my sensitivities to some foods has gone WAY down. For example, I can now do large amounts of dairy without horrific side effects. Can’t just go crazy with dairy, but I can eat more of it than I used to be able to.

So how are you doing? Are you working on your stress levels?