Late on a Tuesday afternoon in December, I told my employee the good news, “we got you a raise!” She gave me a cold stare and turned her chair and back to my face. I walked away.
Every day at my new job as manager of a toxic department jolted my nervous system and stress response like an unexpected clap of thunder.
The employees were unhappy with management and who they chose to be their leader: me.
Within three months of constant stress and assault, my body began to say no, we can’t do this anymore. – Within six months, my body was changing the autoimmune response began to damage my joints. Within 12 months, I received a diagnosis.
The Fight or Flee stress response
When faced with a threat, your mind and body are hardwired to either fight or flee. This response is good when something is scary, and we need to avoid danger. But what if the threat is a co-worker, a toxic environment, a family member, or something that isn’t an imminent attack on your body? Do we fight or flee? What is our response?
Exposure to stress without the ability to cope with and effectively manage it may lead to mental and physical health problems. We can never avoid stress in our lives, but you can develop the skills necessary to help you manage stress and live a peaceful life.
You may think it’s too late if you’ve already been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, but that is not the case. While it’s true, we can’t change the past. However, we can work to increase our coping skills, manage stress, and live a peaceful life.
Stress and autoimmune disease are a vicious cycle
Stress is difficult for everyone, but stress can be dangerous for someone with an autoimmune disease. I believe we can all attest that stress causes your already overactive body and immune response to get worse.
Unfortunately, having an autoimmune disease also causes stress! Doctor’s appointments, medical bills, and insurance companies all cause additional stress on top of physical issues. Suddenly, you’re stuck in a vicious cycle that can create anxiety, depression, pain, lack of sleep, and fatigue.
Stress affects the body. My anecdotal research.
I always ask people what was going on in their lives when they were diagnosed with autoimmune disease. More likely than not, they were going through a significant stressful experience at the time. I understand this is not proper research, but it happened to me and is a pattern I picked up after speaking to patients over the last ten years
Here are some of the responses I received after asking, what was going on in your life when you got your diagnosis?
- I had a very stressful situation at work, a demanding boss that harassed me, lost my job, or had to switch careers due to a company closing, etc.
- I was going through a divorce
- My in-laws moved in with us
- I received a severe health diagnosis of cancer
Stress affects the body, and the body lashes out in response. From my story at the beginning of this post, you see that I, too, experienced an autoimmune disease diagnosis after a period of significant stress.
Unfortunately, we live in a world that tells us we should always be on the go and we are never good enough because there’s always something more to achieve.
Our lives are overwhelmed with information, task lists, busy schedules, demanding bosses, and unrealistic expectations. Heartbreaking news surrounds us in the media but highlight reels of friends and others flood our social media. As a result, we live out of touch and out of balance.
It’s impossible to focus when you are multitasking
Some people love to talk about how they are the best at multitasking. But unfortunately, we truly cannot multitask and do things well. Yet, we boast about our multitasking abilities.
Multitasking depletes our brains and bodies of energy and divides our attention and focus. When our brain is trying to focus on two, three, or more tasks, it moves slower and becomes less effective and efficient. As a result, we aren’t giving our best to God, family, friends, and work which brings us back to another vicious cycle of stress.
Seven tips to help you manage stress and live a peaceful life
To combat the war in our minds and bodies, we must learn skills to help us manage stress and live a peaceful life. Learning and practicing these skills takes time. It takes time to learn how to be healthy with an autoimmune disease, and minimizing stress is no exception.
Here are my favorite tips that have made a considerable difference in my life and the lives of my clients to manage stress and live a peaceful life. First, remember to set small goals for each of the suggestions below. You don’t have to do all seven at once. Instead, do one a week until they become habits and part of your life.
1 – Schedule times to rest
Have you ever said this or heard someone say, “This is just how my life is. I can’t change it because I have to care for everything: my family, my kids, my job, etc.” It’s true that we are busy but what’s the point if you go to bed exhausted every night or can’t enjoy your family or not work your best?
God created us to work and rest. Not just work. The Creator of the universe rested on the seventh day. God rested as part of his work and gave us a model for work and rest.
On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested[a] from all his work. –Genesis 2:2
Set a small goal to schedule rest throughout the day, even 10 minutes. Also, set a goal to take one day off a week. On that day, do only things you enjoy – no work, cleaning, laundry, etc. If a full day of rest is too much, schedule only four hours on one day to rest.
2 – Accomplish one task at a time
Try to eliminate the multitasking mindset by first gaining awareness of your automatic habits. For example, when working on another project, do you constantly check your email? Or do you have difficulty watching tv because you are scrolling through social media?
First, become aware of how much you multitask. For example, I discovered that I need to be on the computer or social media when I am eating. As a result, I am not enjoying my food or realizing how much I eat.
Try to be aware of what you are doing and finish the task before moving on to the next job. Task-based mindfulness will take practice. For example, I still practice not multitasking daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute.
Whether washing the dishes or writing a blog post doesn’t matter. Instead, set a goal to do one thing at a time without shifting your focus on another task.
3 – Learn time management skills
Here is my framework for setting realistic daily goals to manage stress and live a peaceful life. First, begin each day with two new lists and have a third existing list for overflow.
Start every day with a list of the things you must do. Include everything you absolutely have to get done today. If you don’t do these things, someone else will be mad at you. Some of these things may be, making dinner, picking up the kids from school, showering, sending that email to a client, and finishing the report.
Next, create a list of things you should do today. You know you should do these things, but you could get away with it if you don’t. Of course, not doing the task isn’t in your best interest, but nobody will be hurt or mad at you. These can be things such as making doctor appointments, starting projects, going grocery shopping, and doing laundry.
Finally, keep a running list of things that would be nice to get done. Yes, these unique things are not a high priority, but it would feel good to check them off your list. For example, clean the closet, organize client files, go shopping for clothes or clean off your desk.
Your priority items on list one get done first. So, if that’s all you get done, you’ll know you did what was most important and feel very accomplished! Also, you won’t feel guilty for not working on your 2nd or 3rd list because you got the highest priority items done first!
4 – Say no to things you find stressful and that do not bring you peace
A lot of people have trouble saying no. For us people-pleasers, we need to put up boundaries, practice saying no, and be ready with ways to say no, what I’ll call “no statements.”
Set boundaries around your time, body, and mind. Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend wrote the book on setting boundaries. I highly suggest this book for self-help and awareness: Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life at all major retailers. An excerpt from his book description says this:
“Having clear boundaries is essential to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not.”
Practice saying no by practicing with low-hanging fruit. For example, low-hanging fruit practice would be when telemarketers call or when at checkout when you’re the clerk asks you to open up a store credit card. Practice saying no, thank you, and then hang up or say no, thank you and continue to checkout. In addition, if you’re anything like I was and have trouble saying no, please seek the help of a trained counselor and therapist.
No Statements
Practice saying these no statements before someone asks you to do something. This way, you’ll be ready to say something other than Yes, manage stress and live a peaceful life.
- Sadly, I have something else going on.
- I have another commitment.
- I wish I were able to.
- I’m afraid I can’t.
- I don’t have the bandwidth for that right now.
- I’m honored you asked me, but I simply can’t.
- Thanks for thinking of me. However, I’m not able to.
- I’m sorry, I’m not able to fit this in.
- Unfortunately, I already have plans. Maybe next time!
- No, thank you, but it sounds lovely.
5 -Manage your digital intake
Software creators purposely make technology additive so that we spend more time on their apps than other things. More time on apps means more money for software companies and advertisers and less time for you.
As I stated before, I’m addicted to my phone and scrolling endlessly, searching for some piece of information to consume. So I am working on setting time limits on my social media consumption.
Set a goal to not use your phone 30 minutes before bed.
6 – Practice Deep breathing
Deep breathing is one of those things that my clients say, “wow, it really helped me.” I just spoke to a client whose goal was to practice deep breathing twice in the past week. She couldn’t wait to tell me how she used deep breathing to help her in an uncomfortable situation.
She attended a play in what turned out to be a small, crowded and hot theater. She was feeling anxious and remembered her deep breathing practice. After doing a few rounds of deep breathing, she felt better, the play began, and she said she was able to enjoy the play.
James Nestor, journalist and best-selling author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, says, “When we’re stressed, our breathing gets very short, we breathe too much, and we trigger stress hormones like cortisol that prepare us for danger,” Cortisol is beneficial when danger is present but not helpful when you are trying to enjoy watching a play!
Remember that breathing work takes practice. Learn how to manage stress and live a peaceful life by practicing your breathing often. Practice it so much that it becomes an automatic thing you do in uncomfortable situations. Here are my two favorite methods.
BELLY BREATHING
Start in a comfortable seated position or lie flat on your back. Place one hand on your belly and one on your chest to feel the breath move up and down.
Inhale through your nose and inflate your belly like a balloon. Feel your belly press into your hand. Next, exhale through your nose and feel your chest, rib cage, and stomach.
I like making my exhale longer than my inhale, but it is up to your preference.
BOX BREATHING
I use this breathing method when I can’t sleep, and I imagine drawing the corners of a box in my mind at the count of 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Start in a comfortable seated position or lie flat on your back. Place one hand on your belly and one on your chest to feel the breath move up and down.
Slowly breathe in through your nose and count to four. Imagine drawing a square box in your mind. Feel your belly gently expand, and the breath rise into your chest.
Hold your breath at the top of your inhale for four seconds or less if it doesn’t feel good. Then slowly exhale through your mouth for four to eight seconds. Hold your breath at the bottom of your exhale for four seconds while your lungs are empty.
Repeat and practice.
7 – Practice gratitude to manage stress and live a peaceful life
In a 2015 research study, researchers looked at the role of gratitude in heart failure patients. The study examined the association between gratitude and spiritual well-being, sleep, mood, fatigue, cardiac-specific self-efficacy, and inflammation. What they found was that being grateful is good for your health. Research shows that an attitude of gratitude is associated with better mood, better sleep, less fatigue, and lower levels of inflammation. Unbelievable! Such an easy thing to do and no new medication!
Based on this easy and simple tip, put your gratitude into practice and keep a gratitude journal. Manage stress and live a peaceful life by choosing to write your gratitude first thing in the morning or before sleep. Start by writing down three things you’re grateful for and why you are thankful for a minimum of three times a week.
Journaling your gratitude doesn’t have to be anything huge it can be simple. Such as the following:
- I am grateful for the summer because the grass is green, and I can open the windows in the house.
- I am grateful that I didn’t have to cook dinner tonight. Instead, we had leftovers. It was good because I got to rest after a long day at work.
Write down your gratitude even when you don’t want to. The benefits of an attitude of gratitude go beyond the surface level and deep into your cellular level of change.
Choose between good, better, and best to manage stress and live a peaceful life
Now is the time to do something for yourself and learn how to manage stress and live a peaceful life. These seven tips will help calm your mind, body, and spirit. Learn to save up your energy for what is truly important to you. Learn to choose between good, better and best.