Dealing With Stress

What does stress have to do with fitness?  A lot!  Stress is one of the leading causes of bad health.  It can affect you in many ways, from higher blood pressure and cholesterol to irregular heart beats and loss of muscle tone.  It can also have indirect affects such as causing obesity through stress eating.  In fact, stress is another one of those items, like motivation, that has a tremendous impact on on our health, even though most of us don’t notice it.

Stressful Times

The reason I’m writing this is because the past few months have been stressful times for all of us.  We have a crucial election coming up, our government seems to be inept and/or mired in corruption, our financial markets can’t decide if they’re collapsing or not and our retirement plans are taking a roller coaster ride right along with the markets.

There’s no doubt that these are stressful times.  People are worried about their finances, their homes and their future, and I can already see some of the stress induced activity this is causing.  Over the past few months I’ve seen or heard:

• A coworker telling me he hasn’t been going to the gym because he’s just too worried about his retirement plan.
• Coworkers stress eating junk food like donuts
• A family member complain about irregular heart beats any time she thinks about her retirement plan
• A friend tell me he hasn’t been sleeping well because of worries about his mortgage

Lack of sleep, heart problems, stress eating, not exercising.  These are all going to negatively impact your health, and that’s going to add one more thing for you to stress out about.

Deal With It

I’m not a psychologist, a therapist or even a financial adviser.  I don’t have the solution to all your problems.  However, I can tell you that you need to deal with your stress or let it go.  If you don’t, you’re going to ruin your health and is that really what you need right now?  Do you need to deal with the guilt of binge eating or trips to the doctor right now?  Isn’t there enough on your plate already?  Find a way to deal with your stress now, before it consumes you.

A Few Recommendations That Work For Me

• Ask yourself, can I do anything about this?  If there’s something you can do then do it.  If there’s nothing you can do then admit to yourself that you can’t do anything about it and move on.  For example, there’s nothing I can do about the credit markets.  So I’m not going to stress about them.  There is a lot I can do about improving my own finances, so I’ll go ahead and do it.
• On a related note.  If you’re stressed about something you can’t do anything about, distract yourself with something you can accomplish.  I am a campaign volunteer for one of the presidential candidates.  I also donated a bit of money to his campaign.  That is all I can do at the moment considering my limited time and budget.  However, I occasionally find myself concerned about the election or annoyed at some of the articles I see out there.  Rather than stressing myself out, I go and do something productive.  It can be something as simple as washing the dishes or working on the yard, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment.  It allows me to feel like I’ve done something which makes me feel less stressed about things I can do nothing about.
• Take a walk.  Walking can be very relaxing, especially if you toss in some other distraction like music or a dog.  You’ll come back home or to work refreshed and ready to face your problems, at which point it might be a good idea to ask yourself that question above.
• Talk.  Talking to a loved one or a friend is great.  They might have a new perspective on the problem or they might have good suggestions on how to deal with the issues causing you stress.  Plus, the very act of talking and sharing will often make me feel better.

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These are just a few suggestions of things that work for me.  Maybe there are others that work for you.  Have you considered yoga?  Meditation?  Dance?  Taking a class?  Reading a book?  Whatever it is, deal with your stress before it deals with you.  Because you definitely don’t need something else to worry about right now.

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