Ways To Reduce Stress

There are many ways to reduce stress, but what is important is to find what works best for your personality and lifestyle.

The key to stress reduction is to create more times throughout the day for your body to be in balance, or to rest and rejuvenate. Your body does that naturally when the stress response is NOT being triggered.

BEST

The ways to reduce stress that I teach are simple to integrate into your life as long as you understand that there is a BEST in you… that you CAN re-connect with while coping with stress.

Within each part of your self there is your BEST:

B ody
E motions
S piritual
T houghts


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Your uniquely BEST self…is more accessible when you are not stressed.

Here a few simple stress reduction strategies that will create more balance, rest, and rejuvenation with your whole self throughout your day:

Body

The physical body.

The ways to reduce stress with your physical body is similar to taking care of your car. If you choose to not to keep up with regular maintenance, or wear out the tread of your tires, you may risk damaging or shortening the life of the car. Your body works in a similar way with stress.

To help keep your body in balance:
  • Eat a balanced diet and drink more water
  • Get 6-8 hours of sleep per night
  • Gently stretch your tense muscles out throughout the day
  • Do more slow deep breathing
  • Allow yourself to get 30 minutes (doesn’t have to be consecutive minutes) of activity 5 x’s/week
  • Some natural remedies for stress, i.e., B-Complex, magnesium, calcium and the antioxidant vitamins of A,C, and E can be supportive
  • Take your prescribed medications

Emotions

The emotional part of who you are.

When the emotional part of you is in balance you will feel peaceful and calm. That will be your benchmark for when you are not stressed.

Simple self-care of this emotional balance includes:
  • Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling
  • Understand that you don’t have to “fix” what is upsetting you…but it IS important to manage the stress response of whatever IT is.
  • Taking slow deep breaths from your abdomen will help calm you down
  • Share your feelings with supportive friends
  • Journal what you are feeling
  • Bring in more emotional comfort to yourself
  • Wear your favorite clothes
  • Drink out of your favorite cup
  • Listen to your favorite relaxing music
  • Spend more time with your pets

Spiritual

The spiritual part of who you are.

Spiritual balance refers to how congruent your actions/behaviors are in comparison to who you believe you are as a person. When you are effectively coping with stress, you will feel at peace with your actions and behaviors.

Self-care of your spiritual self involves:
  • Knowing you are doing the best you can with your knowledge and skills
  • Letting yourself “notice” (without blame/shame) what you are saying and doing (including the tone and body language)
  • Noticing what the intentions are of your words and actions
  • Noticing what words you think or speak create a sense of peace within
  • Noticing what actions you take create a sense of peace within
  • Offer gratitude for something someone has done
  • Volunteer to help someone less fortunate than yourself

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Thinking

The brain and all the ways you have learned to be safe, survive, and have learned what is right and wrong, good and bad.

When you are stressed and out-of-balance with your thoughts, there is a natural tendency to be more judgmental, reactive, negative, and gossipy.
Developing ways to reduce stress through self-care of your thoughts involves:
  • Becoming more self-aware of what you are thinking throughout the day without judgment…just observe
  • Practice living without judgment or shaming yourself or others
  • Practice spending less time thinking negative thoughts
  • Practice thinking things that make you smile
  • Practice thinking more neutral thoughts, i.e. the sky is blue…that bird sings beautifully...I love my dogs…
  • Practice offering more thoughts of gratitude for the people, animals, or situations in your life that have made you feel good
Be patient with yourself as you learn these new ways to reduce stress! It takes time to create new stress reduction habits.







For more information, please see:

Control My Stress -- Let's work together to control your stress.

Exercise And Stress Control -- Top 4 reasons why the connection between exercise and stress control are so important.

Exercise Reduces Stress -- How much exercise reduces stress?

Stress Reducing Tips -- Stress reducing tips to use when you are in the midst of “life”.

Stress Warning Signs -- The top stress warning signs that you will wish you knew about sooner!

Ways To Deal Wtih Stress -- Ways to deal with stress 101.

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Another word for physiological balance 
Is there another word for physiological balance that would help me to understand it better?

Hi Michelle. I'll give you two words that you can think …

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Can you make some suggestions for how can I reduce my stress?

Hi Ralph. Thank you for the question. I will answer it the best I can without having …

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Got any quick tips to reduce stress from my life?

Well...given that I don't know what the stress is in your life, I will share some general tips …

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I don't have time to figure this out. What is the best way to reduce stress?

Here are the 2 best way(s) to reduce stress for you.

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Definitely!

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Testimonials

“Ms. Churchill is the unique health care worker everyone hopes to encounter, but rarely does. She has an extraordinary gift that allows her to do much more than diagnose and treat.”
Abbie K. – Minneapolis




K., age 45, is a long term chronically PTSD disabled patient. She has had daily headaches for 20 years. Two weeks ago she reported that she had had 4 days of pain free time, and was having the exceedingly odd sensation of "smiling all the time". She and Cathi have made extraordinary fast progress together.
Dr. Cole




I referred C.L., age mid-forties, to see Cathi after a life of suffering the post traumatic stress disorder of parental sexual abuse over many years of her childhood, with major dysfunctions of alcohol and drug abuse, and with the disabling symptoms of migraine that have for more than twenty years become chronic.

She has lived with daily headaches that have not responded to any of the several drugs which have benefited many such suffering patients. She has needed chronic opiate treatment of her chronic pain syndrome.

In the few weeks that Cathi has worked with her, C.L. has begun to experience days without pain, periods of happiness, and a reduction in her opiate dosage requirements that represent a breakthrough in her stalled-out life as a single mom raising a teen-age daughter with only social security income resources.
Dr. Racer




“I first met Cathi Churchill eight years ago when she effectively helped my work unit through the stress of a hospital-wide layoff. I was impressed with her clear-minded approach and willingness to listen.”
Andy R.




N., age 60, is a hard driving attorney twenty year patient of mine who hit the wall with chronic fatigue four years ago, and began to realize she had to learn to rest. She recovered enough to return to her workaholic lifestyle when she was stopped by a herniated cervical disc and resumption of her chronic colitis.

Working with Cathi, she is discovering "the way she does life" and learning to make choices about it. She came in last week, having "danced until dawn". She is learning to dialogue with her body in effective ways.
Dr. Cole




“I stumbled upon Cathi after my recent heart attack that was brought on by stress. I was scared of having another one, and didn’t know what to do. I had lost hope. Working with her has changed my life. I’m so grateful."
Debbie – Canada




M.S., a woman in her late forties with progressively more and more disabling rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, whose most recent problems have arisen over the last two to three years as complications of immunosuppressive therapy for her disease. The complications have been associated with the severely disabling chronic pain of recurrent herpes neuralgia for more than three years, and for the past 15 months, recurrent osteomyelitis in her right lower mandible.

The second, more alarming (even life-threatening) problem has caused months of diagnostic and therapy confusion among her many consultants, three successive resections of the bone over the last six to eight months, and the still ongoing threat of more relapses of the smoldering bone infection and chronic pain only made bearable by chronic, massive doses of opiates.

In the few months since M. began to work with Cathi with several modalities: stress management, therapeutic touch, guided imaging, and others, her life has become more livable, as she has become able to bear the pain and the discouragement of unresolved disease.

She has relied on many of the methods for maintaining hope and getting through overwhelming discouragement by using the inner resources she has learned with Cathi.

My hope as her primary physician, is that Cathi and M. will be able to continue to work together to maintain that inner strength and hope as she faces yet more months of pain, and further repeated surgery.

Thank you for the healing guidance you've been able to give her thus far.
Dr. Racer




“I sought out the help of Cathi during my divorce, and found her to be an insightful and compassionate coach. Her ability to see deep into the heart of an emotionally stressful problem is, I believe, unique and I would highly recommend her service to anyone.”
P.R. – Brooklyn Center




S., age 48, is a Laotian patient of mine with 15 years of chronic abdominal pain. She has had an extensive medical worked up, and nothing ever worked. Cathi saw her over several months.

S. has improved! Cathi established a trusting relationship with her, and helped her to effectively break through her wall of silence and grief about her son's mental illness, and taught her how to "change her thinking".

S. now comes in smiling, notes some unusual continued symptoms, but no longer has chronic abdominal disabling pain.
Dr. Cole




“Control My Stress is so amazing. I want to thank you, again, for such a valuable resource.”
Tony.


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