EP: 44 Six Concrete Steps to Beat Stress

Our mission is to give you tools and strategies that will help you move from being stressed to feeling your best.

In this episode we share the 6 concrete steps we take our clients through to experience less stress in life. 

Co-hosts Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher are certified HeartMath® Trainers, and certified stress educators, who are skilled at helping people discover the power of living form the heart.  To take the Stress and Wellbeing Assessment in Canada, click here. To take the Stress and Wellbeing Assessment in the US, click here. 

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Barb Fletcher, Deb Timmerman

Deb Timmerman  00:00

You're listening to the less stress in life podcast. Your hosts, Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher are on a mission to help individuals and organizations manage stress and change. Together, they bring you real conversations, inspirational stories, and strategies to help move you from being stressed to feeling your best. Good morning, everyone. I'm Deb Timmerman, welcome to our series of 52 practical tools for less stress in life. This is episode 44.

Barb Fletcher  00:31

I'm Barb Fletcher, our goal is to give you tools and strategies to help you move from being stressed to feeling your best. We've spent the last year talking about different aspects of stress. We've talked about what stress does in and to your body, shared some of our favorite stress management tools, shared our favorite practices, and brought in experts to support you on your journey. We hear from listeners that many are using the information to make changes, but some are still stuck in that stress, rut. Today, we're going to talk about the guiding principles for developing a plan to manage stress. Deb, can you share what the six guiding principles are?

Deb Timmerman  01:19

Time budget, evaluating what's already in place, evaluating how stress is affecting you physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Identifying Barriers to change, some people aren't ready, creating a training plan and building a support system

Barb Fletcher  01:39

Seems pretty simple. Let's talk about step number one. How much time do I have? We had a conversation just before we jumped on about my perception of time and sometimes I think I have to have a specific amount of time to practice the tools. Can you speak to that?

Deb Timmerman  02:03

I think we often feel like stress management, self-care, stress care, has to be done at the end of the day and we have to carve out an hour of time to do it, but what you recognized is that in the five minutes that you had, before we hopped on this call, you could either sit there and wait for me to start the live stream, or you could use those minutes productively. You chose to use your biofeedback tool called the Inner balance. What did you notice when you took those two or three minutes to get into sync?

Barb Fletcher  02:43

It was interesting because my perception, at the beginning had a more irregular heart rate, and I was not in as strong a coherence as I would have liked. But as I sat with it, only in two minute, two- minute three, I was achieving really high levels of coherence and it was interesting, because when I saw that it was time to hop on, I was just in that sweet spot - in that rhythm and when you have that feeling you're like I would like a little bit more of this.

Deb Timmerman  03:21

So what you thought, if I'm following what you explained is that you were in sync more than you actually were. So the feedback tool told you that you weren't as in sync as you thought you were and then you used that simple breath tool for a couple of minutes to get yourself to that space. So it doesn't take long, but it takes thoughtfulness and purposefulness to inter weave that through the day. Time is kind of a barrier for some of us because we think that we don't have enough ,but when we learn to integrate those quick tools into the time we have, it can really be a benefit. So, the next one is budget. How do you evaluate how much money you have to do a program or pick up a new habit?

Barb Fletcher  04:12

One of the things I love about some of the tools that you and I use is there really isn't any budget required for that. Once you've acquired the skill, we can practice it. So the breath practice that I did with biofeedback today can easily be done without the biofeedback, without the reminder. You know, we carry a breath with us everywhere. So, budget doesn't need to be a huge amount of money, but sometimes it contributes to us finding the best fit or tool.

Deb Timmerman  04:47

I would agree with that. I think when I originally started to do this, I had zero budget and actually was lucky enough to have some discretionary education dollars as part of the management package I had in my nursing employment, and it was very small, incremental steps. So I might spend as little as $50, to acquire a skill, and practice that skill for a really long time until I moved to the next step. And there are so many things that are free today, everybody's giving away tools. So money doesn't have to be a barrier at all, if you just look a little bit creatively outside that mental block that money is the reason you can't do this.

Barb Fletcher  05:35

So the third step is really to evaluate the stress measures and define your barriers. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Deb Timmerman  05:45

we both use something called the Stress and Wellbeing Assessment. And prior to that, and sometimes still do use Stressmaster tool. It's important to know and measure the stress responses in your body, so you have a baseline and understand what you need to change and where you need to start working. You may have five things that a stress and wellbeing assessment would uncover, but beginning with the one that's bothering you the most or gives you the most symptoms in your life, is really where we would direct you to go. And sometimes if you don't have that measurement, you spin your wheels, so you're trying to attack everything at once and what we've learned is often, if you take care of that one thing, some of the others start to fall into place.

Barb Fletcher  06:38

And I think some of what we now understand that can be stressors aren't ones that we typically would think about. So we've spent a couple of years with a pandemic and so social isolation has become real for many people. And that isolation can contribute to our stress level, and we measure some of those indicators. So people might say, well, you know, I don't have headaches, I don't have pain in my body, work is pretty good, but maybe I react poorly. In certain situations, or our stress response is elevated. It may have something to do with feeling lonely, maybe you feel isolated, maybe you don't have anybody to lean on and that's a new way of looking at stress, I believe for many.

Deb Timmerman  07:39

I would agree to that and because it measures so many different pieces in the domains of resilience, it is a wonderful way to give you a target or a starting point that perhaps you wouldn't have chosen had you not had that data and information. And on the flip side, as you grow and acquire skills and feel better, you can actually take that assessment again and measure your growth, which I think is a great way for people to see how far they've come and you get some confidence when you see those numbers, you might feel it inside, but you might not believe it, the numbers don't lie.

Barb Fletcher  08:22

I often see people who perhaps maybe even forget how badly they felt and so I will go back and look at some notes and remind them of things that they may have said early on. And that tool, again, helps us to understand what that looks like.

Deb Timmerman  08:41

So, the second part of the question was about barriers, and figuring out what's keeping you from moving forward. In the beginning, for me, it was that I didn't even understand that stress was playing a role and it wasn't that I was avoiding doing something I didn't know there was something I could do. I thought trying to keep all the plates spinning was what everyone else did and that was just an accepted part of being a manager and a working mother and that's not true. But I think some of us are afraid of what our lives might be like, in the unknown if we don't have all of that to keep us busy. So, we might be avoiding starting a program because we're just afraid of what our life would look like.

Barb Fletcher  09:33

And we get caught in that sympathetic stress cycle where we've got our foot on the gas. I shared with you earlier, how a lot of my days now are spent sitting doing this kind of thing. So, I this morning was successful in getting myself out and getting myself on a treadmill and on the bike, for a period of time, just to reinforce that practice of physical activity. I think my watch was even confused as to why I was getting all those steps so early, but we sometimes get in that momentum of our foot is on the gas, and we're going so fast. We just can't break that cycle.

Deb Timmerman  10:23

So that brings up the subject of overwhelm. Another reason why doing a measure is a great way to get started. When you feel overwhelmed, you really don't know where to start, and like I mentioned, it gives you that starting point and takes away some of that fog and gives you some clarity about where to begin. What do I need to do today in this very minute? What do I need to do tomorrow? So, it gives you an idea of a path to take.

Barb Fletcher  10:53

So, one of the things that I always like people to do is look at what they might already be doing, that is contributing to their well-being, and what are the tools that they might just accentuate or skill up a bit to achieve a stronger outcome. And we all know that hobbies is a great one, it quiets our nervous system, whether it's sitting with a puzzle, or reading a book, or going for a walk. What's your favorite?

Deb Timmerman  11:25

Oh, my gosh, I love to do Tai Chi. So yesterday, I taught it twice. And that is one of the core things that I tried to do at least weekly, sometimes twice a week and the reason for that is I can combine breath and movement and acupressure and all those things into one what I call Power Hour. But I think the importance of identifying what you already have in place is, we often will take on a new program or new tools, and they'll be the star of the moment. So if we can take the time to integrate them into what we're already doing and habit stack, we are so much more likely to follow through and keep that practice as part of our daily mental wellness habits, as opposed to learning a new thing, getting rid of the old and really what the most successful people do is they figure out what tools speak to them and work for them and they formed their own little regimen. So, if you don't assess what you're already doing, I think you run the risk of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak and of finding that new shiny star bubble that's going to fix what you perceive as the problem. Whereas if you integrate it, it becomes more of a lifestyle, and more of a practice that you can use for the lifespan not just for a minute.

Barb Fletcher  12:54

I have a dusty yoga mat that's in the corner of one of my rooms and that's exactly it. There are things that resonate more deeply with me than others. And we need a certain level of skill to be able to get started., but we don't need to be a perfectionist on any particular item to find that relief from stress.

Deb Timmerman  13:22

I would agree to that and sometimes we have to look at as is this a practice that's absolutely brand new, I've done nothing ever. And there are those people who don't have any skills or tools that they use. I mean, they might take a walk once in a while, but it's not a regular habit. So, it does make a difference whether or not we're building from scratch, or we're pushing restart on what we have already done and that we loved. Sometimes we just get out of the habit to practice those things because of those barriers that we put up like time and all those other issues and when we can just get some help pushing restart and getting back on track, we're usually able to sail through that pretty well.

Barb Fletcher  14:12

I encourage people to look for tools that can help them with energy management, you know, you and I use the phrase Rescue Tool for those stressful moments. So, we don't want people to experience gobs of stress, carry it home with them, and then think okay, now I after I get dinner, and I get the kids to bed, I will sit down and process that and what happens is we just carry it forward. So, we need those rescue tools, those tools that can interrupt that stress response in the moment and I really think that's an important element for people when they're looking at tools.

Deb Timmerman  14:58

I would agree and I think that's a great segue into the next step number five, which is having a training plan, because part of what you do when you train is you get ready for those things that would be stressful. When you run a marathon, you don't go from the couch to running a marathon in a day or a week. That's something that you build and practice over time. So, what you're saying about rescue tools is excellent, because you can reset yourself if you recognize and if you have a training plan, you can also do some proactive things to get yourself ready for the day. So maybe you won't have to use as many rescue tools. So, I think it's a nice blend of both, but we don't think about training for the marathon of life or the stresses that come in life.

Barb Fletcher  15:55

I would love it if when people are looking at creating their training plan, if they would use the guide, does it feel good? If you feel better after whatever activity you've included in your training plan, then know that it's probably good for you and it's probably adding to your wellbeing. No need to overthink it to stress about whether that fits into the training plan or not. If it feels good, keep it in.

Deb Timmerman  16:25

And also with the training plan, looking for ways to integrate and habit stack regularly. For example, if you are somebody who takes a walk every day, maybe your walk is 10 or 30 minutes or however long but using that walk to integrate some breath tools and some mindfulness tools, so that you're really present, and you really get the benefits of nature. And all there is to offer. Not just taking a walk going crazy, getting it in because you got to get your steps in. So, taking a broader look at how you can expand that one activity to be more nurturing and more fulfilling.

Barb Fletcher  17:06

Step six is really helpful in increasing our chances of success. It really is about building that support network around you. A dear friend and I were having a conversation about yoga and as I shared with you, my yoga mat is dusty in the corner and there is a yin yoga class coming up. And because she and I will go together I'll do it. 

Deb Timmerman  17:38

Finding an accountability partner, or a support partner, somebody who can hold you accountable and get you to that class is really important. And knowing when you need to call that accountability partner because you're having a rough day and you need to pick me up not to call and complain and chat about how awful it is, but someone who will sit with you listen, and then help you reset and get back on track. So, you're not frittering away a whole day or taking that on as yet another burden to carry

Barb Fletcher  18:13

Our call to action. I think it really is about creating a baseline, getting an assessment to see where you're beginning this journey on if you don't have a strong sense of what stress looks like for you and then getting a plan together,

Deb Timmerman  18:32

We can help with the plan, we can help with the assessment, there is a link to take the assessment if you're in Canada, you'll take your assessment with Barbara if you're in the US, with me (Deb). There is no charge for that assessment and a review, offering you some tips or tools for how to start your plan. You can do this on your own, with a partner you already have, or if your budget allows perhaps you engage with Barbara or I to help guide you on that journey. So those links are in the show notes. We thank you for joining us today and we'll see you next week.