How To Know You Are Stressed

We are often pointed to the physical symptoms to identify whether we are stressed but there is something available much earlier than that. Having an awareness of our state of mind.

The speed of our thinking.
The mood of our thinking.
The quantity of thinking.

As we grow in awareness of these things, we begin to be able to guide ourselves away from that path more quickly.

Join me as I explore this topic from a new perspective.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A transformational life coach.

I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today I'm talking about how to know if you are stressed and that is because yesterday I wrote about how to feel less stressed but kind of somebody pointed out to me because I post something on social media about this that I hadn't that that a lot of us don't even know that we're stressed.

I think a lot of people think that life is supposed to be lived at this ridiculous pace and that what they're experiencing is just kind of the consequence of that that life is like this and therefore if I'm not sleeping or I'm not feeling so good it's okay and so I did a little bit of research on the physical symptoms of stress.

I'm aware of quite a lot of them but pretty much your body can do pretty much anything it turns out physically in response to you being really stressed.

You can end up,

I've experienced quite a few of these in the run-up to burnout if somebody had sat me down and said how many of these symptoms have you actually got Claire?

I would have had a fair few of them so sweating particularly at night I've been through that quite a few times in my life.

I remember when I took a promotion when my little one was only just under one took a promotion don't ask and I went through a little phase then when both my children were very small and I was working full-time and I started sweating at night and got some help from a nutritionist so that's one of the things and disruptions to your cycle if you're a woman disruptions to your ability to perform in the bedroom if you're a man or a woman itches and rashes and but one of the things that for me was really prominent in the run-up to burning out of sleep I just couldn't sleep I was so wired and jittery all the time that I couldn't actually sleep so I there is an article I've been looking at today on the mind website about the this physical signs of stress and the emotional ones of course because as we as we become more and more stressed we get irritable we're not very nice perhaps to be around we might be more emotional and tearful I remember myself being quite emotional as I was running into burnout.

Now what I would say about all those things that the physical and the emotional consequences of running our systems kind of full of adrenaline and cortisol for too long is that that's that's way down the line like I wouldn't I don't wish for anybody to get to the stage where there are physical consequences that we are generally in a lower mood kind of state because of course often one of the consequences of being stressed for a long time is depression generalized low mood anxiety all those kind of things and isn't it sad that like many of us get to burn out like I did without having a clue that there was anything wrong I remember when I was burning out and I went to the doctors many times about my sleep about nothing else I didn't want to discuss anything else I didn't think there was anything wrong with me just thought I'd had I'd developed this when I'm saying it now I'm almost laughing to myself I thought I'd developed this mystical sleep problem that had just come from nowhere but suddenly my body had forgotten how to sleep and that that wasn't that wasn't to do with anything other than my body had forgotten how to sleep so I would go to the doctors and I would say you know they'd say how are you feeling and I just be like just make me sleep and then I'll be fine that's all you need to do that's your job doctor person you need to get me to sleep and but not only did I speak to doctors about that I tried all the lotions and potions literally lotions and potions and tablets in order to try and get myself to sleep none of which really had that much impact because of course my system was absolutely revved up to the to the hilt so the the those symptoms are what I like to call downstream like that is you know there's there's stuff happening before that that we could become more aware of so that we don't end up down that down that path into you know into feeling really sick and burning out not being able to sleep and generally being a bit grizzly to be to be around and that is that are in the moment state of mind so we are amazingly fortunate as human beings because we have we have these horrible emotions we have them don't we we don't like them really do we we try to get rid of them all the time what a mistake that is because we have this amazing system this psychological system that works really cleverly in that our negative emotions let's call them you know you know the ones I mean are there to provide us with information to let us know about our state of mind and if we can start to develop an awareness of that an awareness of where our state of mind is what happens then is we kind of naturally find ways to to reset to get ourselves back to calm not not anybody else's ways but we find our way so I was speaking to a client recently who said you know sometimes he notices he's feeling revved up and he just reads a book you know he's noticed that that's something that just seems to allow his his system to reset sometimes it is something like a distraction type thing but it starts with knowing what's going on not not in a really like not in the pokey proddy way but just knowing that if you've got fast thinking which is definitely something that is implicated in stress if you've got low mood thinking if you've got just a lot of thinking your head feels very full your body's going to kick off and let you know about that what a clever system and that's the only place that any of the kind of physical emotional riled up feelings that's the only place any of them come from they come from our state of mind and you can get really too tuned in and you know I often say awareness is your superpower you can get really tuned into this you can start to be like an awareness ninja where you are because you know you're becoming riled up about something you find a way to settle yourself back down and sometimes it can just be like I spoke to somebody yesterday who said oh I just got so caught up I've been to this and she'd been to a really negative sounding conference and she she said she'd she just couldn't stop thinking about him and then she just and I'm gonna just put that in a box over there,

Put a ribbon on it and put it to the side and that was her metaphor for just you know I need to not think about that anymore and that's the key is that when we understand this system and how it works the choices the choice opens up it's like suddenly we we seem to have a choice whereas when we think it works outside in doesn't look like we've got a lot of choice at all really somebody's being a you know what then I feel rubbish my boss is being difficult I feel stressed I've got a tricky client I feel stressed and and and it's coming from them so there's nothing I can do about it but once you realize that it doesn't work that way that your emotional response is or reaction is telling you about your state of mind and not about anything else then it it it suddenly the choice appears where it wasn't there before if you think it's coming from the outside looks like you've got no choices doesn't it when you realize it's coming from the inside you have choices you know for me I had something happen a few weeks ago where somebody sent me a quite unpleasant message and I got quite riled up and a few weeks before that I would have picked up the phone and had it out with this person but I didn't because and then develop this awareness that oh I'm riled up and I won't have a good conversation I am just gonna I'm stressed about this I'm not liking it I don't I feel so I didn't have the conversation which of course meant I didn't get embroiled in my already dodgy thinking and I allowed myself some time and space and it just all passed I didn't do anything much about it apart from distract myself doing just something that was needed doing balls and particularly didn't take much of my creative power as it were and it's seeing that we've we've got this perfect system it has developed perfectly because we are perfection to let us know about our state of mind that in any moment our feelings will guide us in that and that's it's just super powerful and it's way back upstream from the horrible physical and emotional symptoms that I'm but that then become you know especially the physical symptoms become seem quite embedded seem quite difficult to shift it's harder to go back from there if we're up here in this awareness phase kind of going oh hang on I'm riled up now and and then there's something to do to help ourselves settle it's it's it's not getting to the stage where we've made ourselves physically and emotionally sick with with being stressed over a long period so hopefully that's interesting and helpful and again a different perspective on stress we need a different perspective because the one we've got right now doesn't seem to be cutting it does it anyway lots of love and enjoy just getting curious about this and about yourself and use awareness as your superpower.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Claire Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

Thank you very much. Super soothing, helpful and empowering.