Your Stress Assessment and Letting Go

In today's session with Dr. Elissa Epel, you will learn about the three mind-body stress states, strategies for tackling each of them, and what happens when we don't do anything about our stress levels. Elissa will set the scene for the two weeks ahead by taking you through your own personal stress inventory and teaching you to let go of the excessive need to control.

Transcript

Welcome to day one of Insight Timers Strategies for Stress Challenge.

Let's take a moment to get settled.

Close your eyes,

Take a deep breath in and exhale out.

Let's dive into today's strategy for stress.

Welcome to Insight Timers Challenge on strategies for stress.

My name is Alyssa Eppel and I'm a professor at UCSF,

A medical school in San Francisco.

I do research to understand how the different aspects of stress affect our health and how we can undo excess stress and increase well-being.

First,

Congratulations on being here for making a commitment to change your stress levels.

Too much daily stress can imprison us in ways we don't even notice.

It keeps us trapped in both lifestyle habits and mind habits.

It prevents us from fully experiencing joy and ease.

We often create stress by rushing,

Packing our daily schedule back to back.

It can be seen as a badge of honor,

Part of how we achieve more.

But this backfires too.

It adds up.

Daily stress exhausts us and dampens our creativity.

Data shows that stress levels are at a peak.

Stress is slowly making us sick.

It contributes to depression,

Anxiety.

Our bodies are just not designed for periods of prolonged stress.

It can speed up how our cells age,

So we need to take it seriously.

So this challenge is a great opportunity to make a meaningful shift in your daily stress habits.

You'll be introduced to different strategies by master wisdom teachers,

Scientists,

And clinicians.

We all have different mind-body states we experience,

From extreme stress to deep relaxation.

And we need different tools for each state,

As I describe in my book,

The Stress Prescription.

I'm excited you'll be sharing strategies for red mind,

Yellow mind,

And green-blue mind states.

So let me briefly describe these mind-body states and give you an overview of what you will learn.

Red mind states are simply when we're experiencing the heat of a huge stress response.

When we're in the thick of things,

When we're feeling overwhelmed.

This mobilizes a lot of energy,

So it can leave us exhausted.

But we can embrace this energetic stress response by adopting a positive stress mindset to make stress work for us,

To help us perform better.

We will also use breath work and the guiding light of mindfulness to ground ourselves and our nervous system.

Yellow mind states are when we're not actively dealing with stress,

But we're far from feeling relaxed.

Because we're still holding onto stress in our body and mind.

This may be our typical baseline state.

We're so used to being in this yellow mind state,

We don't even notice it.

We have hidden stress that lives in our unconscious mind and in our body.

It's manifested,

For example,

By subtle muscle tension in a tense or vigilant nervous system.

In part two,

We'll try practices that release hidden stress,

The subtle chronic stress of yellow mind.

Then in part three,

We'll get to green and blue mind states,

True relaxation and even better deep rest states.

These include the precious practices that allow us to really release embodied stress by truly letting go.

It's going to be a wonderful two weeks.

For today,

I'll take you through your own stress assessment.

Having a better understanding of what your main stressors are will help you get the most out of this next two weeks.

So please take out a piece of paper and a pen or just type.

Write freely as you're going to make an expansive list with no censoring.

Okay,

Think about situations in your life that are causing you stress from small to big.

Go ahead and start writing down whatever comes to mind.

There's no right order to this list.

And don't worry about solutions.

This is simply an inventory to help us uncover the many layers of stress we are under.

So we can more clearly see our own personal stress ecosystem,

This stress landscape that we are living on.

I'm going to ask you some questions to help you identify these situations that are triggers in your life.

You might want to pause this audio at any time to give you more time to reflect and write.

What thoughts wake you up in the middle of the night?

What do you wake up worrying about in the morning?

Think about your typical day or week.

When do you feel most stressed or overwhelmed?

What time,

Where are you,

And who are you with?

Are you going through any changes in your personal life or your work life?

Are there situations when you feel devalued or targeted by discrimination?

Is there a situation that causes pain or stress that feels out of your personal control?

And lastly,

What situations outside of your personal life,

Community or global,

Are weighing on you?

What's on your mind?

So go ahead and write any specific situations you can think of.

Now,

I'd like you to underline any of the situations that you do feel you have some control over.

Situations you can at least partly change.

You can come back to this list later,

As these situations deserve some thoughtful and creative reflection,

Some problem solving.

Next,

Look at your list and circle situations that you don't really control.

You might pause the recording to take some time to think about this.

So often,

We have situations that are distressing that we care a lot about,

But can't easily change if at all.

And this can take a big emotional toll.

Some examples are conditions that affect you or someone close to you.

Addictions,

Illnesses,

Mental health challenges,

Parenting challenges,

Caregiving,

Or things that have happened already.

Traumatic events that are still with us emotionally.

If you feel a bit overwhelmed by seeing all the situations you're dealing with,

Know that you are not alone.

I didn't have you write out all of this to stress you out,

But rather to further develop your awareness of what is already there.

Identifying our stress triggers helps us tame and temper the situations or our responses to them.

This is our landscape of stress.

For the things we can't control,

The things we circled,

We can use strategies such as self-compassion,

Acceptance,

Setting boundaries,

And a positive stress mindset.

Next,

Let's work on finding ease within one of these tough situations.

So choose one of the situations you circled that's most important to you,

Something that's here for now in your life.

This is a brief letting go meditation to help us find more freedom living within this situation.

So find a comfortable position and close your eyes.

Picture the situation from a distance,

Like a scene in a movie.

Think about a specific aspect of it that causes you stress or pain.

You might describe the situation as if you're narrating it to someone.

Can you identify feelings you have about the situation?

Anger,

Resentment,

Regret,

Sadness,

Or shame.

These are all natural,

Valid responses.

What might you say to a friend who told you about this situation?

And can you show this kindness to yourself?

You might put your hand on your heart,

Your face,

Or even hug yourself,

Letting those emotions be.

Now I'd like you to picture the situation as if it's a heavy boulder that you can't move,

But you're still trying to.

You may have thoughts or fantasies of wishing things were different,

Ruminating,

Problem solving.

The emotional burden of trying to control this is like pulling on a rope attached to this boulder that won't move.

And that is sapping your energy and chafing your hands.

But you have the freedom to drop the rope.

So see what it feels like to gently drop the rope for now.

You don't know what will happen in the future,

So there's discomfort of not knowing.

Can you relax into not knowing?

Knowing there is the world of possibilities out there.

If you drop the rope and free up your energy,

You can more easily see beauty,

Love,

Opportunities that may be in front of you or may unfold with time.

As you drop the rope,

Let your hands be free,

Freed up to support you and to do things you can control.

Letting go of striving,

Wanting,

Wishing for now can allow you to welcome stillness within.

You might let out a big sigh.

With your next three breaths,

Let pressure release as you exhale with a sigh.

Breathe in gently and fully and breathe out slowly and fully.

Enjoy some full and long exhales.

Let yourself feel the lightness of just being right now.

Of letting yourself relax and release with every exhale.

As we come to a close,

You can open your eyes.

Notice if you have less tension,

Your hands around your face,

Your jaw.

Remember,

You can drop the rope at any time and take a break from this really tough situation in your life.

If you feel comfortable,

Go ahead and share in the discussion forum any insights you had in making your list or in letting go.

You might want to ask a friend to do this challenge as well so you can share and support each other.

I'm wishing you ease and relief as you go through each day.

And remember to be curious,

Kind,

And gentle with yourself as you try these new practices.

Thank you.

Thanks to all of us for taking this time and doing this important work together.

Reviews

Very calming and informative. Thank for.

Today’s lesson was just what I needed! I am looking forward to learning how not to let stress control my every thought…every day!

Thank you.

Elissa I liked how you speak about the different mind-body states and the reflective exercise was good to do today on a Monday, thank you.

Wonderful and so beneficial. I will come back to this regularly. Thank you

This was absolutely fantastic but you need to take time with this. I think probably at least 45 minutes or an hour with a pen and paper. To accomplish what she said, to pause and go through things that you can control, what you can’t control, it’s really really good and wonderful visualizations too. Thank you…I am so grateful for you and Insight Timer!!!!

Great journaling prompts and reflection. Thank you!

Insightful and informative

Excellent!

"Drop the rope" will be my phrase to help me move away from my anxious thoughts & overthinking.

The exercise with the boulder and the rope was VERY helpful! THANKS

Calmed me down and allowed me to identify my stresses

This was a great insight on helping me to drop the rope. It can be scary because of the unknown and when I feel.this way it's like no you need to do something it's not going to go away just like that. I am reminded that it's ok for me to drop the rope, breathe and control what I can and to release what I can't(it's a daily practice)Even though my sub conscious mind still reminds me of the things I've created that put me in the situations I'm in...I can still hold on to Hope...Grace...Peace...and these words -"THIS TOO SHALL PASS"

Meditation Helps..This message given has helped as well.

Our bodies are not designed to hold stress...I remind myself that I am strong I am Enough I have Enough and I release worries, stress,fear or anything that don't serve me purpose and allow myself to experience Ease...

And so it is....

Ase

Very thoughtful session- distinguishing between what we have control over and what we don't. Pausing the audio for writing was helpful. The situations i deal with mostly has to do with judging, and comparing myself to what i admire in others. My stress deals mostly about how i feel about myself and what i can and cannot do anymore.

This time I wrote down my stresses ty I have a greater awareness!!

Day 1 was helpful - i will gladly continue with this course.

I listened to day 1 again and released and little bit more. I am very happy to be in this challenge…thank you!

Loved the exercise and found it helpful. Thank you!

Soltar fue una buena experiencia, gracias