A Simple Habit To Handle Stress

Easy but effective

We are in the midst of a silent and invisible epidemic.

The level of stress we generally face is increasing daily. Recent studies show that up to 90% of visits to the doctor’s office are in some way stress-related. That’s crazy.

How is that possible? What do diabetes, memory loss, and gut problems have to do with stress?

Well, millions of years ago, if a predator were to attack or approach, your stress responses would kick in and a host of things would happen. Your blood sugar would start to rise so you could run faster and your amygdala (the emotional part of your brain) would go into high alert so that you would be vigilantly aware of everything around you. Your body would prioritize the organs related to getting you out of the situation. That’s an appropriate response when you are in danger.

The problem is, that today you activate those same responses through your daily activities like emails, to-do lists, and other things that cause you stress. The scale of the response may not be as high, but as your body reacts to each stress trigger, the damage soon builds up and often leads to an array of health problems.

How to Identify stress?

It’s easy to address your diet. You know what and when you eat. So you can do something about it. Stress on the other hand is not really visible and is hard to quantify.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee breaks it down nicely in his book The Stress Solution.

He explains how there are different levels to stress. You have your macro and micro stress doses.

Big (macro) doses like a bad breakup or a loss of a family member require lots of effort to overcome and need to be dealt with in a certain way.

Micro stress doses, on the other hand, are ones that in isolation would be ok, but when built up throughout the day can make you reach your personal ‘stress threshold’. When you reach that threshold, that’s when small stuff becomes a big deal and you start to get triggered by the little things.

You get countless stress doses throughout the day. You could even hit 10 before you leave the house in the morning.

• Getting woken up by your alarm.
• Checking your phone and seeing a negative comment on something you posted.
• Seeing an email you forgot to reply.
• You burn the toast
• Realizing you’re late for work.

The possibilities are endless and all these hits can happen within the first hour of your day. And for the most part, you can’t make those stresses disappear.

But there is a tool that you can apply immediately to help reduce their impact.

The Best Way to Start

“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.” — Wayne Dyer

The first hour of your day is crucial. It often determines the kind of day you end up having.

If the first thing you do in the morning is look at your phone, you are inviting an avalanche of noise into your brain, one that usually continues for the rest of the day.

That’s what I used to do. I’d wake up, turn off my alarm, and then check through my notifications to see what juicy stuff happened while I was asleep.

But I didn’t realize the effect it was having on me. Not only would I get tiny doses of stress from various messages or reminders I received, but my brain would immediately start thinking about 4000 different things and not have enough time to wake up properly.

After reading an article on the impact of a proper morning routine, I decided to test one out, which included no screen time for the first 30 mins of the day. And man did it make a difference.

I noticed myself being calmer throughout the day. I was more patient with things that usually frustrated me. I felt more present in my interactions with people. And overall I just felt happier.

Taking time in the morning to allow your inner thoughts and feelings to come to the surface, mentally prepares you for the day. Mental downtime is important for solving problems and having new ideas.

Disconnecting from technology in the morning allows you to connect with yourself, your family, and other things that make you feel fulfilled.

If you don’t already, I encourage you to try starting your time with a tech-free, peaceful morning routine. Not everyone has the time to start of their day with an hour of peaceful self-reflection. And 30 minutes without your phone may be too much for you. But try starting with 10 minutes, or even 5.

I like to read and pray every morning before I use my phone. Some like to exercise, meditate, or just sit at the table and have a cup of tea. Whatever it is, allowing yourself to ease into the day and limiting the hits of stress you receive in the first hour of your morning can really bolster your mind to deal with the micros doses from the rest of your day.

Morning routines aren’t the end-all of stress but are a powerful tool you can equip yourself with, in a world full of noise and distractions.