Release Your Potential - How to cope with stress

Linda Johnson is a lifestyle and performance coach, specialising in hypnotherapy and stress management.

Most people would agree that life today is very stressful. From the moment we wake up to the minute we go to bed, our senses are receiving lots of information which our minds interpret as either positive and non-threatening or negative and therefore threatening. This happens in less time than it takes you to say ‘Good morning’.

If you sense a nice cup of tea being delivered to your bedside by someone with a cheery smile, then we seem to be set up nicely for the rest of the day; but if we wake up to a power cut, no hot water and the kids complaining they can’t see to get dressed, then the day just continues in the same vein - with problems, upsets and anxiety. Why is this? It’s because negative thinking causes the release of stress hormones, whereas positive thinking does not, so the way you respond to a situation mentally affects the way your body behaves.

90% of our behaviour is in-built to keep us alive and it has been the case ever since homo sapiens came out of Africa 175,000 years ago. Our ancestors’ causes of stress would be mainly physiological, such as escaping predators, which is why the stress response is also known as  the ‘fight, flight or freeze response’. If you need to run away from a predator, stand and fight it to kill it, or freeze so that it passes you by to stay alive, then the release of stress hormones is a good thing as they enable the body to behave appropriately, giving you that surge of energy and shutting down unnecessary bodily functions.

Today, our stresses are mostly psychological (e.g. time-constraints, deadlines, paying bills) BUT our minds cannot distinguish between physiological and psychological stressors and the stress response is initiated automatically by the mind. Getting stressed is not really helpful when you are stuck in a traffic jam or are late for an important appointment, so what can you do about it?

Well, if the stress response is due to negative thinking then it can be interrupted or stopped by positive thinking. This takes practice  - it requires the brain to create new behaviours (or neural pathways) by changing the way you feel about a situation. But it can be done. In the same way as a day can be much more enjoyable if the way you approach it is with a smile then any situation can be handled with a calm demeanour. So, as the song says, always look on the bright side of life – you will feel so much better for it.