Self-Care for the 99%
I was evacuated from my home a few weeks ago. Like so many of us in California, fire weather, red flag warnings, and fear of heat and wind have all become our new normal. My home is standing, and my family is safe; we are some of the lucky ones. But after a week of being displaced, the fatigue of constantly checking my Facebook feed for updates and watching my county completely shut down ran a toll on my body. When we returned home, desperate for routine, I found myself crying every time I walked into my bedroom. It was like revisiting the scene of a crime – a 4 am urgent text message telling me to evacuate now, to get out of town. I had held it together for my children to keep some sense of normalcy in their lives. I kept the mantra for them “we are safe, we are ok, whatever happens we are ok” and I hardly realized that I hadn’t had time to let myself go, to feel what I needed to feel – fear, uncertainty, grief for those who did not fare as well. I held that stress in my shoulders, across my chest, in the base of my throat, and it was just waiting to come out.
Why does stress matter for our health?
Stress erodes at our sense of security over time. It doesn’t have to be such a traumatic situation - a car accident, a death in the family, a lost job. Those are all, of course, clearly stressful situations. But stress can also be subtle. The hour-long commute to work, the coworker who always seems to undermine you in meetings, the late-night worry about your children, the future of the earth, politics: it all adds up.
We care about stress because we now know that stress is associated with a wide variety of chronic health conditions, including cardiovascular disease and lowered immunity as well as a trigger for autoimmune disease. Stress can also negatively affect the microbial composition in our gut and contribute to alterations in messages via our gut-brain axis.
Stress resilience versus stress reduction
It’s not always possible to remove the stress in our life. But taking care of ourselves so that we are more resilient when this stress occurs is the key. Self-care has become the go-to phrase we as practitioners use to encourage this ability to cope well under life’s pressures. Unfortunately, what I’ve noticed with the growth of perfectly curated social media posts is that self-care has become another seemingly unattainable “goal” to add to the to-do list while subsequently adding to the stress problem. And quite honestly, it feels overwhelming. How are you supposed to find the time to take care of your family, work, eat well, exercise, sleep at least eight hours a night, socialize with friends, have regular date nights with your partner while also taking nightly bubble baths, journaling, getting massages once a week, and oh yes waking up and listing three things you are grateful for before getting out of bed?
If you can fit it all in, then more power to you, but you are in the 1%. For the rest of us, here are six simple things you can do to help reduce the stress burden in your life. Even better? They are all (mostly) free.
Six self-care rituals for stress resilience
Breathe. There’s a reason why yoga and meditation have documented health benefits behind them. One of the simplest reasons? You are forced to breathe. Breathing automatically calms our fight or flight response, brings down our heart rate, and forces us to be present. Try this: place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Count slowly to four as you inhale, gently filling your stomach with air as you push against your hand. Now hold that breath for four counts, and then slowly exhale for four counts. Repeat, adjusting the length of time to fit your comfort.
Walk outside. Kids aren’t the only ones who should play outside. A study published earlier this year found that spending even 20 minutes a day outside can improve your well-being by decreasing levels of stress hormones. Even better? Take your shoes off and get your feet in the dirt. While not wholly backed in research, there is something to be said of the practice of “grounding” – or reconnecting your energy to the earth. Plus, you’ll be gaining all those new microbes into your skin.
Create an evening ritual. One of my clients said to me, “I keep trying to journal before bed because I know it’s good for me, but I just can’t seem to do it. Then I feel frustrated and more stressed out about it.” How do we overcome this? Don’t journal. Find a ritual that works for you. If you downloaded a meditation app to use and every time you see the icon on your screen, you feel bad because you haven’t used it, get rid of it. A stress reduction ritual only works if it feels real to you. If it’s not journaling or meditation, maybe it’s a hot shower and a book. Perhaps it’s making a warm cup of tea or having a 30-minute screen-free connection time with your partner after the kids go to bed. Whatever you do, the action should be 100% about making you feel good and help you to ease into a peaceful sleep space.
Sweat. Exercise and movement is not only good for your overall health, but it also supports stress hormone reduction and better sleep. That elusive runner’s high is not just a bribe to get you to exercise. The release of endorphins can also reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. As with the evening ritual, choose an activity that you enjoy. Hate the gym? Don’t force yourself into that mold. There are so many options to choose from – from dancing, to rock climbing, to rowing, to acro-yoga. Find something that you don’t dread, that brings you joy and feels good in your body. When all else fails, just go for a (brisk) walk.
Nourish your body. Food is love. There is no denying that. Nearly everyone has someone in their life who offered them ice cream as a child when they were sad. We equate food with comfort. We may tell ourselves we “deserve” a treat because we had a bad day so that when we are stressed or sad our body starts looking for short term ways to elevate those feel-good hormones in the brain. And that often translates into sugar, simple carbohydrates, or wine. The best thing you can do when feeling exhausted or stressed is to take extra care of yourself. Yes, you deserve it – you deserve to feed your body with food that keeps you healthy and nourished. The last thing you want to do is to stress the body more by not feeding it well. Healthy fats and satiating protein will support your well-being in a way that mindless emotional eating never will.
Say no. Setting boundaries is the new queen of self-care. If you feel too overwhelmed to try anything else on this list, then start here. If you are already crispy on the burn-out scale and you don’t have any more to give, it’s ok to say no. Protecting your time can be scary, but trust that setting boundaries for yourself will only give you more energy and space to say yes to those things that make you feel good.