What Does It Mean to “Listen to Your Body?”

Fitness Tips / Move / September 20, 2014

 

“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

Ah, yes, this statement and similar motivational(ish) quotes are go-to stock phrases of drill sergeants, tough guys, and, unfortunately, coaches and workout buddies everywhere.

 We get it: When it comes to working out, pushing ourselves is a tried and true way to make progress toward fitness goals. But what about when we push too hard in the face of pain, putting ourselves in danger of injury? Hello, rehab! It’s about this time when the physical therapist asks us things like, “Did you feel this coming on?” “When did the problem start?”

Their parting advice is often, you guessed it: “Next time, listen to your body.”

It’s all just a jumble of mixed messages. First, do we ignore the pain or push past it? And second, what the heck does “listen to your body” mean anyway? If we actually listened to our bodies, would we ever willingly participate in activities that make us tired, sweaty, and sore in the first place? OK let’s not get carried away.

One thing we know for sure: Exercise is good. Well, the right amount of exercise at the right intensity is good. The challenge is figuring out when enough is enough and when it’s just too much. The good news is that our bodies already know the answer. We just need to train our brains to recognize the signs for when to put the pedal to the metal and when to pump the brakes—and actually do it.

I Saw the Sign (But Did It Open Up My Eyes?)
It’s understandable to think that exercise- or sports-related injuries are just plain bad luck. But freak accidents notwithstanding, there’s a good chance that before that ACL tore or that hammie popped, your body tried to warn you that injury was a-comin’ for you.

It might come as a surprise, but our bodies are incredibly smart. If we take the time to listen to them, ”some very serious injuries or conditions could often be avoided,” says Dr. Doug Andrews, PT, director of sports medicine for Optim Healthcare. “When we experience pain, our body is definitely telling us that something is not right. It is up to each person to figure out what the signal means,” Dr. Andrews says.

Think of pain like the “check engine” light in a car. Turning a blind eye to this blinking light will inevitably result in a breakdown, granted the body’s warning signs can be more subtle than a car’s. (If only our knees came with a “Check ACL” light.) But when it comes to preventing small problems from turning into lasting injuries, there are symptoms and signals that act as the first line of defence . Sure, soreness and fatigue accompany many exercise routines, but being able to identify more serious aches and pains is more important than many endorphin-seeking, active folks might think.

Tune In to Common Warning Signs
It’s easier to hear the alarms our bodies are sounding when we know what to listen for. Get familiar with the warning signs of three common conditions that could be compromising performance in the gym or in everyday life.

1. OVERTRAINING
Caused by too many intense workouts and not enough time recovering from them, overtraining feels, well, terrible. If you’ve ever experienced some combo of prolonged periods of fatigue, soreness that won’t go away, insomnia, a cold you can’t seem to kick, and heart rate fluctuations, chances are you’ve been overtrained.

What to listen for: While there’s not a single diagnostic test that determines overtraining, it does make its presence known pretty clearly. Be on the lookout for symptoms described above and consider using a heart rate monitor to establish your resting heart rate and your maximum heart rate. An elevated resting heart rate and/or an inability to raise your heart rate during vigorous exercise can both be signs of overtraining. If you suspect you’re overtrained, it’s time to take a break from your workouts to focus on recovery. Take some rest days ASAP and focus on getting quality sleep and eating nutritious whole foods.

2. INJURY
Just because some of our favourite pro sports moments involve an elite athlete heroically pushing through the pain of a brutal injury doesn’t mean we should follow suit. In fact, even minor sports-related injuries generally require intervention. So how do we know when to take a knee?

What to listen for: Dr. Andrews warns of chronic and persistent pain, saying that managing it to allow for continued participation in sports or training is a bad idea. (In other words, don’t pop ibuprofen and wrap your knee in a brace just so you can make it through a run.) That not-so-bad-but-constantly-nagging ache in your calf or bothersome knot in your shoulder? It’s trying to tell you something. Avoid injuries altogether by recognizing the warning flares, no matter how faint they might be. First, acknowledge that you’re dealing with some ongoing pain, no matter how minor you think it is. Then back off from your exercise routine for long enough that you can care for the achy part of your body with targeted mobility work.

According to Dr. Andrews, most instances of soreness are caused by restriction of the fascia, or the connective tissue that interconnects our muscles and joints, which leads to aches, pains, and limited range of motion. His solution: Use a foam roller to break up the fascia then follow up with stretching.

 After resting and stretching the ailing body part, it’s time to do some strengthening. But this time it’s not about PR-ing a lift. Dr. Andrews recommends focusing on strengthening “the muscles that are weak… not the ones that are already strong.” He also points out that this might be a good time to seek out a physical therapist, or someone trained in movement science, to assist in the recovery process.

3. DISORDERED SLEEP
While some of us wear our late-night-early-morning routines like badges of honour, lack of sleep or poor quality sleep can wreak havoc on the body, productivity, fitness routines, and overall sense of well-being. And poor sleep isn’t an isolated event. Sleepiness compounds to create energy crashes during the day, increases stress hormones, and promotes poor eating habits. As the energy roller coaster dips, we often turn to caffeine, sugar, and energy drinks to combat fatigue. These quick fixes further complicate the energy crisis. It’s only a matter of time until illness, depression, or chronic fatigue set in, but it’s not until the daily energy crash turns into an all out well-being train wreck that we begin to take notice.

What to listen for: Everyone has a bum night of sleep every now and again, but paying attention to how frequently you suffer insomnia or fitful, interrupted sleep is important. If you notice unusual hunger, increasingly frequent bad moods, problems concentrating, trouble staying awake and alert despite pounding caffeine and energy drinks, and even poor motor function, you might be suffering from a sleep problem that requires intervention. Instead of trying to self-medicate with sugar and caffeine, try setting a grown-up bedtime routine. Sleep debt must be repaid on the road to restoring energy levels. Adding an hour or two a night over the course of a month will help restore natural sleep patterns.

Once you feel a bit more well-rested, turn your attention to fuel that provides lasting energy: Nutritious foods (protein instead of sugar, for example), plenty of water, and snacks when you need them. Put some limits around your coffee consumption coffee, like having it only early in the day and perhaps in limited amounts.

The Takeaway
Considering how busy most of us are with school, work, relationships, family, working out, and the countless tiny things we make time for each day, it’s not surprising that we sometimes lose perspective on how we’re physically getting through it all. Sometimes the opportunity to rest, eat healthfully, or ditch the energy drink in favor of going to sleep a little earlier slips right past us. But resolving to pay extra close attention to our bodies’ “check engine” lights could be the difference between taking a few days off to tend to an ache or a cold and losing weeks or months to an injury or sickness you just can’t kick.
—Joe Vennare for Greatist
 
Sources:

• Acute high-intensity endurance exercise is more effective than moderate-intensity exercise for attenuation of postprandial triglyceride elevation. Trombold JR, Christmas KM, Machin DR, et al. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2013 Mar 15;114(6):792-800.
• Effect of exercise training intensity on abdominal visceral fat and body composition.Irving BA, Davis CK, Brock DW, et al. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2008 Nov;40(11):1863-72.
• Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the overtraining syndrome: joint consensus statement of the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine. Meeusen R, Duclos M, Foster C,, et al. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2013 Jan;45(1):186-205.
• Seven to eight hours of sleep a night is associated with a lower prevalence of the metabolic syndrome and reduced overall cardiometabolic risk in adults. Chaput JP, McNeil J, Després JP, et al. PLoS One. 2013 Sep 5;8(9):e72832.
• Neurocognitive consequences of sleep deprivation. Durmer JS, Dinges DF. Seminars in Neurology. 2005 Mar;25(1):117-29.
• Water, hydration, and health. Popkin BM, D’Anci KE, Rosenberg IH. Nutrition Reviews. 2010 Aug; 68(8):439-58.

http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/2014/09/what-does-it-mean-to-listen-to-your-body/?utm_source=MFP&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_20141124&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRons63OZKXonjHpfsX76%2BQqW6W2gYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcpqPa%2BTFAwTG5toziV8R7DBLM153N8QXRTg

Tips to Lose Weight Without Diet and Exercise

Dropping a few pounds doesn’t have to involve deprivation or intense workouts. These tricks will help you slim down the easy way.

1. Drink Enough Water

There are so many reasons why water is, among other things, good for your waistline. Drinking cold water can help up your metabolism, since your body will work harder to warm up the liquid, meaning more calories burned for you. Drinking water regularly also helps keep you feeling full so you don’t snack on empty calories, and hydrating before you exercise will help release muscle-building hormones in your body — which spells good news for not only your strength goals but also your metabolism.

2. Get Enough Sleep

Celebs and doctors alike can’t stop talking about their go-to weight-loss secret: one of the keys to losing or preventing weight gain is getting enough sleep. Why? Turns out we end up eating more when we’re sleep-deprived. A recent study, for example, showed that participants who got only four hours of sleep ended up consuming 300 more calories than when they were well rested.

3. Practice Portion Control

Even if you’re not on a diet, being mindful of how much you’re eating is good practice. It can take a few minutes for your brain to recognize that you’re full, so get in the habit of knowing how much an actual serving size is (and how much it takes until you’re full), and you’ll be less apt to pack on the pounds due to overeating.

4. Drink Green Tea

Water’s not the only metabolism booster in town. Studies have shown that drinking green tea can give your metabolism a tiny increase — which can add up to over 400 extra calories burned a week! Not only that, the beverage has got some major antioxidant power, so drink up.

5. Use Your Friends

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be much easier with the support and motivation of like-minded friends. Having a healthy support group can lead to better choices for yourself; you may find yourself moving more, skipping more calorie-laden happy hours, and making other lifestyle choices that can contribute to weight loss.

http://www.healthdigezt.com/tips-to-lose-weight-without-diet-and-exercise/

Sleep Disruptions Can Be Caused by Stress and Adrenal Function

Stress and adrenal function affect sleep, particularly the circadian pattern of cortisol secretion by the adrenal glands. Circulating cortisol normally rises and falls throughout the 24 hour daily cycle, and is typically highest at around 8 AM and lowest between midnight and 4 AM. Both high and low night-time cortisol levels can interrupt sound sleep. Stress normally causes a surge in adrenal hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that increase alertness, making it more difficult to relax into sound sleep–especially when they remain high or rise and fall irregularly through the night. Frequent or constant stress can chronically elevate these hormone levels, resulting in a hyper-vigilant state incompatible with restful sleep.

If this is the reason for poor sleep, anything that reduces stress and enhances the ability to handle stress may improve sleep. This can include relaxation, breathing and/or meditation techniques, certain yoga postures, healthy lifestyle changes, and stress-relieving life alterations. Refraining from vigorous exercise in the evening and taking time to consciously relax before going to bed may calm the adrenals and help lower cortisol and adrenaline levels.

When the adrenals fatigue, adrenal hormone levels may become low, leading to another possible source of night-time sleep disruption–low blood sugar. Cortisol plays an important role in maintaining blood sugar (glucose) levels around the clock. Although blood glucose is normally low by the early morning hours, during adrenal fatigue cortisol levels may not stay sufficient to adequately sustain blood glucose. Low glucose signals an internal alarm (glucose is the main fuel for all cells, including brain cells) that disrupts sleep so the person can wake up and refuel.

Low night-time blood glucose can also result from inadequate glycogen reserves in the liver. Cortisol causes these reserves to be broken down into glucose that is then available to the cells. When low cortisol and low glycogen reserves coincide, blood glucose will most likely drop, disrupting sleep. Waking between 1 AM and 3 AM may indicate low blood sugar resulting from inadequate glycogen reserves in the liver, low adrenal function and cortisol, or both. This is often the culprit when panic or anxiety attacks, nightmares, or fitful, restless sleep occur between 1 and 4 AM.

If low blood sugar is disrupting sound sleep, supporting healthy adrenal function and dealing with the adrenal fatigue may contribute long term to sound sleep. Also having a healthy snack before bed can help fortify the body’s night-time energy reserves. The snack should be one or two bites of food that contains protein, unrefined carbohydrate, and high quality fat, such as half a slice of whole grain toast with peanut butter or a slice of cheese on a whole grain cracker. Eating or drinking sugary, refined foods will only aggravate the problem. Sometimes exercising before bed can help, since exercise tends to raise cortisol levels.

Lack of sleep can be a significant body burden that, in itself, can contribute to adrenal fatigue. Every time the wake/sleep cycle is altered, it takes several days to weeks for the body and cortisol levels to adjust. In fact, sleep ranks with diet and regular exercise as an essential component of a healthy life. People on alternating shifts with less than three weeks between shift changes are continually hammering their adrenal glands and may become very susceptible to adrenal fatigue.

Chronic lack of sleep is now regarded as a health hazard and has been associated with several possible health consequences. These include lowered immunity with increased susceptibility to infections, impaired glucose tolerance, low morning cortisol levels, and increased carbohydrate cravings. Lack of sleep can also elevate circulating estrogen levels, upset hormonal balance, and slow healing and prolong the recovery period. These are in addition to the decreased alertness and concentration that most people experience when missing an inordinate amount of sleep.

The consensus from research and clinical observation is that it is necessary to sleep an average of eight hours per day. Some people need even more in the beginning phases of recovery from adrenal fatigue. A saliva cortisol test done at night and compared with daytime levels and with the test standards for those times will help determine if either high or low cortisol may be interfering with sound sleep. If cortisol is a likely culprit, cortisol levels will be significantly higher or lower than normal for those times.


http://blog.adrenalfatigue.org/adrenal-fatigue/sleep-disruptions-can-be-adrenal-fatigue/

5 Herbs To Calm Anxiety (Without Being Drowsy)

 

Are you 'swimming' in stress, lately? Bills and worries piling up? Challenges sprouting up in your job, family, and home? You may be suffering from anxiety. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. and affect 40 million adults. Generalized anxiety disorder, on its own, affects 6.8 million adults, with women twice as likely to be affected as men.

Whether you’re suffering from a lifelong illness or simply going through a stressful period in your life, natural herbs can help. Here are seven that are particularly good for calming you down - without putting you to sleep. (You’ll notice we have left out kava and valerian for this reason).

1. Passionflower

 

The University of Maryland Medical Center states that passionflower has shown in a few studies to work as well as some of the benzodiazepine medications that are usually prescribed for treating anxiety.

A four-week double-blind study, for example, compared passionflower with oxazepam. Results showed oxazepam worked more quickly, but by the end of the study period, both treatments were shown to be equally effective. Bonus—side effects like daytime drowsiness were fewer with passionflower.

A second study also showed that passionflower helped ease symptoms like anxiety, irritability, agitation, and depression in participants going through withdrawal from an opiate drug addiction.

Dosage: Try one cup of passionflower tea three times daily, 45 drops of liquid extract daily, or about 90 mg/day.

2. Lavender

A 2010 multi-center, double blind randomized study of lavender oil compared to anti-anxiety medication lorazepam found that both were effective against generalized and persistent anxiety. Bonus — lavender had no sedative side effects.

“Since lavender oil showed no sedative effects,” researchers stated, it could be an effective and “well-tolerated alternative to benzodiazepines” to treat generalized anxiety. An earlier 2000 study found similar results.

Dosage: Try about 80 mg/day of the supplement, or use the oil as an aromatherapy solution.
 

3. Lemon balm

Though usually found in combination with other herbs, lemon balm also has anti-anxiety powers on its own.

Research published in 2004, for instance, gave participants a single dose of lemon balm extract (300 mg or 600 mg) or a placebo, then measured their mood after one hour. The higher dose resulted in reduced stress and improved calmness and alertness. Even the lower dose helped participants do math problems more quickly.

Dosage: Use in aromatherapy, try 300-500 mg of dried lemon balm three times daily, 60 drops daily, or 1/4 to 1 teaspoon of dried lemon balm herb in hot water for a tea four times daily.

4. Ashwagandha

A 2012 double blind, placebo-controlled study gave participants either placebo or a capsule containing 300 mg of high-concentration full-spectrum ashwagandha extract, twice a day. The study lasted for 60 days. Those taking the ashwagandha showed significant improvements. Even the levels of the stress hormone cortisol were substantially reduced in those taking the extract. And there were no serious side effects.

In an earlier 2000 study, ashwagandha had anxiety-relieving effects similar to those of lorazepam.

Dosage: Typical dosage is 300 mg standardized to at least one to five percent withanolides, once or twice a day.

 

5. L-theanine

This one isn’t really a herb — it’s a water-soluble amino acid,  but it’s gotten such good research behind it we had to include it here. It’s found mainly in green tea and black tea and is also available as a supplement.

Studies have found that it acts directly on the brain, helping to reduce stress and anxiety—without causing drowsiness.

Research from 2008, for example, found that those participants taking 50 mg of L-theanine a day had a greater increase in alpha (relaxed brain waves) activity than those who took a placebo.

An earlier 1998 study found that 200 mg a day lead to increased alpha-brain waves and a relaxed, yet alert, state of mind.

A later 2011 study found that it was also associated with reduced anxiety, and was well tolerated and safe for participants.

Dosage: A typical cup of black tea contains only about 25 mg of l-theanine and green tea only about 8 mg. While a cup of tea may be calming, if you want more potent effects, try a supplement, about 200 mg a day.

 

http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/5-herbs-to-calm-anxiety-without-being-drowsy

10 Things Super Successful People Do To Stay Calm

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.

If you’ve followed my work, you’ve read some startling research summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental health (such as the Yale study, which found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain responsible for self-control). The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.



New research from the University of California, Berkeley, reveals an upside to experiencing moderate levels of stress. But it also reinforces how important it is to keep stress under control. The study, led by post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby, found that the onset of stress entices the brain into growing new cells responsible for improved memory. However, this effect is only seen when stress is intermittent. As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments into a prolonged state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to develop new cells.

“I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says. For animals, intermittent stress is the bulk of what they experience, in the form of physical threats in their immediate environment. Long ago, this was also the case for humans. As the human brain evolved and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the ability to worry and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences of prolonged stress.

Besides increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though, unless a lion is chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective and under your control. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances. This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent and not prolonged.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.

They Appreciate What They Have
Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.

They Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What if?” statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control. Calm people know that asking “what if? will only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.

They Stay Positive
Positive thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto something that is completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any positive thought will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small. If you can’t think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an exciting event that you can focus your attention on. The point here is that you must have something positive that you’re ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.

They Disconnect
Given the importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular time off the grid can help keep your stress under control. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body a break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.

Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. If detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how about the weekend?

Choose blocks of time where you cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule. If you’re worried about the negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning. As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.

They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body.

They Sleep
I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting things under control.

They Squash Negative Self-Talk
A big step in managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things, your inner voice says, “It’s time to stop and write them down.” Literally stop what you’re doing and write down what you’re thinking. Once you’ve taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.

You can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” “ever,” etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.

They Reframe Their Perspective
Stress and worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re so stressed all the time. You can’t control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you’re thinking in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more limited than it initially appeared.

They Breathe
The easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over.

This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.

They Use Their Support System
It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/12/successful-people-calm_n_4769119.html?utm_hp_ref=tw