Webinar: Eight and One Half Steps to Relieve Stress

You Can Change Your Life

What follows is the text transcription from the webinar. You can also view or download a PDF of the discussion slides.

Your Guide: Libby Wright

Alright, so my name is Libby Wight. I'm one of the founders of SupplementRelief.com and I would just like to remind you, um, any new regimen or program you start doing, we want to remind you that you need to always check with your healthcare provider if you have any questions or concerns about that. Especially taking supplements or starting new exercise regimens or anything like that. So we want to make sure you're taking good care of yourself and chatting with your physician.

What is Stress? Put It On The Table

So one of the things we like to talk about when we get going here is what stress actually is. One of the things my husband likes to talk about with his clients is really the psychological nature of stress. Stress is usually not something physical. It's not something you could take out of your purse or your backpack and set it on the table and say, this is stress. This is what I'm going through. This is what I'm experiencing, right? It's not a physical object. It's generally the way we perceive a situation or a set of circumstances or an attitude or behavior.

If Stress Is Really "All In My Head" How Do I Fight It?

People have been through horrendous difficulties and struggles and have found the good in them and have found ways to grow personally through even the hardest situations. There are people who have very minimally stressful situations that they feel they just can't cope with at all. Stress is, is something that is very, very, um, perceptual. It's something that we, that we on a very personal level perceive and if you had 10 people in a room, in a stressful situation or in a situation, it'd be amazing to pull how each person is perceiving the room. Maybe one person is excited by the intensity of the conversation. Maybe another person feels intimidated by the situation and maybe another person is just aggravated by the intensity of a situation. And so stress is a very personal thing, but if stress is really all in our head, if stress is really about our perception than how do we fight it? Well, I'm going to give you some very practical tips to help you fight stress.

Tip # 1 Eat That Frog

The first tip that I like to share with my clients is to Eat That Frog¹. Now, this is not my concept. This is a Brian Tracy concept, but it's very good. If you want some good time management and stress management, um, materials, Brian Tracy is a great author and Eat That Frog, basically the concept is whatever it is that is the most stressful to you, the most painful for you to think about, the most concerning for you through the day- that's the first thing you want to do in the morning. You want to get up and eat that frog- I think he has a book by that title, but basically you want to, you want to tackle the hardest thing, the thing that's going to be weighing most on your mind all day, first thing in the morning because then it's not taking that mental energy and you're not procrastinating.

Procrastination is one of those classic bad stress responses and one of the best ways you can tackle stress is by not procrastinating. So how do you know what the most important thing to do in the day as well? You can usually do a gut check and say, okay, what am I most stressed out today about? Now yesterday for me, I had some mail I had to send out and I had to figure out it was a weird mailing thing and I had to figure out how I was going to do it, and that was the most stressful thing for me in the day that I knew was going to be happening was was going to try to figure out how to get this package and shipment out on time to these people. So I decided to do it first thing in the morning versus waiting to the end of the day because when you wait until the end of the day, then you are thinking about it all day. It's occupying space in your brain and it tends to ratchet your stress level up as you're going throughout the day.

So whatever that stressful situation is, you eat that frog by doing the first thing in the day that is going to be potentially the most stressful to get off your plate and move on and you're going to feel better and more confident throughout the day when you do that.

Tip # 2 Move Your Body

Second tip. Now again, this isn't rocket science. Move your body. It's a well known fact that when you move your body, you get that endorphin rush, you're burning off stress and you're experiencing something called eustress. Now this is a little teaser. I want to talk to you more about that a little bit later, but basically what you're doing is creating good stress in your body. It doesn't matter what kind of movement you do, if you're moving your body, your breathing better, your burning that energy, and you're going to be feeling better about life.

So you can pick tabata, which I've talked about and other, um, other webinars which is very short interval training, five to 10 minutes of intense workout. You could do yoga. Some people find that very relaxing. Pilati, swimming, walking, riding a bike, taking a nature walk. There are a million different things you can do. Go do something with friends, like racquetball, tennis, soccer, whatever it is. Play with your kids outside- that's another great one, but move your body. If you move your body a little bit everyday, that does help you burn off that stress.

Tip # 3 Supplements to Fight Stress

Tip number three- we've got some great supplements to fight stress. I know I've mentioned AdrenaMed before, so I won't stick on that topic a really long time, but basically AdrenaMed is going to help support your adrenal glands and your adrenal glands are what the main gland that help you with stress. So AdrenaMed is a great supplement to help you just combat stress.

The other one that you may not be as familiar with is, um, a magnesium supplement. We have several different on SupplementRelief.com, but most people don't know that magnesium, uh, about 80 percent of people in the US have a magnesium deficiency. I was made aware of it when I myself had a magnesium deficiency. I ended up having difficulty actually absorbing magnesium. And so even though I was taking it every day, I wasn't taking it in the correct form and I had a hard time absorbing it. And what that lead to for me was brain fog, fatigue, some depression, which I don't ever experienced depressive symptoms often. And so I just, I just couldn't get out of this funk. I just felt really stressed and overwhelmed. And kind of depressed and could not figure out why. Finally we took my magnesium levels and they were really, really low. It can also cause migraines, muscle cramping, a lot of issues like that. So magnesium, if people are just generally not feeling themselves and especially if they're feeling foggy or fatigued or, or generally stressed or frustrated, I often suggest magnesium. You can also do it right before bedtime and it can help you to feel a little bit better and maybe relax and go into a calmer sleep. So we have several different magnesium formulations, you can look that up on SupplementRelief.com, that I highly recommend some magnesium and as I said, 80 percent of Americans on average do you have a magnesium deficiency. So it is definitely an issue in our culture, uh, just with our food supply and something you would definitely want to look into if you need a good supplement to just try to help your stress level decrease.

Tip # 4 Anti-Oxidant Foods: Smoothies From Our Website

Tip number four. Okay. Stress is not just something that we experience in our mind. It's also something we experienced in our bodies and we experienced stress in our bodies through oxidation. So think about oxidation like rust on a car. Excuse me. Um, when your car rusts, the metal is oxidizing, it's experiencing oxidant stress. Our bodies go through the same thing. We have oxidant stress and when we're having emotional stress and physical stressors come on us, we often have a lot of extra oxidant stress in our bodies and one of the best ways we can combat oxidant stress would be eating it. I'm sorry, eating antioxidants. So things like smoothies from the website. We've got some great recipes. We also have some great antioxidant supplements as well that you could consider. I'm like Power Greens, Power Reds, um, we've got them in chocolate mint, um, all sorts of berry flavors. We even have a kids version, but getting those antioxidants into your body every single day is going to be very important.

And if you want more information on any of these topics, um, I'm going very, very broadly and very quickly because we only have 15 minutes and I want to honor that timeline. But, um, I do just want to let you know, you can look at all these things in greater detail on our website and with our teaching every week.

The Lessons of Life Are Caught Not Taught

So let's look at our next, um, before we go into the next four and a half tips, um, I want to talk to you a little bit about the lessons of life. The lessons of life that we learn are often caught, not taught. Now this is, this isn't original to me. This is kind of out there in the world, but when we talk about passing on values to our kids, passing on lessons to our children, very often people say they are caught, not taught, meaning that the children around you, the people around you observe what you do and they catch it almost like a virus instead of you sitting there and teaching it to them. Now teaching does have its place. Obviously we're sitting here today teaching to get some new ideas, but day in and day out, the best way that you can pass on good stress coping mechanisms to your family, to your friends, to people around you that you care about, is by exhibiting them yourself. So I decided I was going to put myself through a little test this morning, I'm sorry, yesterday to see what my children have caught, not just been taught about stress reduction. So I asked them, my two youngest, they're 9 and 10, exactly how they think it's best to reduce stress. So here's their answers.

Tip # 5 Keep Calm & Breathe On!

This is our daughter Anna Maria. She's 10, and she said, keep calm and breathe on. She said, one of the best way she knows to deal with stress when she's frustrated or in a stressful situation at school is to slow down and take some nice deep breaths. Now we've taught her some very basic yogic breathing and it's just in through the nose and out through the mouth. You almost want to make a darth vader sound.

So I thought maybe I'd teach it to you this morning. So, um, you can catch a little bit of it with me. So get into a comfortable position. Roll your shoulders back, take a nice deep breath in and out. Yep. And then what you're going to do is breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, but almost make like a darth vader sound. Okay? Again, in through the nose and out through the mouth. You want to get it way back in the throat. And that's yogic breathing. That's very good, basic Yoga breathing and it's going to help you instantly reduce that stress. So that's one way Anna, fight stress.

Tip # 6 Go Play Outside With Your Friends!

They both chimed in together saying this and that's go play outside with your friends. And I think this is one of the best tips that we have. You know, there's research studies that show that if you're out in nature sounds or even if you just listen to nature sounds like on your iPod or your shuffle or whatever, um, for 30 minutes a day, it does reduce your stress. It reduces your stress level. There are like scientific studies that prove that. So whether you're out in nature, being with friends or being alone in nature or just listening to those nature sounds, our kids have already figured out that being outside, being in nature does help reduce your stress load. So I think that's an interesting one.

Tip # 7 You Can Do This! Nothing's In Your Way!

Tip number seven, I love this one. This our nine year old. And he said you can do this. Nothing is in your way. And what was he saying when he said that? What he was really saying was have positive self talk. We are often our worst critics and you'll see that more in our teaching this week, if you go on the website and look at it. We run ourselves down. We, we say, oh, you know, we encourage everyone else around us, but we don't encourage ourselves.

Jack Canfield has a great concept in some of his teaching and he's, he calls it turning yourself from the inner critic to the inner coach. And that is such a powerful, positive message because so often we're the inner critic. Oh, you should have done it differently. Oh, you should have done it better. Oh, this, oh, that instead of, wow, you know, you did a good job, you tried your hardest. Maybe next time you could try doing it this way. Taking it from a negative spin within ourselves to a positive spin within ourselves is a radical way to help us change our behaviors, change our thought patterns, and then eventually changed that stress response.

So whenever you get stressed out, maybe you can even post this on your refrigerator or on your desk at work. You can do this. Nothing's in your way, because if you really believe that and you keep saying that to yourself, you're going to have a positive, much less stress filled life.

Tip # 8 Quite Your Mind - Read Book - Pray - Time with Pet - Nap

So let's look at tip eight. The last thing that they said was basically quiet your mind. These were all their suggestions for quiet your mind. Read a book, take a nap, spend time with your pet. Pray. These were all things that they said that they do to quiet their minds. So just getting in a quieter environment, just retreating a little bit from the world and relaxing, restoring for yourself. Very often when my kids are stressed out, I just say, you guys just need to go quiet your mind for a few minutes. I don't care what you do, pick something in your room quietly and go do it. And so often we as adults don't send ourselves to our room enough and you know, I mean our kids think it's a punishment to be sent to our room. But hey, I would love to be sent to my room by my good some days when I'm stressed out. So I would encourage you, send yourself to your room when you're feeling a little stressed. Take even five or 10 minutes. Do some of that yogic breathing I just talked to you about. Um, have some good positive self talk. Use One of these tips to quiet your mind and you're going to feel good about life.

Tip # 8 & 1/2 Eustress!

Okay? So are you ready for tip eight and a half? Before I do that, I want to review really quickly what our tips were. So we're going to eat the frog doing the most important thing, the most, the thing we'd be most likely to procrastinate first thing in the morning. Tip number two, we're going to move our body somehow. Exercise. Burn off that stress. Number three, we're going to use some supplements to fight stress, such as, excuse me, magnesium or AdrenaMed. Number four, we're going to use antioxidant foods or antioxidant supplements such as Power Greens or Power Reds. Number five, we're going to do some of that good deep breathing. Number six, we're going to go outside. Number seven, we're going to have that positive self talk. And number eight, we're going to quiet our mind.

So you're ready for tip eight and a half. Okay. Tip Eight and a half. These are my two older children and they're just having a really good time. I want to put this up here. Eustress, eustress was something I talked a little bit about in one of the other points, but I want to tell you that very often we think stress is one sided, but stress is something we actually really need to survive. There's good stress which is called eustress, taken from the Greek like euphoria, and there's bad stress, which is called distress. Now usually we just call it stress that distress, but eustress and distress are actually kind of balance each other out, but eustress is really necessary to push us forward and things. For instance, um, eustress would be getting a promotion at work, meeting the one, or having a really great day on the job where you get encouraged. Maybe you get a raise or a promotion, maybe you hit a goal or a challenge like, hey, I wanted to walk a 5k and I did it!

Whatever that is. These are all great examples of eustress, accomplishing something. So what I want you to do this week is I want you to post at least one goal, have a eutress activity that you'll do this week, in our forum, or you can email it to me as well. Now, the trick is I've given you eight different eustress activities that you could do. You didn't know that's what they all were, but these were all eustress activities. You could do so quieting your mind as you stress, exercising, breathing, being outside. These are all eustress activities, so I want you this week to just do one thing. I want you to commit to yourself, and to our group, that you are going to at least take care of yourself doing one eustress activity this week, every single day. So I want to hear from you and know what those eustress activities are and it looks like we're just about out of time so I'm not going to be able to get to our questions this morning, but I want to encourage you to post them in the discussion forum or email them to me and I'll be happy to answer those questions. I hope you have a great eustress filled week this week. Take care.