The Extension Connection

Combating Stress with Practical Coping Mechanisms

• Lindsey Edwards

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Welcome back to the Extension Connection Podcast, where we connect our listeners to research-based resources to help them live better lives. Hello again. This is Lindsay Edwards, your Polk County family and consumer Science agent, and I'm here today to talk to you about a topic that I think everyone can relate with, and that is stress. As a family and consumer science agent in North Carolina, we do focus a lot on food, nutrition and food safety. But we also take a holistic approach to health, which is where we can address other issues that may impact the family. Stress being one of those issues. While stress is something that I think we all deal with maybe on a daily basis, there are things that we can put into place in our lives, such as coping mechanisms that help us to deal with it in a healthy way so it doesn't affect our body as badly. I know I personally struggle with this topic, and I'm excited to dive deeper and talk about some of the research and what we can do to combat it. Stress can be anything from having to slam on your brakes in your car because the car in front of you stops to avoid an accident or something coming up like an impending appointment that you don't wanna attend. Whatever your stressors are, they're simple things that you can do to relieve stress and help you cope with it. It. Research shows that stress can contribute to high blood pressure and can also cause our brains to change, to contribute to anxiety, depression, and addiction. Stress can also affect our eating patterns. It can cause you to either overeat some people undereat, and this can lead to unhealthy weight fluctuations. Whether that's losing a lot of weight or gaining a lot of weight, stress causes our brains to release epinephrine into our bloodstream. Epinephrine is what puts our bodies into the fight or flight response, which can lead to our blood pressure rising and our heart racing. While this is an important function to help protect our bodies in dangerous situations, it can also be harmful for our bodies if we're staying in a constant state of stress. Chronic stress or prolonged stress can lead to lots of epinephrine being released into our bodies and prolonged surges can cause damage to our blood vessels and arteries, which can raise our wrist for high blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke. Constant releases and epinephrine cause our bodies to release cortisone and increase our cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that is released to help our bodies regulate stress. Cortisol has a big effect on pretty much every aspect of our body. For example, it regulates your metabolism and in short spurts reduces inflammation as well as help you control your sleep and waking cycles. And short spurts is the key because large amounts of cortisol that are more constant can actually increase inflammation in our body according to Clemson University. Prolonged stress over time can lead to more severe issues, such as burnout or depression. So again, staying away from these prolonged periods of stress is very important. The basics of this is when our bodies are stressed, our brain triggers that release of epinephrine, which then triggers our body to make cortisol. When you're experiencing normal stress, this helps your body to function properly. But when you're experiencing large amounts of stress over longer periods of time, it can backfire. Causes your cortisol levels to rise, leading to some not great results like inflammation, poor sleep, weight gain the good news with stress is that there are simple things that you can do in your daily life to help your body, to combat these things. So I'm gonna go through some of the practices that you can do or things that would be beneficial for you to do in order to help your body react to it. Because we're not saying that you're not going to have stress, everyone does. But when you feel that stress coming on, being able to have these coping mechanisms or doing these things normally for your body are gonna help you. So the first one I wanna cover is sleep. Sleep is one of the best things that you can do for your stress levels in your life. Lack of sleep leads to more stress. I know for myself, if I don't get enough sleep at night, it causes me to wake up stressed and start my day with that cortisol level rise. Stress allows our muscles to rest and repair. It also helps memories, mood and judgment. We could probably do a whole podcast just about sleep and probably will do so in the future because it is so important for so many different body processes. I found that on average the Cleveland Clinic suggests that adults get at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night. So we're shooting for that. And there are many, many ways. Like I said, we'll probably do another podcast episode about that, but there's many ways that you can do things to help. You two get more sleep, like creating a nighttime routine that you do every night, so it kind of kicks your body into the thought process that it is going to sleep. Trying to shoot for that seven to eight hours is the key. All right, the next topic I wanna go over is exercise. Exercise is an excellent thing that we can do for our health, especially as we age. Actually my podcast coming out in January will be all about exercise in the benefits of it and things that you can do to increase your exercise. It not only helps you to get better sleep, but is a great stress reliever. So my best advice for anyone trying to start an exercise program is to find something that you enjoy. If you do not enjoy it, you will not do it. So find an exercise that you enjoy. An adult should aim to do that at least 30 minutes. Of moderate intensity exercise at least five days of a week. In general, we say 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise. And then throwing in things like weightlifting, in vigorous intensity are really important as well. All right. The third thing I wanna talk about is deep breathing. So when we're stressed, we do not get full breaths, which can lead to carbon dioxide. Building up inside of our bodies. Taking deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth can help release that carbon dioxide and give you a sense of relaxation. A really easy technique that you can use to reduce stress quickly, is called a physiological sigh. This is where you take in a double. Inhale, so, and then you exhale long excelling longer than you Inhale is the important part because it actually can help reduce your heart rate and reduce stress. I also like to do box breathing where you visualize yourself breathing in a box so you breathe in. To one point of the box, breathe out to one point of the box, breathe in to one point of the box, breathe out to one point of the box. Visualizing it helps me to get in those deep, full breaths and, to ensure that I'm doing the deep breathing and not just short s spurts of breathing. The next one I wanna talk about is laughing. Laughing, promotes the release of endorphins and suppresses cortisol. So doing things that make you happy or laugh are very important for reducing stress, along with laughing, maintaining healthy relationships. Relationships have a huge impact on our stress levels, and making sure we have healthy ones will help you to reduce your overall levels of stress. Next topic is time management. I know for me, a lot of the times when I feel the most stress is when I'm really busy and I feel like I can't handle it all. So making sure that I'm managing my time well. For me that looks like creating a schedule, writing things down, ensuring that everyone knows where they need to be. And maybe for a busy mom like me, maybe it's something like doing some food prep to take the time that I might have at home to make my life easier for the week. Doing things that you know will make your life easier and manage your time better are all good things that you can do. Kind of along the same lines as that, but also kind of the opposite of that is relaxing. I know when you're really busy, relaxing seems like the last thing that you can do for your body. And it might seem like a waste of time, but taking time to stop. Rest and relax is very important for our bodies and can actually make you more productive in the long run. And maybe during that relaxation time, it's you practicing that deep breathing or practicing mindfulness. Or maybe that's when you do your exercise. Like maybe it's just going on a walk. Maybe it's reading a book. It can be whatever. Relaxes you either way. Allowing yourself that time to relax can help with stress management. The last one I'm gonna focus on, because again, I told you, family consumer science agents focus a lot on food is your nutrition. So prioritizing healthy foods, making sure you're getting the right portions so that your body can combat the stressors and help your immune system, be the healthiest it can be. By getting all your fruits and vegetable intake and all the stuff that you need to stay healthy is very important. Overall, trying to keep your stress levels to a minimum is best case scenario. But when stress does happen, just remember that there are these coping mechanisms that you can use to, to help reduce your stress impact on your body. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Again, this is Lindsay Edwards, your Polk County Family and Consumer Science Extension agent, and I look forward to talking to you next time.