My 5 favorite stress-busters

I use to buzz with tension most of the time. I was juggling a stressful job, young children, and a fizzling marriage. I didn’t make time to prioritize myself and it showed. Throughout my transformation I have  many changes, from the way I eat and exercise to a mindset that prioritizes gratitude and self.  With these adjustments I sleep better, look better, and am able to handle the crises when they show up instead of spinning out of control. Over these past years I have tried a lot of different ways to handle stress to find what works for me. Here are a handful of my favorites:

Journaling

Starting a morning journaling practice is one of the most important things I did to learn how to feel and cope with my emotions. In her book “The Artist’s Way”, Julia Cameron recommends starting each day with 3 handwritten pages to clear out the junk. I can get caught in a loop of repeating thoughts, and journaling helps me explore a situation, get clarity about my thoughts and feelings, and figure out my next steps. For me, with my tendency to turn to food to numb my emotions instead of dealing with them, journaling also gives me a space to process my emotions and deepen my self-discovery.

Research has shown that writing about your thoughts and feelings can improve your mood and ability to cope with stress.  The effects are stronger when the writing is done more frequently (every 1-3 days), rather than less frequently. Study subjects with various medical conditions and elevated anxiety were asked to write about positive experiences, like gratitude, for 15 minute sessions 3 times a week. The practice was associated with increased well-being and less depression and anxiety after just 1 month. By the end of 12 weeks they were also showing greater resiliency, the ability to decreased mental distress.

Each morning I sit in the corner of my bedroom for a few minutes with a clean page in a cheap spiral notebook: Today I am feeling….”  From there I explore. I do not always know how I am feeling. Sometimes I am feeling peaceful or content, other times I am anxious or fearful. For the first year of this practice I would write and write and write, filling up pages with my fears. Now it is just one page, and often some of that is my plans for the day. This newfound calm shows through in my day-to-day life. Most of the time I am feeling “curious”, “hopeful”, “optimistic”, “excited”… I hope you find the same self-discovery and peace that I have found.

Magnesium

Magnesium is my favorite nutrient. I am always telling people to try magnesium and foisting new delivery methods on my kids: liquids, powders, body creams, gummies… The reason is because magnesium is a key nutrient for finding calm, and most of us aren’t getting enough.

While we have all heard of calcium, magnesium is the second most abundant mineral in the body. Just like calcium, it is a main component of bone. It is also used in more than 300 other essential functions, from energy production and muscle relaxation to activating some of the hormones and neurotransmitters your brain uses to communicate.

Low levels of magnesium have been associated with depression and anxiety, and as mood improves serum levels of magnesium have been shown to also increase. In one study, 450 mg of elemental magnesium (as magnesium chloride) was found to be similar in effectiveness to the antidepressant imipramine in elderly subjects newly diagnosed with depression.  Magnesium has been shown to improve sleep onset time as well. A meta-analysis found supplemental magnesium decreased the time it took for subjects to fall asleep by 17 minutes.  

Surveys show that American adults are getting about 55-78% of the magnesium they need every day. For various reasons I won’t go into here, our food contains less magnesium than ever. The best food sources are dark green leafy vegetables (24-80 mg/cup), nuts (50-80 mg/oz) and seeds (particularly pumpkin seeds which are the best source at 156 mg/oz), and beans (40-60 mg per ½ cup). You daily goal is 320 mg (for women) and 420 mg (for men). I put the amounts per serving in, so you could see how hard it is to really reach these daily goals.  Unless you are eating several servings of these foods every day, you are likely not getting enough. I don’t know about you, but I am at tops only really getting 2 servings of dark green leafy vegetables and nuts each day, which is only 160 mg tops. And I am supposed to be getting 320 mg. Because of this, I have to supplement. In fact, if I miss taking my supplement for a few days (and even “I” get lazy and skip them sometimes!), I start getting muscle cramps. If you want to take magnesium, make sure to look for citrate, malate, or glycinate forms which are more bioavailable. Magnesium oxide is commonly used, but basically not absorbed.

Exercise

People often think of exercise to burn calories, but much more importantly is the sense of well-being it brings. In fact, the amount of calories it burns is fairly small. While the benefits of exercise include having energy, sleeping better, thinking more sharply, and feeling more positively about yourself. As I have gone from a couch potato to daily exerciser, I can feel the difference if I skip a day. Reminding myself of that keeps me motivated on the days I don’t feel like moving.

Studies show that exercise decreases feelings of anxiety and stress, and the risk of depression. A meta-analysis of 49 studies found that people with high levels of physical activity had 17% lower odds of depression. Conversely, low physical activity has been associated with a greater risk of depression.  In fact, one study found that running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression by 26%. Another meta-analysis showed exercise also significantly decreases anxiety.

Exercise does all this through by promoting a wide range of changes in the brain, including:

• Reducing inflammation
• Promoting neural growth 
• Stimulating the release of endorphins and other “feel good” neurotransmitters
• Reducing the arousal level of neurons to stress
• Regulating autonomic nervous system function, the system that controls involuntary processes like heart rate and blood pressure

Exercise also helps ease the muscle tension that builds up from stress, and acts as a distraction from your regular day helping you break out of negative thought cycles.

Instead of thinking as exercise as a dreaded punishment for eating that cookie, think of it instead as a mental break. For me, I started with yoga because it was relatively gentle and got me out of the house, but as I continued, I enjoyed how strong and flexible my body became. I started walking as a social activity, but eventually began to crave it as a nature break. So don’t think you have to go to a gym. Instead ask yourself what would actually feel good? Stretching? Dancing to a good song? A few jumping jacks to get the blood flowing? A walk around the block? Take a break from the worries running through your head, and instead pay attention to the sensation of your feet hitting the ground, the rhythm of your breathing, and the feeling of the sun and wind on your skin.

Prioritization and Micro-tasking

It can be easy to get overwhelmed if everything in your life is considered a priority. Society places unreasonable expectations on women (and men too). We are expected to be perfect parents, offering our kids a variety of hands-on learning activities while never letting them out of our sight, and serving them perfectly balanced meals on the dinner table at 6 pm. We are to do this, AND maintain nice clean homes, while ALSO succeeding in the workplace. These types of demands have never before been expected.

It is impossible to do all this perfectly, and I am giving you permission to let some things slide. I think the trick to feeling successful is to figure out what things are most important to you. By allowing yourself to let things the unimportant things be done half-assed lets you prioritize and focus on your main goals/values. For me, helping my kids establish healthy food habits was really important, but I didn’t care about having them do lots of activities. This did mean when my son announced he wanted to try soccer in 6th grade, it was too late. We put a little effort in, had some mild regrets (and some serious indignation about society!), and moved on. The following year his friend invited him to try CrossFit and he loved it. “Mom, did you know to be strong, you have to do strong things? And I want to be strong!” 

So think about what matters to you:

• How clean does your house need to be?
• Do your kids need a full meal or just a protein and vegetables from the freezer?
• Can you delegate something at work (even if it won’t be done as well!)?

You may end up coming up with a long list of priorities. But here is the trick… look carefully at your list and realize you can choose just a handful. Spend some time evaluating each priority to figure out which 5-6 are the most important to you. Once you have your priorities, keep that list in mind as you plan out your day. Make sure to put more of your effort on the things that matter to you.

Next it’s time to spend a few minutes planning your day. For me, spending 5 minutes in the morning helps me stay on track and moving towards my goals:

• On a piece of paper, a post-it, or a note in your phone write each big project or goal
  • For me, this could be each of my kids, work projects, or other life issues
• Then next to this big project/goal, write a specific issue you need to tackle
  • If healthy eating habits was a goal, think about what needs to happen to get you there. Do you need to focus on healthy meals, more vegetables, snack ideas, family-time, etc?
• Now come up with one tiny task you could do today to get you closer to your goal?
  • Maybe ask friends for their favorite quick healthy meals, or get snacking vegetables at the store, or cut up the vegetables you already have, or spend a few minutes at the table eating together, etc

Once you have your tiny task, that is ALL you need to do today. After you do that 1 step, you are free until tomorrow! The miracle of this simplifying method is that you keep making progress, even though you don’t have a lot of time, and you can let all the guilt go.

Ashwagandha

I have been taking Ashwagandha for a little over a year. I am always trying new supplements, and was impressed by the quantity and quality of the research. I find it gives me a gentle lift in my mood, more noticeable in its absence on the days that I miss taking it. Ashwagandha, otherwise known as Withania somnifera, has been used traditionally for thousands of years. It is an adaptogen, which means that it works broadly in the body to bring about balance, rather than targeting a particular function. It has an extensive history of use for promoting general mental and physical wellness, including support for occasional stress, healthy sleep, memory, physical endurance, and sports recovery. To date, over 40 clinical trials have been published, including: 

• 300 mg of ashwagandha twice daily for 8 weeks in subjects with self-reported chronic stress promoted self-reported quality of life and ability to control eating, as well as healthy body weight and serum cortisol
• 200 mg for 8 weeks improved self-reported fatigue, vigor, and sexual and psychological well-being in overweight men, as well as increasing DHEA by 18% and testosterone by 15%
• 600 mg for 12 weeks improved sleep quality and daytime mental alertness
• 300 mg twice daily for 60 days reduced scores on stress-assessment scales and reduced  serum cortisol levels
• 300 mg twice daily for 10 weeks shortened the time it took to fall asleep, sleep efficiency, and anxiety scores
• 250 mg or 600 mg for 8 weeks improved sleep quality, and decreased self-perceived stress and cortisol (better w/higher dose)
• 300 mg twice daily for 8 weeks in healthy athletes enhanced cardiorespiratory endurance (VO2 max) and reported quality of life

If you are looking to try this supplement, look for a standardized extract. Most study dosage is 300 mg of the root extract taken twice daily. Personally, I take 500 mg once daily, but that is just because I am lazy.

References

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