How to deal with stress
Stress! It can give us both headaches and stomachaches. It can make us sweat or make our face red. We can also experience stress without wanting it. But how do we best deal with this? Hormone expert Ralph Moorman explains stress hormones and shares some ways you can reduce stress.
The nervous and endocrine systems work together 24 hours a day to help the body anticipate stress. Within the endocrine system, the hormones adrenaline and cortisol work together to deal with stress.
Adrenaline reacts quickly to stress stimuli to trigger the so-called 'fight or flight' response. Cortisol is the second stress hormone that reacts more slowly to stress stimuli and partly takes over the work of adrenaline, so that the adrenaline is tempered. Cortisol also responds to inflammation (inhibiting inflammation) and day rhythm (awakening).
Both hormones are naturally perfectly developed to deal with short-term stress. Chronic stress in today's society, however, can undermine the stress system, sometimes even resulting in total burnouts.
How do you prevent chronic stress/burnouts?
During my training as a hormone coach (trainer Hormone Factor) I deal with the 'stress model of Fransen'. You can get started with this yourself and if you can't figure it out yourself, you can always consult a mental coach or stress coach. 3 forces must be in balance with this model to reduce your stress, namely; the inner resilience on the one hand and the objective pressure and the subjective pressure on the other.
Stress resistance is key
How stress resistant are you? Think for a moment about your physical resilience; do you eat healthy, do you exercise regularly, do you provide enough recovery moments, and do you think about it when you experience stress? And what about your mental resilience; do you have a meaningful life, passion for work and life, do you think positively, and do you have good social contacts? Do you think now; hey can I make some profit here? Take it easy and make your life more fun and healthier.
Daring to set priorities is necessary
How do you deal with real life pressure? So circumstances from outside that you can sometimes do something about, but sometimes you can't. Do you dare to set priorities, can you delegate, do you do time management? If this is where the stress lies, then sometimes you can't do anything about it (within your influence) but sometimes you can (outside your influence)...
Neutralize your stress
In addition, there are people who make stress worse than it is. Think of perfectionists, compulsive helpers and people who think negatively. If this sounds familiar to you, you can work on this by doing cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, meditation or neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
