The Stress Challenge: Instructions (Day 4)

Can you remember the four questions so far? If you said:
Do you sing in the shower? Do you like banna pudding sandwhiches? Is the sky really a dinosaur? and Can you sing while doing a headsand?
Then you may want to go read or reread the past blogs.

However if you said:
Can a carrot dance and sing at the same time.
Then you still need to go reread lol.

The four questions are:

What Symptom did you encountered?
What you were doing before it happened?
What time it was when it occurred?
How long did it last?

Did you get to notice how long a symptom lasted? If so did you realize if it was an actue or a chronic stress?

The next question Has to do with the feelings between you and your stress.

How did you feel before, during and after the encounter?
This is a question to get you aware of your body, emotions and your surroundings.

Take Josh for instant. Josh is a college student in his dorm studying for a final. It is quiet and he is learning a lot. In walks his roommate Jordan. Jordan goes grabs his guitar and starts to play it. At first Josh is a little frustrated because he wants to study and his friend is making noise but then after a while the music drowns away, until that moment when Jordan begins to sing. Josh turns gives Jordan a look to say stop, then goes back to studying. Jordan at this moment smiles and goes to the radio turns it on really loud to be a pain.

Josh turns around now with a higher stress level and more agitated then before. His mind is racing thinking how is he going to study with all this noise and his heart is pounding from his emotions rising. “Will you PLEASE be quieter?” He asks then turns back to his studying. Jordan turns off the radio and sighs heavily waiting for Josh to respond. Josh instead keeps focusing on his studying. So Jordan again sighs heavily. This time he sighs adding a ‘Ho Ho HUM” to the end of it. Josh still ignores his friend as much as he can. By this point josh is not only annoyed but overwhelmed with all the negative thoughts in his head. He is feeling rushed, angry, annoyed, and stressed.

“Hey, you want to hear a joke?” Jordan said “No.:” Josh replies firmly. “Ok, what has three legs, is green, sings with a lisp and eats only pickles?” No response. “do you know?” Jordan persists. Josh says nothing. “Yoo hoo you alive over there?” Still no response. Suddenly the door opens and there is Tristen his other roommate. “You guys will not believe what happened to me today” Josh gets up slams his book shut. Grabs his pencil and notebook, pushes past his roommates and leaves the room. Now with the highest anger he could have. “what’s gotten into him?” Tristen asked? Jordan shrugged.

“Ugggggh. How dare they, cant they see I am studing?” Says Josh to himself as he is walking down the hall towards the library. All the sudden a sharp pain comes upon Josh. He stops. He starts to not be able to breathe. “This is not good” He thinks. “Slow breathing , In and out, in and out” He tells himself. He slowly moves out of the isle to the wall where he leans gently against it. The pain slowly releases. He starts to think about how embarrassed he was. Why did I get so mad? They weren’t trying to be mean to me they were just being their normal selves. As the pain releases he starts to feel relief, a calmness. He then realizes it was his chest that was hurting.

It is a good thing to notice how you are doing throughout each situations. Without knowing you can actually hurt yourself. If you notice you are aware of how you are feeling mentally and phsyically. Well lets break down Josh's feelings

Before:
Josh was studing quietly. So he was on low stress. He may had a small bit of stress since he was studying but it was very low.
This is where things get interesting
Josh’s temper started to rise and caused his heart to pump faster. He became annoyed, upset and angry. He was letting stress take over him.

During:
Soon he was at the peak of anger. Josh's heart was beating so very fast that it caused him to have chest pains and not be able to breathe. The pain was so strong that it made him not be able to focus on where it was on him but instead on the fact that it was there. So he focused on his breathing.

After:
Josh started to calm himself down focusing on breathing he realized the feeling of pain was coming from the chest. He felt relieve as the pain disapeared. He felt embarressed.

Overall: He realized that all this was caused by his actions. Over all he felt anger to calm: a range of opposite emotions. All because of one word: STRESS

Only one question left and that is for tommorow: So make sure you keep your notebooks and pencils ready.

Hugs and Smiles

~Keyria~

Seek God’s will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take~ Proverbs 3:6
You can do anything through Christ who gives you strength ~ Philippians 4:13

The Stress Challenge: Instructions (Day 1)

Wow! Look at all those things on your list! And all of those whether a lot or a little are from stress.
Ok so we have our list and some have a major cause of stress, so what is the next step?

Next step will help you identify your major cause of stress if you don’t know what it is. This step takes a lot of work to stay ALERT and FOCUSED. You will need a notebook and pen on you at ALL TIMES.

Stress Challenge: Starting on Friday, Try keeping a notebook on you for one month writing in it each time you have a symptom of stress. Make sure you answer all the questions I will be giving you in the next few days.

Every time you encounter a symptom I want you answer 6 questions. The first two are:

What Symptom did you encountered:

What you were doing before it happened:

So how does this help?
For one thing most of us do not really focus on what is going on with us. Some of us however are overly aware. Either way this will help us pin point the problem or problems high point of stress. That way later we can look for the solutions.

So why then each one of those questions?
Just like a doctor needs to have all the facts so that he/she can check all the possibilities and find the right cure we must do the same. Imagine going to the doctor and leaving out how many days it happened, or how long it lasted. They may think that this is just a once in a blue moon thing and it is not to be worried about. When in reality this is happening everyday and needs to be checked.

First: What symptom did you encounter?
This question is straight forward and to the point. Did you encounter a racing heart? What about a rash? What about shortness of breath or dizziness? These are things that are very important to know. Write down all symptoms that apply.

Second: What you were doing before it happened:
This question is to find out if maybe it is a certain similarity that may be causing it. Maybe you do a lot of lifting and this is putting stress on your body. Or maybe you are watching a movie that has got you so wrapped in it that you fear as if you were the character in the show. Or maybe you are doing something that is racing your adrenalin. These are all things to be aware of. This is so that if you have the same symptom during the same activities then you learn that maybe that activity is not one that you should be doing or maybe you are doing it wrong. You may want to tone it down.

If you go to the gym and you exercise but you start to get dizzy and short of breath you don’t keep going. Instead you slow down or take a break. This is the same with finding out that it may be an activity, Try slowing it down, taking a break or doing a different activity that is similar but stress free.

So what is the next question I need to write down?

You dont have to be curious for long that will be answered tomorrow. So have your pens and paper prepared.

Hugs and Smiles
~Keyria~

Seek God’s will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take~ Proverbs 3:6
You can do anything through Christ who gives you strength ~ Philippians 4:13