The 6 Pillars Of Wellbeing: Stress Management

To celebrate our recent partnership with Betterspace, we are going to be sharing ways in which you can improve your mental health and wellbeing using some of the tools and resources available through their platform. Betterspace give you personalised recommendations based on 6 pillars – Sleep, Stress Management, Social Connections, Exercise, Helping Others or Meaningful Activity, and Nutrition. Each week we’ll dive into one of the pillars, exploring why it’s important alongside some ideas for what you can do to ensure you are managing it as well as you can. This week we’ll be investigating ways that you can stay on top of stress management.

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Stressing About Stress

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Stress has almost become the norm for most people living in the modern era. Although the industrial and technological revolutions were initially built around the idea that people might be able to do more while working less, in many cases the opposite is now true. With the boundaries increasingly blurred between office and home life, it’s become harder to find time and to give yourself permission to truly switch off. Working hours did not change but expectations and prices increased, and humans now find themselves constantly stimulated by the barrage of information, adverts, emails and other notifications.

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This has impacts both physiologically and psychologically. Physiologically, we now predominantly live from a place of ‘fight or flight’. In response to acute stress, the body’s sympathetic nervous system is activated by the sudden release of chemical messengers. This then stimulates the adrenal glands, triggering the release of stress hormones including adrenaline and noradrenaline (catecholamines).

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However, because we live in environments of constant stress and over-stimulation, our production of such hormones has shifted from acute to chronic. A constant supply of catecholamines can impact the body in various ways. These messengers seek to increase heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and mental alertness - to prepare the system for handling dangers and threats. It also lowers the amount of blood flowing to the skin and intestines, prioritising major organs such as the brain, heart and kidneys.

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Abnormal levels of catecholamines therefore contribute to anxiety and hyper-vigilance, high blood pressure and an altered metabolism or appetite. Psychologically this creates conditions of anxiety and hyper-vigilance, meaning shorter tempers, difficulty handling smaller tasks that might normally be manageable, and trouble staying focused.

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Coupled with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, this contributes to conditions of chronic inflammation - diabetes, weight gain and burn out. It also negatively impacts the immune system, by causing imbalances in the neuro-immune axis, making it easier to succumb to various illnesses that will take longer to fight off.

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While we would not want to abandon technology and many other elements of our modern lifestyles altogether, there are a few tried and tested methods for better syncing our nervous systems of old, with the modern environments of today.

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The Magic of Management

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The solution to over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system, is the activation of its calmer cousin: the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), or ‘rest and digest’ mode. The main purpose of the PNS is to conserve energy to be used later, and to regulate bodily functions such as digestion and sleep. Activation also produces feelings of calm and composure, while influencing the limbic system in our brain: where emotions are processed.

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Naturally taking care of our nervous systems requires a holistic approach, including lifestyle adjustments such as diet and exercise. As stimulating the vagus nerve (VNS) activates the PNS, you can also try cold exposure, deep breathing exercises, singing and chanting, probiotics, meditation and massage. This all tells your body to slow down and to relax.

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• Electrical Stimulation: the VNS is the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system and extends to nearly every other major system in the body. Although electrical stimulation may sound a little intense, there are plenty of gadgets available on the market that gently target VNS activation through handheld devices. One such example is the Sensate, a pebble-shaped device worn over the sternum to stimulate the vibrations typically produced by activities such as chanting. Not all of us want to sit and chant for 30 minutes before bed, and such devices are a great demonstration of how technology can be employed to make the benefits of practices such as meditation more fun and engaging.
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• Cold Exposure: exposing your body to short bursts of cold activity such as a cold shower, or a swim outside is another way of stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. This activates the cholinergic neurons that are part of the vagus nerve pathways. It’s best if exposure is kept short as shivering activates the sympathetic system, in order to warm the body back up. However, this does have the benefit of activating thermogenesis and increasing metabolism.
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• Yoga: stretching and yoga may not always feel like exercise compared to a vigorous and sweaty run, but they are just as beneficial and important. Restorative yoga is a powerful antidote to stress because these movements actively down-regulate the sympathetic nervous system and up-regulate the sympathetic nervous system. It also often combines the benefits of meditation and the principles of energy management in both its practices and philosophy. Styles such as Yin yoga are a gentle and healing way of unwinding at the end of the day, promoting better mood and sleep.
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• Breathing: parasympathetic breathing involves breathing deeply, slowly and steadily with a good inhalation to exhalation ratio. There are many different styles of practice available, with personal preferences being up to you. When we are stressed, we subconsciously tense up and often forget to breathe, or take short, sharp and shallow breaths. Long breaths are one of the fastest ways of decreasing anxiety, fear and racing thoughts. Becoming more actively aware of our breathing also helps us to stay more present and centred. Focusing on abdominal breathing that engages the diaphragm will help you to maximise lung capacity and get the most out of your session.
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• Massage: moderate pressure stimulates the nerves and sensory receptors involved in sending signals to the brain. This tells the body to relax, increasing blood flow to digestive organs, decreasing sweat, as well as reducing heart rate and blood pressure. Going out for a regular massage can be an expensive habit, especially in large cities. However you can also invest in a few at-home tools such as acupressure mats, muscle drills and foam rollers. These are especially effective when applied after intensive exercise such as a run, and getting out into nature produces a similar effect.
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• Diet: avoid stimulating foods such as caffeine, which increase heart rate and contribute to sympathetic stimulation this way. Low quality and overly processed foods also contribute to fatigue, anxiety and lethargy in the long-run. Short-term fixes such as energy drinks and powders only mask the problem, creating feelings of being ‘wired’ or ‘on-edge’. A diet that supports the parasympathetic nervous system improves the health of the brain and spinal cord grey matter over all. This includes probiotics, green leafy vegetables, fish, dark chocolate and healthy proteins and fats.
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• Counselling: psychotherapy, CBT and counselling are all great practices for coping with the psychological effects of stress. We go to the gym for our bodies, so why do so few of us hold the same standards for our minds? There may be long waiting times for such services on the NHS, but there are also plenty of online and mobile versions available. Simply hearing yourself talk things through and being given a sounding board just once a week can make a huge difference in as little as a month. We don’t often get the chance to have a whole hour just to hear ourselves talk through our problems, which in turn allows us to become more aware of how we think and feel. Another option is to integrate a practice such as journaling, which enables a similar process through writing and does not require a second or third party. Doing this first thing when you get up, instead of immediately reaching for your phone, could be a new habit that ends up making all the difference.  
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The most important thing about stress management, is to start incorporating small changes and habits early. Prevention is always better than cure, and many people wait until the point of burn out to really change up their routines. We have gotten used to packing out schedules, and only truly taking time off for short weekends or holidays. But a healthy schedule is a balanced one that engages moderation.

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For example one of the Betterspace recommendations for better stress management, involves coming to a better understanding of anxiety. This impacts a vast array of aspects of our lives, in ways often unseen and little understood. This primal instinct that once served to save our lives, now governs our day to day activities in a way that often hinders instead of helps.

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One solution is access to the Beeja meditation app - a personalised solution to managing your mind using a method and pace that best suits you and your lifestyle. Even if you’ve never meditated before, this technology allows you to choose from a selection of practical voice-led meditations to suit your mood, in a way that ultimately guides you towards self-sufficiency over a 12-step course.

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Different methods work for different people, at different points in time. In healthcare as in work, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, highlighting the importance of tracking personalised progress and responses. The Betterspace platform helps you to find out what is and isn’t working for you, as well as which practices you find most engaging, while presenting you with a deeper understanding of how some methods work better than others, to keep you committed and motivated.

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Betterspace is a science-based wellbeing platform, which curates a personalised set of wellbeing recommendations including apps, services, and activities. It helps employers understand the state of wellbeing within their company, and employees stay in control of their mental health

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x+why give every member free access to Betterspace. Find out how you can join today.

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