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Category : PipLife

HomeArchive by Category "PipLife" (Page 7)
blog-title-good-food-for-mental-health

3 foods that can help reduce stress

by The Pipon 25 January 2016in PipLife, Stress Explained

We’ve all done it. When we feel stressed or overwhelmed it’s natural to reach for the most unhealthy, comforting carbohydrates you can lay your hands on – chocolate, pizza, crisps and chicken fillet rolls have all filled that void. Stressful or emotional eating is a common means of coping with stress [1]. But while it may provide a temporary pleasure boost it’s probably not the best idea to eat a packet of crisps every time you’ve had a hard day at work. Luckily there are other, often healthier, foods which can help to temporarily reduce stress. Here we have 3 alternatives:

Chamomile tea:

Take a break from coffee and try chamomile tea. Chamomile is an ancient medicinal herb commonly ground down to make a herbal tea. Chamomile has been found to help alleviate symptoms of a number of different bodily complaints and even reduce stress hormones when inhaled in oil form [2]. Avoid another caffeine crash and try a cup of chamomile tea when you feel stressed. Just holding your hands around a warm cup is comfort in itself.

chamomile tea

Dark Chocolate:

Here’s the good news! No chocolate isn’t good for you but dark chocolate isn’t as bad as other kinds and it may help to reduce stress hormones in the body. Researchers gave a group of participants 40g of dark chocolate (74% cocoa and the equivalent of a small-size bar) every day for 2 weeks and found that their cortisol levels decreased. We’re not advocating eating chocolate every day but if you’re stressing out take a time-out with a small taste of dark chocolate. If nothing else it will at least be a tasty break from your stressful task.

Dark choclate

Rye Bread:

Or any complex carbohydrates. One team of researchers fed people either a breakfast made up of complex carbohydrates like rye bread or a breakfast of simple carbohydrates including white bread. Those who had the former had lower levels of fatigue 3 hours later and were satiated for longer [3]. If you feel that toast and butter is the only thing that’s going to get you through this next deadline why not try wholewheat toast instead.

Rye-bread

 

In the most recent stress and food news a group of researchers found that a bacteria called Bifidobacterium longum 1714 fed to participants over four-weeks reduced their levels of stress [4]. We might wait for further developments on this one though, Bifidobacterium longum 1714 doesn’t sound quite so appetizing as chocolate.

While these snacks may provide enough tasty distraction to get you over a short stressful hump it’s never a good idea to ignore chronic stress. There are many coping strategies out there from mindfulness to relaxation techniques that can help you to reduce stress. But if it’s just a short term pleasure boost you’re after try some of our healthy alternatives next time you’re reaching for the bag of crisps.

 

 

  1. Oliver, G., J. Wardle, and E.L. Gibson, Stress and food choice: a laboratory study. Psychosomatic medicine, 2000. 62(6): p. 853-865.
  2. Srivastava, J.K., E. Shankar, and S. Gupta, Chamomile: A herbal medicine of the past with a bright future (Review). Molecular medicine reports, 2010. 3(6): p. 895-901.
  3. Pasman, W., et al., Effect of two breakfasts, different in carbohydrate composition, on hunger and satiety and mood in healthy men. International journal of obesity, 2003. 27(6): p. 663-668.
  4. Allen, A, W Hutch, P Borre, P. J. Kennedy, A Temko, G Boylan, B Kiely, G Clarke, J.F. Cryan, T. G. Dinan. Towards psychobiotics for stress & cognition: Bifidobacterium Longum blocks stressinduced behavioural and physiology changes and modulates brain activity and neurocognitive performance in healthy human subjects. Program No. 162.05/R8. 2015 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2015. Online.

 

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blog-title-stress-yellow-cloud-lightning

Your body’s reaction to stress -The HPA Axis

by The Pipon 22 January 2016in PipLife, Stress Explained

You’re sitting in your office happily staring out the window when your computer pings. It’s a reminder you set yourself a month ago. Remember? That really important task your boss set you? No?

Well, it’s due today…

Your heart starts racing, the palms of your hands get sweaty and you feel far too hot. This is the feeling we all know too well as stress. But what actually happens in your body that can turn a simple thought such as “I forgot to do that task” into a heart-pounding physiological reaction?

95cdfeef-1024x526

Stress, Stress, Stress… Well here, we’ve outlined what steps happen to cause the unpleasant sensation of stress in the human body:

  1. Evaluating the threat.

    Every day our brains are bombarded with information from the different environments we are in, the people we meet and the thoughts we have. One of the most important jobs our brain has is to filter this information to figure out what is important and what is not. The lady pushing a pram on the other side of the road is not a particularly important signal for our brain but the car hurtling towards us at high speed is. Our brain evaluates the latter as a threat and we jump out of the way to avoid being hit. There are lots of parts of the brain that are involved in this process but the most important is called the amygdala. The amygdala is the Greek word for ‘almond’ because early anatomists thought part of it looked like an almond. When the amygdala detects something which is threatening it sends out alarm bells to the other parts of the brain that it is connected to telling them to be ready to respond.

 

  1. Sending out the Army.

    The amygdala sends a message to another part of the brain called the hypothalamus which sends a message further down in the brain to the pituitary gland which then sends a message all the way down to the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys. This is called the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal axis or the HPA axis. When the signal gets to the adrenal glands they release two types of hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline underpins our ‘fight or flight’ response by constricting blood vessels and making the heart pump faster to rush blood to the body and brain. This means our muscles are primed to run away or to stay and fight. It’s probably not the best solution to just run away from your boss when s/he comes to collect your work or, in fact, to fight them, but it would be a useful response if, for example, you came across a tiger in the jungle. Cortisol is the other stress hormone which is released by the adrenal glands in times of stress – this stops the body doing anything which isn’t necessary, such as digesting your lunch, leaving you ready to put all of your resources into dealing with the threat.

  2. Returning to normal.

    You tell your boss that you haven’t yet completed the task, s/he understands and gives you another week. Now that the threat is over your stress response system can calm back down. A signal is sent back through all the levels of the brain telling it to switch off the HPA axis. The adrenal glands stop producing cortisol and adrenaline which means heart rate returns to normal, you cool down and your stomach can start digesting your lunch again [1, 2].

 

page1-1280px-Brian_M_Sweis_HPA_Axis_Diagram_2012.pdf-300x232

 

Acute vs Chronic Stress.

The situation above is an example of acute stress. It’s short-lived and quickly resolved. Acute stress can actually be good for us as it sharpens our attention and helps us to perform better, whether that’s running away from a tiger or coming up with some good suggestions in a work meeting [3].

Say, however, you got a reminder every day about a task that you had forgotten to do in work or say your work was piling up so much that you were constantly feeling stressed out all of the time. This is called chronic stress. The HPA axis is a healthy response to short bursts of stress but if we are constantly stressed then our HPA axis is telling the body to increase blood pressure and suppress functions like digestion all of the time. Chronic stress can therefore have damaging effects on health [4]. This is why it’s so important to learn to manage stress.

The good news is that lots of stress management programmes including mindfulness have been found not just to stop you from feeling stressed in your head but also to stop your body’s stress responses from over-activating [5, 6].

Emotional-Resilience-field-1024x683

So don’t ignore the signals. Managing your stress is not important just for your head but also for your body.

 

Next in the blog – Understanding your Pip Statistics

 

Check out our other blog posts on dealing with stress and see how the Pip can help you kickstart a life in control.

 

  1. Smith, S.M. and W.W. Vale, The role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in neuroendocrine responses to stress. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 2006. 8(4): p. 383.
  2. Herman, J.P. and W.E. Cullinan, Neurocircuitry of stress: central control of the hypothalamo–pituitary–adrenocortical axis. Trends in neurosciences, 1997. 20(2): p. 78-84.
  3. Schilling, T.M., et al., For whom the bell (curve) tolls: Cortisol rapidly affects memory retrieval by an inverted U-shaped dose–response relationship. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2013. 38(9): p. 1565-1572.
  4. Miller, G.E., E. Chen, and E.S. Zhou, If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in humans. Psychological bulletin, 2007. 133(1): p. 25.
  5. Hammerfald, K., et al., Persistent effects of cognitive-behavioral stress management on cortisol responses to acute stress in healthy subjects—a randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2006. 31(3): p. 333-339.
  6. Matousek, R.H., P.L. Dobkin, and J. Pruessner, Cortisol as a marker for improvement in mindfulness-based stress reduction. Complementary therapies in clinical practice, 2010. 16(1): p. 13-19.

 

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blog-title-eating-better

Covering the basics – Sleep & Eat better

by The Pipon 20 January 2016in PipLife

Remember how simple life could be as a child? Someone told you when to eat and what to eat, you went to bed at a set time and you jumped out of bed in the morning ready for a new day. As adults we may have the luxury or doing what we want and when but sometimes that leads us down the path of bad habits with irregular sleep patterns and poor food choices. If you want to start eating and sleeping better one of the best ways to start is to return to your childhood and get into a routine. Here we briefly outline some ways to start an eating and a sleeping routine that will get you back in balance in 2016.

Eating

One of the major challenges to healthy eating is a lack of time. When you come home at the end of a long day and find there is nothing worth eating in the fridge you turn to the take away menu, the ready meals or, at worst, the bag of crisps you found hidden at the back of the cupboard. The key to healthy eating is preparation. Choose a day of the week on which you can plan and shop for food for the next 7 days. Make a rough plan of the healthy meals you are going to eat for the week, write a list and do one big weekly shop for the ingredients you need. If you have time you can go one step further and prepare your food for the week in advance. Make Sunday afternoons your preparation day, stick on your favourite tunes and make big batches of meals that can be frozen in portion-size batches ready to defrost and reheat at the end of a long work day. If you make these steps part of your routine you will not only reduce food waste but you will find it much easier to stave off the temptation to graze on unhealthy snacks instead of eating balanced meals.

Sleeping

Sleep is a vital rejuvenator for the brain and the body. Too often we find ourselves calculating how many hours we have left to sleep and despairing when it is fewer than we think we need. One way to stop this is to start a sleep routine. Decide on the time you would like to be asleep at and set a cushion of half an hour or an hour around that. Your ‘bed time’ is the window of time during which you are preparing to sleep and your ‘sleep time’ is the time when you will actually be asleep check our blog on sleep habits. Use your ‘bed time’ as an electronic-free zone in which you relax, read a book or meditate. Try using the PIP for 10 minutes during ‘bed time’ to really settle your mind for sleep. If you it part of your routine that at, for example, 10:30pm you will begin preparing for bed you should increase the number of hours you sleep and the regularity with which you do so.

Incorporate your intentions to eat and sleep better into a firm plan of action by making your good behaviours routine and you will find it easier to take control in 2016.

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blog-title-grey-clock

Performing under pressure

by The Pipon 13 January 2016in PipLife

It’s safe to say that the sport as a whole has evolved greatly with greater technical efficiency. Athletes are in the continuous search for improvement. Forever searching, analyzing, tweaking and testing.  Picking up those key little 1 percenters here and there. It’s become almost an art form.

Even with all the preparation and training, as with all big stage competitions, what will be the likely defining element is not the science behind the sport (as these athlete’s aren’t machines). The tournament will be decided for the most part by how the players handle these pressure moments.

In all walks of sport, fans and spectators can list those defining moments when competitors capitalized or faulted under pressure. What they did in the clutch moments.

So, how can athletes perform under pressure?

The extensive analysis after these moments reminds us of the extreme pressure that sports players can so often face. There are few of us who could withstand that level of pressure and perform to our optimum ability. And yet time and time again these players perform incredible feats while the whole world watches. So in today’s blog we explore one reason why sports players can and do perform under pressure.

Training cones - The Pip

Perceived stress

 

We often say that although you can’t always control the situation, you can control how you deal with it. This is what makes stress management important as it helps you to learn how to recognise and respond to stress in demanding situations. Psychologists often talk about perceived stress rather than stressful events because the same events are not necessarily considered stressful at different times of our lives or by different people. Instead our brains tend to appraise every situation in order to determine whether it is likely to be a threatening, stressful situation or not.

A rustling in the trees…

 

To use a simple example our ancestors would have had to appraise situations as being either threatening or challenging. A rustling in the trees could be a tiger ready to eat them (a threat) or it could be an antelope ready to be hunted that would provide food for the family for a month (a challenge). Today the difference between threat and challenge does not necessarily mean life or death but our brains and our bodies respond in the same way. When we perceive a situation that is potentially stressful the ‘fight or flight’ response kicks in, our heart rate increases and our body releases stress hormones such as adrenaline. However researchers have found subtle differences in how our body responds to a stressful situation that we perceive as ‘challenging’ and one that we perceive as ‘threatening’.

 

In a stressful situation that we feel we can manage, for example a challenging task at work, our heart rate increases and our body releases adrenaline. This relaxes our blood vessels allowing more blood to flow to our brain and muscles in anticipation of the challenge. In a situation that is seen as a threat, for example a task in work that we will not be able to complete and which has serious consequences if we do not, our heart rate also increases but our blood vessels constrict and our blood pressure rises [1].

“…These subtle differences can predict how well we perform…”

Challenge or Threat. Which on is it to you?

 

These subtle differences can predict how well we perform. One group of researchers asked members of a baseball team to give a speech for 1 minute about the feeling of stepping up to bat at the start of a game. They measured their heart rate and blood pressure as they did this and then tracked them throughout the season. Baseball players who had a ‘challenge’ response to this situation (those whose heart rate increased and blood vessels dilated) did much better in the following season than those who had a ‘threat’ response [1]. Another study went a step further, they manipulated whether golf players felt ‘challenged’ or ‘threatened’ by changing the wording of the instructions for a putting task that they gave them while measuring their heart rate and blood pressure [2]. Those who had been made to feel threatened not only landed fewer putts but had less effective muscle activity when swinging the club compared to those who were made to feel challenged.

Going into this weekend these teams will again have the mountainous test of keeping cool under pressure. Maybe you’ll spot these moments of the players appraising these demanding situations. Will it be a threat or challenge?…

 

  1. Blascovich, J., et al., Predicting athletic performance from cardiovascular indexes of challenge and threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2004. 40(5): p. 683-688.
  2. Moore, L.J., et al., The effect of challenge and threat states on performance: An examination of potential mechanisms. Psychophysiology, 2012. 49(10): p. 1417-1425.
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blog-title-work-life-balance

3 simple steps to achieving the perfect Work/Life balance

by The Pipon 12 January 2016in PipLife

Work/life balance is something we all aspire to and often fail to achieve. We find ourselves in the office at 9pm once again saying ‘next month, next month I’ll have more time.’ Here we outline three steps to win back your work/life balance.

  • Start 2016 by making a list of what you want to achieve this year. It could be getting your monthly report in a day early, taking a long-promised holiday or strengthening relationships with friends and family. If you find that late working hours are hampering relationships that are important to you make it your priority to leave work at a set time at least once a week. If an over-active social life is hindering your career make a decision to pare back the parties and seek that promotion. Work/life balance looks different for everyone but rarely should one overwhelm the other.
  • Increase Productivity. When you’re in work, work. A large proportion of our time is spent procrastinating, even with the best intentions. One great way to increase productivity is to use the Pomodoro Technique [1]. Choose a task and set a timer for 25 minutes. Focus all of your attention on this task for the 25 minutes before taking a 5 minute break. After four 25minute chunks break for 15-20 minutes. The human brain can’t pay attention for long periods but breaking your time into short 25 minute chunks allows you to focus and get tasks done. Make sure you don’t ignore the breaks. Get up and walk around your workspace, make a cup of tea or take out your Pip and try a 5 minute relaxation session to really focus your mind. Learn more about getting started with your Pip.
  • Switch Off. Sometimes it can be as hard to stop working as it is to start. If you find this you need to be strict with yourself to build relaxation into your day be it exercise, seeing friends and family or taking some me-time. Carve out a time for these activities in your diary and stick to them as rigidly as you would stick to getting to work on time. Incorporate the Pip into your routine for just 10 minutes per day and make relaxation a habit, Click here for the science behind forming new habits.

Prioritise the things you want to achieve, focus when you have to and switch off afterwards. This will kickstart a life in control and help you to regain that all important work/life balance.

References

  1. Cirillo, F., The Pomodoro Technique. 2013: FC Garage.
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blog-title-KSNYIC

Kickstart the New Year in control

by The Pipon 11 January 2016in PipLife

Need a little help keeping those New Year’s aspirations?

You’re not alone – we’re here to help you kickstart the year in control. Over the next 5 weeks we’ll be sharing our top tips and tools to help you feel more motivated and inspired, and ensure you are ready for the year to come.

Our January series brings together a mixture of our favourite articles, videos, quotes from the web, alongside our own research and reflections, to cover tips for keeping New Year’s resolutions, achieving work/life balance, improving mental fitness and living happier in 2016.

Subscribe today and Kickstart your New Year in control.

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blog-title-active-during-winter

3 quick tips for staying active during winter

by The Pipon 6 January 2016in PipLife

It’s common enough knowledge that being active is good for us, physically and mentally. But we all know that staying active during winter months with all its rain and cold can be that little more difficult than during summer. We thought it would be interesting to list 3 novel ideas we have for helping getting outside a little easier and bit more fun.

 

Grab your camera or phone and go for a photo walk

Why not get the best of both worlds and practice your photography skills and give yourself a feel good boost by grabbing your camera and going for a walk. A stroll in the park could become that bit more fun of an adventure if you keep your eyes open and look to snap some interesting pictures.  

Winter photography The Pip

 

Go for a dawn run

Why not catch the incredible sounds of the dawn chorus while running early in the morning. It’s a great start to your day – as there’s nothing like watching sunrise while getting that endorphin boost from running.

 Winter dawn run - The Pip

Wrap up for the weather!

If it’s cold out and you’re interested in staying fit during the colder months – why not make sure you invest in some warm outdoor gear? Hats, scarves, fleeces, waterproofs and the classic wooly socks are all a help. If you can, try and make sure they’re good quality – in some instances you may be buying some less expensive gear, but the tradeoff might be you not staying as warm.

Wrap up warm The Pip

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Infographic about mental health #WMHD

Let’s talk about mental health

by The Pipon 10 October 2015in PipLife, Stress Explained

It’s World Mental Health Day on the 10th October. So let’s talk about mental health.

[caption id="attachment_52801" align="alignnone" width="2075"]Infographic about mental health #WMHD Infographic about mental health #WMHD[/caption]
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business man smile

Avoiding Burnout – managing the modern work life balance

by The Pipon 14 September 2015in PipLife, Stress Explained

John is just out of college and has landed his dream job. It is demanding, rewarding and he is buzzing at the end of every day. The better he gets at his job the more work he is given and the more he demands of himself. At first he is happy with the challenge but soon he starts to work late into the evening. As every big project finishes a new one begins and he no longer feels the satisfaction of a job well done. He stops seeing his friends, he can’t switch off at the end of the day and if he’s not working at the weekend he’s catching up on sleep. Gradually he begins to feel more and more exhausted. He has to drag himself into a workplace that he is starting to resent. He sleeps and works, sleeps and works. He is a walking zombie.

Burnt out employee

Have you felt like this or do you know someone who has? “Burnout” is an often-used phrase to describe a state of chronic exhaustion combined with depleted enthusiasm, most often for a job. John is an extreme example of someone with chronic stress and burnout. Many of us have described ourselves as ‘burnt out’ at one time or another after a bout of heavy work but we quickly bounce back when we take time to relax. Stress is a natural and normal part of everyday life, we all experience stress and it’s not always a bad thing. But chronic stress, when not managed, can lead to burnout. John may end up doing poorly in his job and maybe even quitting. He is likely to be an irritable colleague and friend and his stress levels may even affect his health [1]. Today’s blog is going to focus on what burnout is and, more importantly, what you can do to prevent it.

What is burnout?

Psychologists tend to describe three main symptoms of burnout [1]:

  • Exhaustion – feeling overextended and depleted of energy.
  • Detachment – feeling detached and negative about other people and the job.
  • Lack of Accomplishment – feeling unproductive and hopeless about work.

These symptoms don’t appear in a flash but may build up slowly over a number of months. People who are burnt out may have worse sleep, more headaches, feel unable to concentrate and be generally fatigued [2].

Burnout also affects how your body works in response to stress. We’ve written about the HPA axis in a previous blog post. It is the circuit in our bodies that reacts to a stressful situation by releasing stress hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. This is the ‘fight or flight’ response that we are all familiar with.

The system is designed for short bursts of stress like escaping from a tiger or fighting an opponent so it switches on for the duration of the danger and then switches off when we are safe. Short bursts of stress and cortisol can be good for us [3]. But when we are chronically stressed the HPA axis doesn’t know how to respond. A healthy HPA axis releases cortisol in the morning and then releases less over the course of the day. When something during the day is stressful we may have a temporary spike in cortisol levels but they soon return to normal. We therefore see a healthy curve of cortisol production in most people.

burned out

But when the HPA axis is constantly releasing cortisol because people are chronically stressed it too becomes ‘burnt out’ [2]. In other words, we don’t see the normal increase and decrease in cortisol throughout the day, instead we see a flatter line of cortisol output.

What does burnout do to the body?

Too high or too low levels of cortisol can make you less well able to concentrate and remember things [3, 4]. Too high or too low levels of cortisol also affect the immune system. Cortisol usually helps the immune system by telling it when to switch on and when to switch off. Chronic stress and ‘flatter’ cortisol curves stops the body from knowing when to switch on and when to switch off so the immune system remains constantly semi-on [5]. Although we need the immune system to be on when we are under attack by disease we also need it to switch off before it starts to damage our own healthy cells and make us sick [5].

 

How can we prevent burnout?

As with many things in life stress is good in moderation. Too little and we are not challenged, too much and we are overwhelmed. The good news is that stress is manageable and it is possible to stay in the healthy zone and avoid burnout [6]. Feeling stressed doesn’t necessarily mean that you are burnt out but feeling stressed all of the time can sometimes lead to burnout. The most important way to prevent burnout is to manage your stress in whatever way works for you. Here are 6 ideas to help reduce your risk of burnout:

 

  • Take a vacation

See our blog on the benefits of taking vacations. Research shows that burnout is reduced when employees take time off [7].

  • Play some music!

Who cares if you sing like a canary or grunt like a gorilla, it’s all about the participation. One study found that a group of employees who joined in a drumming session for an hour each week had lower levels of burnout in the following weeks [8].

Listening Music In The Nature

  • Move your body

Whether it’s yoga, the gym or going for a stroll both exercise and muscle relaxation help reduce stress and the risk of burnout [9].

Yoga in the park

  • Take a course in mindfulness

Research shows that a structured mindfulness based stress reduction course can reduce burnout for up to 3 months [10].

  • Be a good boss

If you’re the boss you can reduce burnout in your employees by changing the management style and workplace habits of your organisation. Most interventions focus on 6 areas of work: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values along with training programmes to help employees deal with stress. Studies have shown a success rate of 80% for interventions aimed at reducing burnout and the most successful are those that combine individual changes with organizational changes [6].

Enjoy the challenge work brings but try to switch off at the end of the day and you’ll find your own Goldilocks zone of stress.

 

  1. Maslach, C., W.B. Schaufeli, and M.P. Leiter, Job burnout. Annual review of psychology, 2001. 52(1): p. 397-422.
  2. Pruessner, J.C., D.H. Hellhammer, and C. Kirschbaum, Burnout, perceived stress, and cortisol responses to awakening. Psychosomatic medicine, 1999. 61(2): p. 197-204.
  3. Lupien, S., et al., Stress-Induced Declarative Memory Impairment in Healthy Elderly Subjects: Relationship to Cortisol Reactivity 1. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 1997. 82(7): p. 2070-2075.
  4. Mackenzie, C.S., et al., Cognitive functioning under stress: Evidence from informal caregivers of palliative patients. Journal of palliative medicine, 2007. 10(3): p. 749-758.
  5. Miller, G.E., S. Cohen, and A.K. Ritchey, Chronic psychological stress and the regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines: a glucocorticoid-resistance model. Health Psychology, 2002. 21(6): p. 531.
  6. Awa, W.L., M. Plaumann, and U. Walter, Burnout prevention: A review of intervention programs. Patient education and counseling, 2010. 78(2): p. 184-190.
  7. Etzion, D., Annual vacation: Duration of relief from job stressors and burnout. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 2003. 16(2): p. 213-226.
  8. Bittman, B., et al., Recreational music-making: a cost-effective group interdisciplinary strategy for reducing burnout and improving mood states in long-term care workers. Advances in Mind Body Medicine, 2003. 19(3/4): p. 4-15.
  9. Van Rhenen, W., et al., The effect of a cognitive and a physical stress-reducing programme on psychological complaints. International archives of occupational and environmental health, 2005. 78(2): p. 139-148.
  10. Cohen-Katz, J., et al., The Effects of Mindfulness‐based Stress Reduction on Nurse Stress and Burnout, Part II: A Quantitative and Qualitative Study. Holistic nursing practice, 2005. 19(1): p. 26-35.

 

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3 ways you can use your posture to beat stress right now

by Scott Ingramon 6 July 2015in PipLife, Stress Explained

It’s easy to get stressed in this world juggling work, relationships and all the life stuff in between. Sometimes when you’re stressed all you want to do is run away. As you sit staring at that difficult task that has to be done all you are probably thinking is how nice it would be to be sitting on the beach. Sadly though, that’s not always an option and sometimes you just have to push on through. So what can we do to help when we’re stressed but have to keep going?

We as humans wear our emotions on our bodies. When we’re happy we smile, when we’re angry we frown and when we’re sad we cry because how we feel affects how we look.

But did you know that the opposite is true as well?

How we look can affect how we feel.

Sometimes it’s possible to trick your mind into feeling better for a short period of time just by changing how you look. Here we have 3 simple tips to help you feel empowered instead of stressed out while you beat that looming deadline:

  1. Smile!

happy and smiling girl with a smile painted on paper

Yes it may be the last thing you feel like doing as you’re slumped over a computer frantically typing but studies have shown that just moving your mouth into the position of a smile, even if you don’t think you have anything to smile about, can make you feel happier [1]. One study found that when they stressed people out and then tricked them into smiling without them realising (they put chopsticks horizontally in their mouth) they didn’t get as sad as those people who were stressed out and didn’t have chopsticks in their mouths [2]. Not only that, but the people who were tricked into smiling while doing a stressful task had a lower heart rate than those who weren’t smiling while doing the same task.

 

  1. Sit up straight.

When we’re stressed and unhappy we’re more likely to hunch over and bend our heads down to the ground. This is not only as sign of stress but may actually be making you feel worse than you need to. Studies have shown that sitting up straight while doing something stressful raises your self-esteem, makes you happier, less afraid and keeps you more alert. It even affects the language you use. People who were slumped over while stressed used more negative emotion words in a speech than participants who were made to sit up straight [3].

Sitting upright Meerkat (Surikate)

  1. Stand in your power pose.

The way you stand or sit sends out nonverbal cues to people about how powerful you are. Imagine someone swinging on an office chair with their feet up on the desk and their elbows up around their neck. Now imagine someone on a chair on the opposite side of the desk with hunched shoulders and their hands in their lap. It’s easy to see who is the powerful person in this situation. You can trick yourself into feeling more in control and less stressed by adopting a power pose. Spread your limbs out and take up as much room as you can. Imagine that you are the confident CEO of a large company. Studies have shown that doing this for just 1 minute can change not only how stressed you feel but also how your body responds to stress. People who adopt a power pose have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and higher levels of testosterone than people who are hunched over in a powerless pose [4].

Cheering woman hiker open arms at mountain peak

So next time you’re stressed sit up, smile and adopt a power pose. This should help to get you over the hurdle until it’s time to stop, take the Pip out and relax.

 

  1. Strack, F., L.L. Martin, and S. Stepper, Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: a nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1988. 54(5): p. 768.
  2. Kraft, T.L. and S.D. Pressman, Grin and bear it the influence of manipulated facial expression on the stress response. Psychological science, 2012. 23(11): p. 1372-1378.
  3. Nair, S., et al., Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Health Psychology, 2015. 34(6): p. 632.
  4. Carney, D.R., A.J. Cuddy, and A.J. Yap, Power posing brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 2010. 21(10): p. 1363-1368.

 

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