Stress Assessment

Yesterday I told you that stress adds up, and if left unchecked, you will make yourself very sick or unwell.

OK so, what can you do about it?

My recommended first step is not to spring into action.

Don’t just start meditating for ten minutes a day, for example, even though I recommend it for anyone who’s curious.

Meditation is great, but lowering your allostatic load is not necessarily about any one thing.

My recommended first step is an honest self-assesment.

Even better, if you have a trusted friend, partner, coach, or colleague that can assess your own assessment, do that.

How do you do that?

Well, you can take the list of 6 categories of stress that I shared and rank each one on a scale from 1 to 10, on paper.

Or, you can list out everything that’s been stressing you, specifically, on paper, and take a sober look at it.

When you take an honest inventory, you usually find a surprise or two.

For example, ‘Oh; I didn’t realize that my financial situation was actually making me feel that bad.’

Or, ‘Wow, my exercise regimen is actually quite stressful, and not as enjoyable as I thought’.

Once you’re armed with that information, then you can start to craft simple actions steps to reduce stress where needed, not in one felled swoop, nor across all categories at once, but rather, one turn down of the dial at a time.