Benefits of Conquering Stress

Before I list the benefits of conquering stress, let’s back up and look at what it means to conquer stress.

Conquering stress doesn’t mean that you will never have stress, or anger, anxiety, sadness, depression or any other depleting emotion ever again (I really don’t think that is humanly possible). Conquering stress is about changing your relationship to your emotions and knowing how to manage them. The goal is to have a feeling, not your feeling have you. In order to conquer stress, one must develop skills in self-regulation and resilience-building.

Learning these skills and conquering stress has a wide range of benefits. Here are a few:

1. Better sleep. Stress increases the release of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol disrupts your sleep because it tells the body to “go, go, go”. When you conquer stress, your hormone levels become more balanced, and your sleep is improved.
2. More energy. Stress is a huge drain on your energy. Hormones released when you are stressed, tell the body to use energy, even if the situation doesn’t call for increased energy use. For example, it doesn’t take a lot of energy to sit in a car, but we burn a lot of energy unnecessarily when we sit in a traffic jam and get angry.
3. Healthier relationships. Have you ever been angry and said some things you regret to the ones you love the most? When you conquer stress, you are more aware of how what you say affects others and you are able to choose your words with more care. Conquering stress also makes you a better listener because you don’t take the things they say so personally. This improves communication- the foundation of relationships.
4. More composure. Conquering stress allows to you remain calm, cool, and collected in the face of challenges, big or small, personal or professional. You stay more present and are able to respond appropriately in any situation.
5. Optimized performance. Stress creates chaos in brain activity, meaning you don’t think clearly, you make poor decisions, you can’t concentrate or focus on a task very long, your memory and learning go down the tubes, and you lack foresight (meaning you might think that throat-punching your boss is a smart idea). When you conquer stress, you synchronize your brain activity, putting you in a state that optimizes brain functions.
6. Improved health. There are many stress-related illnesses and diseases. A major reason for this is that when you are experiencing stress (or anger, worry, depression, or other negative/depleting emotions), all your body systems become unsynchronized and there is wear and tear on your body (like driving your car by randomly pressing the gas and brake pedals can create wear and tear on your car). When you conquer stress, you align and synchronize your body systems allowing for smooth operation.

Besides just feeling better (…which is a huge benefit in and of itself!), there are many benefits to learning self-regulation and resilience-building skills.

Is it time for you to learn to conquer stress? Find out how we can help you develop those skills, here.

Here’s to conquering stress.

With heart,

The Stress Experts