Thank you so much for your enthusiastic response to our big announcement earlier this week! We appreciate your congratulations, good luck wishes, and offers to network on behalf of JB. Who knew so many of you were so well connected!
As excited as we are about starting this new chapter in our lives, we’re also feeling incredibly stressed. Can you blame us? Moving and finding a job are two of life’s biggest stressors, according to the Holmes and Rahe stress scale, and we’re doing both simultaneously.
Being pregnant and adding a member to the family are also on the list of 43 life events that can cause stress — and yes, things were a bit crazy at the end of February. However, life really started feeling hectic in May when we returned from our family vacation to Hilton Head. We’ve been going non-stop ever since: traveling to Salt Lake City to speak at Alt Summit, putting our house on the market, flying to New Jersey for a long weekend and then to Cleveland for a week…
And have I mentioned that Asa is up every two hours or less during the night?
We’re exhausted, and our exhaustion is making us feel cranky and slow and even more stressed out.
Meditation would probably help relieve some of my stress, but I’ve never had the ability to sit still and quiet my mind for twenty minutes — or however long it takes to reach a state of zen. So it was fortuitous that I recently came across an article about Mark Robert Waldman’s two-step process of relaxation and positivity.
Waldman, the coauthor of Words Can Change Your Brain, offers four ways to reduce stress in one minute, all of which seem more doable than sitting cross-legged on the floor:
1. Run in place for 60 seconds.
2. Close your eyes take one full minute to roll your head 360-degrees.
3. Yawn 10 times.
4. Slowly stroke your hand or arm with your fingertip.
Once you’ve entered a state of relaxation, spend one minute focusing on a word that represents your deepest innermost value (for example, integrity or peace). When practiced daily, says Waldman, this combination relaxation-positivity exercise has been proven to reduce stress.
Obviously, I like the idea of a shortcut to relaxation, and I can see the practice of taking 60-second relaxation breaks being useful even after we relocate and JB finds a new job. Because simply being a parent is stressful, too. Amiright?
Do you ever meditate or practice yoga to relieve stress? What are some stress-reducing techniques that work for you?
(image via The Diagonal)
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