Relationships October 17, 2016
Waking up each day to the music of Pharrell Williams can reduce stressMulti-tasking is bad for your health! If you’re one of those women who checks her phone while looking at 20 different screens open on your laptop and watching TV in the background, you’re a prime candidate for stress.
Women are better at multi-tasking than men, but they also say they are more stressed, according to the American Psychological Association. This inability to focus on one thing at a time may be contributing to increased stress.
But help is at hand. Anti-stress expert Michele Paradise, who helps patients relieve anxiety from their lives, has shared with ENTITY these five tips to stop being stressed and start being happy.
Instead of waking up to an alarm sound that sounds like a nuclear alert, link up a happy song to your alarm ring tone for better start to the day. Something like “Happy” by Pharrell Williams works very well. “Intrusive and loud sounds download chemicals that raise our blood pressure and make our hearts beat faster and so we wake up in a stressful manner,” says Beverly Hills-based Michele. “But an alarm song that makes us smile downloads happy chemicals and we wake up with a smile on our face, and a calm heart not a racing one.”
Get your favorite color of Post-it notes, write on them ‘One thing at a time’ and distribute them on your mirror, dashboard, computer, phone, wallet and anywhere else that you look at regularly. This is called an anchor and will remind you to do exactly what it says on the paper … one thing at a time! Or load the notes with positive affirmations like “I am confident,” “I am loved” or “I am calm” and then every time you see one, repeat the affirmation. By practicing and repeating this you will change your perspective and inspire a positive outcome. “Using a color that makes you feel good is important and makes the desired positive outcome more likely,” adds Michele.
“When you are feeling overwhelmed, it’s like there is a blizzard of thoughts going on in your mind and you can’t think straight or make good decisions,” says Michele, whose solution is to SBS: Stop, Breathe, Smile. So when you’re feeling overwhelmed, stop moving and take three really deep breaths. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth and on the final breath give a long sigh of relief. Then smile and say, “All is well.” It has been proved that the mind releases fear when you breathe and smile simultaneously.
Remember in the Olympics when Michael Phelps was getting ‘in the zone’ by sitting calmly in the waiting area listening to a playlist before winning gold? Be a winner like him and create playlists on your phone for motivation and calm. Michele explains, “We filter our world through our five senses and the sense of sound is one of the most powerful ones. We can hear a song that makes us feel a certain way.”
Recent research has proved that sleeping naked reduces our adrenaline, cortisol and blood pressure and releases a happy chemical called oxytocin. Once you are nude in bed, Michele says, “You can then allow all the stuff of the day to melt away and subside.”
Learn more about stress reduction expert Michele Paradise at her website Change Your Mind for Good.
