There are many ways to manage your stress. I am going to give you a few tried and tested techniques for you to use anywhere and at any time.

Firstly, what happens when you are stressed?

Your fight or flight instinct kicks in. What is my fight or flight instinct?!

In the early ages when we hunted for our food and came across very dangerous animals we needed an inborn resource to give us a chance against the much bigger animals. A sudden surge of adrenaline throughout the body which will either make us stronger and more reactive in our fight with the grizzly (fight) OR it will give us the power and speed to run from it (flight).

But we do not hunt anymore. We live in our comfortable houses instead of caves and we are rarely faced with situations where we are in dire need for this adrenaline rush.

We still possess the instinct, though, and unfortunately it hinders us when we need to think when we are stressed.

As soon as the fight or flight kicks in, 70% of the blood from our heads rush to the rest of our body in order to fight or run. This causes your head to go fuzzy and thinking clearly becomes unnecessarily complicated.

You need to sedate the fight or flight instinct and you need to get your breathing and blood flow under control.

How?!

Firstly, breathing It is one of THE most important things we do. If we are inefficient at moving enough oxygen through our bodies we can easily be living at only 50% of our capacity. Deep tummy breaths are the best. Breathe in and allow your abdomen to draw the air into it and expand. Exhale by pulling your stomach muscles into your spine and pushing all the dead air out of your body.

Imagine you have a balloon in your tummy.

Breathe IN and FILL the balloon.

Breathe OUT and DEFLATE the balloon.

Secondly, sedating the fight or flight instinct.

The neuro pathways connected to this instinct lie behind your ears. You need to sedate it by running your fingers over it. Place your fingers on your temples. Move your hands down the back of the ears (as if placing hair behind ear) and massage from top to bottom. DO NOT move from bottom to top. DOWN ONLY. Repeat 5 times. Simple, yet very effective. If it felt good you needed it!

And lastly, getting the blood back in your head to allow you to think clearly again. On your forehead just above your eyebrows youll feel 2 slight bumps. These are called neurovascular points. Place you fingertips flatly over them and just hold the position and breathe. You will feel a slight heartbeat under your fingers when the blood has returned.

And one last technique you can use:

Close your eyes and imagine floating out of your body. Float up and out and imagine seeing your timeline underneath you. Your past is off to one side and your future another. Keep floating up, up and up until your entire timeline is less than a meter long. If still stressed continue floating upwards into space until your timeline is about an inch long. Stay there for a few minutes and just realise how small the issues appear from here. When you are ready, come back to now and float back into your body. Take a deep breath and open your eyes.

Hopefully you are feeling a bit more relaxed now. It is very important to learn to manage and relieve our stress. Practise the methods, share them with others and go and have FUN!