When I am describing the effect of chronic stress on their minds and bodies to clients, I often use the analogy of the can of fizzy pop.

 Imagine the can is your brain and each stressful situation you encounter during your day is like giving that can a vigorous shake.

Your alarm clock wakes you up with a jolt… and the can gets shaken.

You remember you’ve forgotten to put the bins out when you hear the lorry turn into your street and have to rush outside in your pyjamas… and the can gets shaken again.

You get a phone call on your way to work to say the childminder or the carer who does some shopping for your parent is ill so you’ll have to step in today and help out… and the can gets another shake.

Each email that drops into your In Box is another task to add to your already long ‘to do ‘list and… shakes that can just a little bit more.

You get the idea…

On their own each of these situations won’t cause you too much of a problem. The bubbles in your can would quickly return to normal once you put it back down on a flat surface.

However, when you are constantly shaken time after time without being able to release the pressure in between each hit then at some point you are either going to explode everywhere or lose all your fizz and collapse in a flat heap. 

The key is to reduce the number of stressful instances you are faced with if you can.  But, more importantly, you can learn how to safely release that pressure throughout your day, so it never gets to build up to exploding levels.

This is where learning some very simple mindfulness exercises can really help. They are easy to learn, take sometimes less than a minute to do and can make a big difference to how you handle your stress over time.

Feel better in just 5 minutes a day by taking part in my 30 Day 5 Minute Mindfulness Challenge. Listen to one audio recording per day at a convenient time for yourself. I would recommend that you pick a consistent time each day to help make it part of your daily routine.

Do you want to know more about how mindfulness is proven to help with stress? Then I highly recommend reading ‘The Mindful Way Through Stress’ by Shamash Aladina. Having trained myself with Shamash as a mindfulness teacher I can highly recommend his book.

Have a stress-resilient week!