how to deal with stress

without feeling overwhelmed.

Now a big part of exhaustion,

anxiety, stress, burnout, things

that are barriers to high performance

has to do with overthinking.

So overthinking leads to overwhelm.

It's not how much we

have on during the day.

So you will think of days when

You've had a lot on and you get

through it and it feels pretty easy.

And then other days you have a lot on

and you just feel completely overwhelmed.

So having too much on our mind over

thinking leads to anxiety, it leads to

overwhelm stress, low moods, and burnout.

So it's a really big

trigger for burnouts.

This long term overthinking

with a mind is so overloaded

with mental stress for too long,

this mental stress or

hypervigilant thinking activates

or triggers the stress response.

It activates a fight or flight response

and releases stress hormones in the body.

So if you, Look at how mental

stress actually has a downstream

effect on our, you know, hormones,

on our systems, on our energy,

on our mood, on our performance.

So, if we look at our sleep, on so

many factors, on our weight, even, then

you will really see that this part, if

we can get a handle on this part, it

will make a huge difference to the way

that we look and the way that we feel.

So we're not talking about overthinking.

I'm talking about more the negative

stuff, the thing that's creating

tension and worry and concern.

If we overanalyze the situation,

if we catastrophize the situation,

that kind of thinking creates

a lot of stress on the system.

Now research has found that up to

three minutes of negative thinking

starts to change the biochemistry in

our brain, releases stress hormone.

It floods the body with glucose, which

then floods the body with insulin.

And it also activates silent

genes and it moves us out of the

rest and relaxation response.

So that's just three minutes.

of negative thinking.

So like I said, like worry,

concern, things like that.

But they've also found that,

you know, the opposite is true.

So positive calming, happy thoughts

will also induce healing hormones and

reverse the damage of negative thinking.

So It's important to see this that

it highlights the fact that yes, our

negative thinking is making an impact

to our physiology on a biochemical level

and having a more clear mind, having

clarity and more happy and I guess

kind of content and peaceful thinking

is going to help us be at our best.

when we're stressed, our body

is flooded with stress hormone

cortisol, which Literally drops our

IQ and it gives us tunnel vision.

So we are, we zone in on a problem, we

become hypervigilant, we can't let it go.

And we don't allow for

a bigger perspective.

So it's very difficult to

resolve our issues or find

solutions to our challenges.

When we have such tunnel

vision, it's almost like.

Reading a book with your nose pressed

up the page, you can only see a few

words rather than the whole story.

And this is the same thing

which happens in our mind.

We get very myopic with our

thinking, our judgement is impaired.

It is not the best time to make a

decision because we are irrational when

we have too much cortisol being released.

So how do we deal with our stress

and challenges and situations

that happen in our life?

Because life is never without challenges.

How do we deal with that?

Without feeling so overwhelmed and

stressed and drained by everything that's

happening and how can we do things with a

lot more ease and navigate our life more

easily without that dread and that worry.

And the first thing that I like to

take my clients through is really

understanding how the mind works.

I have found that strategies alone

are not really life changing for

my clients anyway, until they

really see how the mind works.

Like what's really happening

in the mind, in the body.

That's creating the symptoms in

the way that they feel and the

way that they see the world as

well and making everything worse.

So number one, thinking

creates overwhelm.

It creates anxiety and it creates

stress and it's not about the situation.

So when we have too much on our mind, our

mind is like overloaded and it's almost

like when you, if you were to jump in

your car and drive down the road and put

your car, your foot on the accelerator

and drive it into the red zone.

For the next, you know,

three hours, right?

Your car, your engine will get close

to engine failure because the car

is not designed to drive in that red

zone for long periods of time, right?

This is the same with the mind.

And what we don't understand is that.

when we have a lots of thinking in

our mind and it creates all of these

uneasy feelings, those symptoms,

the anxiety, the tension, the worry,

the fear, all of those feelings

that just horrible, yucky feelings

that we feel is actually your body.

Letting you know that your mind

is in overdrive, that there is too

much on your mind, there is too much

thinking, and it's the best way that

the body can get your attention to

say, Hey, you got to slow it down.

So those symptoms are not coming from

our to do list or the situation at hand.

What it's coming from is our body

telling us, Hey, you're in the red zone.

Okay.

And while we use a lot of this over

analytical thinking and worry and

concern because we really feel like

it helps us to offset or mitigate

any further stress down the road.

What it really does, it revs up our

system and it prevents clarity and we

really are not in the best place to

make a decision or to resolve issues.

Over time, when we have so much

overthinking, like if it becomes

chronic, eventually it becomes habitual.

And that's who we are.

So if we are accustomed to

operating in this place where

we've always got a lot on our mind.

We're always worried

about every scenario.

It starts to change our biochemistry in

our brain, and so we get a fluctuation

in our neurotransmitters, which means we

are more prone to anxiety and stress and

overwhelm, because we don't have those

nutrients or those neurotransmitters.

To keep the brain and the body balanced

and calm and rational and feeling

like everything's going to be okay.

So number one was really recognizing

that your overthinking is creating the

symptoms that you're feeling that you,

you know, you really want to escape from.

It's making the scenario feel more

serious and more dread and more

concern and more, I guess, you know,

catastrophized when really it's a

symptom that your body is giving you

to say, Hey, you're in the red zone.

You need to slow down.

Okay.

You need to pull back from

your thinking as best that

you can get out of your head.

And from a clear state of mind, you'll be

able to resolve what's in front of you.

The second step is to

escape the thought traps.

You will have common triggers

that you get stuck in, that you

catastrophize, that kind of sets you off.

And for everybody it's different, but

there will be certain things that you

find that are harder for you to let go.

Now, a clean mind.

We don't do very well with adding

more on our mind, with adding more to

our plate in terms of mental stress.

So I once had a client who was

very successful in her career.

This is just to give you an example.

She had a business.

She was very successful.

She had been in business

for about 20, 30 years.

So she really knew how to do business.

we were chatting one day

and she was really worried.

She was really concerned and

catastrophizing because, you know,

Her business was going through a

cash flow issue and she thought,

well, what if I can't pay my staff?

And so in her mind, she

had really blown this up.

And I asked her, I said, have

you ever been in business before?

You had this issue where

you couldn't, pay stuff.

Like, and how did you overcome it?

She was like, yeah, actually

I did right in the beginning.

And I actually had to get money

out of an ATM to pay my staff.

You know, it was, it was so much worse.

Right.

And then she relaxed because

she could see that she had

been in this situation before.

And she knew she was able to

get out of it before, she'll

find a way to get out of it now.

And so the biggest thing that keeps

us stuck in these thought traps

is that we don't see the solution.

And so I always say to my clients,

have you been in this scenario before?

And how many times have you

overcome this scenario, right?

Maybe not the exact same scenario,

but something very similar.

And if not, Do you recognize

that you are very resourceful in

everything that you've overcome

in your life up until this point?

That you can be quite confident that

you will know what to do at the time.

And so that allows the mind to

rest knowing that actually I

can put my trust in something.

My trust is that I will know how

to deal with it when that moment

arrives that I have to deal with it.

So quite often our thought traps are

planning for something in the future,

which obviously most likely never occurs.

And number three, be okay with,

with bad feelings, with feeling bad.

So one of the biggest things that we

do is that we go to, we kind of resist

the feelings of, don't feel easy about

this, you know, there's something

stressful potentially over the next week.

Or I've got a financial issue, or I've

got a relationship issue, or something

with my kids, or whatever it is.

And that place of being in those

emotions of anxiety and fear

and worry, they don't feel good.

And when we kind of resist them, or go

to war with those symptoms, and again,

those symptoms, are really just there

to tell us, Hey, we're overthinking.

Okay.

That's not about what's

actually going to happen.

Now that's not predicting how

bad our situation is going to be.

It's really a direct communication or a

direct link to where your thinking is at.

So that's what those symptoms are.

It doesn't make sense to try

to go to war with them, right?

To resist them, to try to

fix them, to get rid of them.

Because all that does

is it makes it persist.

Just to share an example, when I go

traveling or if I'm, I'm terrible

in the heat and I need to stop

saying that I'm terrible in the

heat, but I'm not, I'm not in the

past being very good in the heat.

And sometimes when I go traveling, like

last year, I went to Europe and it was

really hot and you know, I would find

myself walking around in the heat.

saying, Oh, it's so hot.

It's so hot.

It's so hot.

It's so hot.

And it's, I don't know why I do it.

I feel like there's a part of me that

does it because I think somehow that's

going to cool me down cause I'm trying to

accept it by saying it to myself so much.

And all it does is it

makes me hotter, right?

To the point where I'm super

sweaty and it's embarrassing.

that situation for me is me trying to

resist The heat that I was feeling, me

trying to resist how hot my body was

getting and it was on my mind, on my

mind, and all I did was overheat my body.

All I did was activate the stress

hormones in the body to increase

my body temperature, increase

perspiration, and do the exact

opposite of what I actually wanted.

So when we resist our symptoms.

They persist, And so if we can

be okay with feeling bad, because

you have to remind yourself, how

many times have you felt bad and

you have overcome them, right?

And if you're listening to this

a hundred percent of the time,

don't go to war with your feelings.

They will pass as soon

as your thinking settles.

And from that place of clarity, you'll

be able to really work through your

challenges with a clear mind and

really tap into your inner resources.

So these are the three things that I.

focus on to really increase your

understanding of how the mind works.

Number one, overthinking

creates overwhelm.

The symptoms that we experience are our

bodies, Just kind of tap on the shoulder,

say, Hey, you're in the red zone.

There's too much going on in your mind.

It's not about what's

happening in your life.

Number two is to escape

the thought traps.

Look at thought traps that you

have, that you catastrophize things,

that the thoughts or the situations

that you can't let go, right?

And really see how in different

scenarios, how you've handled

yourself differently, and how you

can overcome this situation as well.

And number three.

Be okay with bad feelings.

Okay?

They pass, they've all passed

and you will be okay even with

where you're at right now.

let me know what you think and

what really stood out for you and

maybe even what is the thought

trap that you get stuck in.