How To Transform Stress Into Opportunity
Last month, Dr Jeremy Alford was one of the speakers at a 3 day educational experience on ‘Performance Optimization for Your Life’, based at Nirvana Strength, Canggu Bali.
The event aimed to explore how wellness can be defined into two categories. One which focuses on our active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health, and one that looks at things on a more medical basis.
By exploring individual topics related to wellness, Nirvana Strength hopes to be able to educate attendees to focus on a wellness paradigm that maintains and improves health, but also leads to a more optimal state of being.
In his talk, Dr Jeremy Alford explored the physical impact of stress on the body, and how to foster what is usually seen as a negative emotion into opportunity.
So why is it important to view stress in this way?
Well, stress can actually be used as a stepping stone to turn negative energy in the mind and body into something both positive and useful in our lives.
Heightened periods of stress cause our body to go into ‘fight or flight’ mode, and whilst ones initial reaction may be to force yourself to relax when experiencing this, it is actually better not to force it. Trying to relax when you are in fact stressed, ultimately just leads to further pent up stress!
Instead, you should learn to accept stress. Rather than see it as ‘negative’ energy see it as a creative one- an energy you can turn into something useful. Stress is your bodies way of responding to a situation that it is unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. Accepting this will reduce feelings of anxiety or panic.
How you channel stress is different for every individual- but exercise often helps. If you can’t sleep for example, light exercise such as a walk or yoga can help. Similarly, creative activities such as writing in a journal or meditation can actually cause relaxation to happen naturally without having to force it.
Changing your mentality towards stress isn’t easy, and takes practice. But you will find once your relationship towards stress changes, it becomes something less controlling over your life and something to utilise in a positive way. Try not to see it as a bad thing that needs to be eradicated, as this is just putting extra pressure on yourself to feel and deal with situations a certain way.
Instead, see stress as an opportunity or an energy in the body, and take the steps to channel this. This will encourage that natural relaxation mentioned earlier and provide a much deeper and rejuvenating experience. Not to mention having a much more positive impact on your life!
One final thought: Have you ever thought how empowering stress can be? Where there’s stress, there’s room for growth. As long as you push through these feelings, learning to accept them along the way, you have the opportunity to convert the energy into focus. Do this, and you can expect to see positive lifestyle changes.
Dr Jeremy Alford’s Choices Personalized Retreats Program can provide you with an effective program and the essential strategies you need to cope with life’s uncertainties in a more flexible and adaptable way. You can choose to have your program through Online Sessions or in person in Bali.
Contact us for more information.
Read more about our personalized program for stress here.
