We all have a stress bucket. An amount of stress that we can handle and when the bucket is full we feel uncomfortable, agitated and want to quit.
Stress has two functions:
Motivation
And
Preservation.
Stress is designed to get you moving and stress is there to make you quit before it all gets too much.
5 ways to empty your stress bucket
1. Stop procrastinating. When something needs to be done, do it now and do it properly. Having a task looming over your head is a rock in your stress bucket. Just get it done.
2. Notice small wins. We go through our day with a full stress bucket and never take the time to acknowledge that we are making progress. The dopamine from accomplishing something will decrease the level in your stress bucket.
3. Habit stack. Attaching the thing you HAVE to do to the thing you WANT to do will get more things done and give you more enjoyment doing them. I have to do some exercise and I want to listen to my new audiobook. Stack them.
4. Learn to RESET. When computers are overloaded we press Control – ALT – Delete. Overloaded humans are the same. Ask yourself “what CAN I Control? What should I change (ALT) and what must I delete? This three part RESET will empty your stress bucket.
5. Choose your story. We are all making up stories to explain the world and our place in it. If you are going to make up stories, make up stories that help. By catching harmful self-talk we can rewrite the narrative.
“RESET: Choose your story” is about changing the stories we tell ourselves and making our self talk a positive force.
Other things that may help
Practical wellness
Practical wellness exercises are things that we can do that keep us in that zone longer. Exercise, sleep, meditation, walking in nature are all things that will help keep us between the motivation and preservation cutoffs.
Do the meditation, not because there is something wrong with you and you aren’t coping. Do the meditation because you like it and it makes you feel good. Meditation helps you think better and creates some room in your bucket. A walk on the beach or through the forrest is a great way to decrease your stress levels and increase your ability to keep going. Great, so, how do we look at the walk? Do we look at it as “I’m stressed and have to go for a walk”? This type of thinking will reinforce the identity that being stressed is bad and the walk will often result in us thinking about all the things that are stones in our stress bucket. What if we went for a walk because we like going for walks? What if we take in the smells and sights in the forrest and find some joy there?
My view on practical wellness is that we treat acts of self love: meditation, sleep, yoga, breathing exercises, walks as a means to an end. Something we do so that we can fix part of us that isn’t working as well as it should. I’m too stressed, I have to do some yoga. The yoga becomes a means to an ends (being less stressed) and we will only do it when we are getting too uncomfortable with the agitated feeling that comes with overload.
What if we looked at practical wellness as things that we do because we like doing them? What if the means and the ends were the same?
“I feel that our progress towards the goal will be in exact proportion to the purity of our means.”- Ghandi.
The best way to decrease your stress hormones is to make progress and notice that you are making progress.
If you would like to investigate running a RESET program in your school or workplace contact Luke Mathers at luke at lukemathers.com.au
About the Book
“RESET- Choose your story” is a short book written as a parable which is an easy read that is packed full with a lot of great life lessons. Written from the perspective of two characters, RESET centres on the stories of Amy, who is returning to grade 12 after losing her best friend who died, and Zac who is popular but is struggling with a lack of motivation, stress, loneliness and is turning to drugs.
The book is co-written by Ally Shorter, a 2020-year 12 graduate who draws on her personal experience of losing a close friend to suicide in 2018 to help frame the story of “Amy”.
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