Understand stress and get the tools to avoid it in the future
It can be difficult to understand and acknowledge that one, no matter how strong, can be affected by stress.
We live in a culture where we are expected to “handle it all.”
But stress moves in with too many of us. Why?
It is a state of strain where your body’s alarm system is overactive.
Most people experience periods of stress and manage to cope.
However, if you don’t have enough time to recover between high-pressure situations, or the tools to regain balance, stress can become a chronic condition that affects both your personal and professional life.
Are you also afraid to start reading about stress?
It’s difficult to find a website or book about stress that doesn’t list all the horrors of stress:
The problem is that if you start reading about stress, it’s because you’re afraid that you might have it – and reading about all the terrible things only further fuels the stress, increasing anxiety and worsening the stress itself.
This will become the never-ending spiral.
That’s why I wrote the book “Frøen i gryden”, “The Frog in the Pot”, which you can safely read without being scared, because none of the terrible things are included.
Instead it offers you the illustrated evidence based explanations and tools to stay balanced.
From the book:
The secret to stress treatment: We are going to play Risk
Are you familiar with the board game Risk?
It’s essentially about conquering the world.
Fundamentally, your body has a red system, a green system, and a blue system:
Cortisol is the red enemy. Oxytocin is our green commander. The red soldiers have too much control over your world map – let’s create some more green ones!
The Threat System:
The red system revs up and prepares your body for fight or flight. When you’re stressed, the red system pumps adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol throughout your body.
These hormones keep you on your toes, ready to run or fight, and your thinking narrows down, automatically scanning for anything potentially dangerous.
The Saftety System:
The green system is responsible for helping you relax. It brings your body back down to earth by releasing oxytocin and endorphins.
When you predominantly activate the Soothing System, you’re able to feel the things that make you happy and recognize what is right and important for you. Your thinking expands, and you can see options for action while experiencing balance and energy.
The Drive:
You also have a system that motivates you. It’s essentially neutral, but many of us don’t take the time to assess what is truly important for us to pursue. As a result, we often chase after the wrong “medals.”
Ideally, the systems are balanced.
However, many of us spend a significant amount of time in either the Threat System or Drive, and we don’t always transition into the Soothing System for a long enough period to restore balance.
When you’re stressed, the red system takes over.
What to do if stress has moved in?
We react to stress based on our genetics, environment, and “rules for living.”
Therefore, the symptoms and causes can vary greatly from person to person.
Your body’s mechanisms are the same, whether the stress is due to poor workplace conditions, a divorce, the death of a loved one, illness, a traumatic experience, or simply prolonged overload, regardless of whether there was a specific triggering cause that you are aware of.
Because stress leaves such physical imprints, you have to consider both the body and mind.
Mindfulness is essentially about being present in the here and now, without judging or evaluating your experiences.
It may sound simple, but it’s one of the most challenging things you can be asked to do.
Researchers at Harvard found that 47% of our lives, we are mentally somewhere else than where we physically are.
It’s quite unfortunate to have spent 14 days in Barbados and only been fully present for half of that time…
The purpose of Mindfulness is essentially to savor life more fully. Besides getting more out of the things you already do, Mindfulness can enable you to handle unpleasant situations and change your relationship with your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations.
Mindfulness can be used to address various issues, including:
- Stress – both positive and negative stress
- Sleep problems
- Memory issues
- Acceptance of challenging life circumstances
- Low self-esteem
- Social anxiety
- Racing or intrusive thoughts
- Pain management
Mindfulness is a tool to move your focus from your thoughts to something you can see, hear, count, sense ect.
This calms your nervous system and gives you a time-out in your head.
Mindfulness helps you to:
- Increase presence and awareness in daily life.
- Enhance judgment and decision-making.
- Cultivate self-awareness and self-compassion.
- Cope with difficult emotions, thoughts, anxiety, depression, and insecurity.
- Foster self-care, healing, and personal development.
- Gain better control over your thoughts, reactions, and actions.
- Prevent and address stress-related disorders, both physical and mental.
- Create clarity and organization in your life.
- Embrace reality as it is.
- Develop inner peace, joy, and resilience.
Feedback from 1:1 with clients
“I have also needed therapy over the years, and I found support in Mette. She has a unique ability to approach things in a strong professional manner, so that the victim role, guilt/shame, anger, and despair become anchored within you as a strong force.
She has the skill to help you reposition people you struggle with in your system, so that they are on the periphery, but you have the power to decide where and in what way. Use her, use her.”
Female client, written on Facebook
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“You are the best investment in my life. I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”
Male client
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“I have discovered that self-worth is connected to anxiety – if you think poorly of yourself, you believe that others do the same… I have learned to ask when I doubt what people mean by what they say. My ‘don’t care’ box has become big, and I now automatically focus more on the things that make me happy. I have learned to distinguish between what I think I can’t do and what I actually want to do.”
Female client
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“Dear Mette.
Your conversations and my journey with you have given me tools to completely overcome my binge eating! I have learned to find joy and self-worth when it starts to decline through your values lists, thought strategies, and meditation, and by recalling our conversations and everything you have taught me. I have found a wonderful partner whom I have learned to communicate with about both the good and the less good things. And most importantly, to stay true to myself! I have truly struggled since I was 12 years old when I was hit by an eating disorder—a battle that has required various types of conversations, therapy, tears, and tough years. It has been filled with ups and downs, but everything I have been through has been necessary to get to where I am today.
I am so grateful that it was your website, and you who answered the phone when I needed it the most. YOU gave me the final push on that journey, and for the first time since then, I feel free, free and ready to live life! This summer, I completed my education. Everything is going smoothly. I am both happy, sad, upset, angry, and happy, but I feel it all and embrace whatever comes. I am truly living life now! THANK YOU, thank you for being you.”
Female client
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“Dear Mette,
I just want to wish you a very Merry Christmas. It dawned on me yesterday that it’s already been 6 months since I last visited you… So much has happened, and things are going well – with ups and downs, but I’m using all the tools you taught me. You are my lifeline, and it’s comforting to have you in my corner.”
Former client
Want to know how I have helped companies with stressprevention?
Stress prevention can be done in a language that everybody can relate to.
Feedback from e.g. Vestas:
“Thank you for a razor-sharp presentation and great tools for bringing the conversation about stress to the table before it hits. Mette B. Lorenzen engages and puts herself into play when prevention is on the agenda.
As one colleague put it: “Wasn’t sure if I wanted to attend, because I didn’t want to see more mechanical slides and statistics about stress, but Mette’s presentation captured me, was present and offered practical tools served in an easily digestible way.”
I can recommend speaking with Mette B. Lorenzen if it has to do with stress and stress prevention.”
Jakob Herbert Pedersen Director, Global Manufacturing, Vestas