Become More Adaptable to Stress With These Tips

Darwin’s Theory ‘survival of the fittest’ has be so overused and misunderstood it is really quite dangerous. When we think of it, we often imagine that the strongest person, going at it alone is the one that will survive. This is not true, think about the penguins for a minute, within every colony there will be one penguin who is bigger, faster, and stronger than the rest, and during the summer they may catch more fish and win. However, when the winter comes, if they continued that way would they survive? Of course not. To survive the harsh winter, penguins must change what they are doing, they have to ‘adapt’ and huddle together.

You see, Darwin’s Theory really states, the organism or community best adapted to it’s environment is the one that survives.

I start with this as an introduction to a way of thinking differently when it comes to stress. Too often we either try to put our big girl or big boy pants on and carry on, or we focus on the problem, talk about it and never really do anything about it.

What serves us better is cultivating and building a body that can adapt to the stress.

To give a simple overview, stress is not just emotional. Stress is something damaging to the human body and if sustained for a long period will make us sick. Stress comes to us in three forms.

1. Physical
2. Chemical
3. Emotional

To become an organism that can adapt, we need to think about actions daily that improve our physical, chemical, and emotional wellbeing. Build a level of resilience so that when stress comes, and it will come. We can better adapt.

Here are my TOP TIPS for becoming more adaptable to stress:

1. Move
The biggest stress our body has physically is a lack of movement, more than any crash bump or scrape. Lack of movement will make you sick.
Now the added benefit here is that when you move, it lights up the brain and stimulates happy hormone release. So, if you are caught in a funk physical or emotionally, force yourself to move! Stand up and walk.
A 10 to 30 minute walk each day is my top tip here.

2. Keep the treats a treat
I have given you enough information over the years on what is good and what is bad for your nutrition, chemical stress being those bad food choices.
But what I want to remind you here is that we will of course have bad food again at some point, but if we are not consistently good, that poor food will become very damaging over time.
Keep the treats rare and not regular.

3. Gratitude
It is hard to manage emotional stress especially when you are caught in the middle of it. But the practice of gratitude first thing in the morning and last thing at night is the most effective way to build a muscle of emotional adaptability.
Start and end each day thinking about 3 things you are grateful for.

So, there you have it, simple tips but effective.

Build them into your routine today so that when the tough times come, like the winter did for the penguins. You can adapt.

With love

Tom