Hey, Don here with a helpful hint.
One of my favorite ways to listen to podcast is by speeding
them up. It gives me the opportunity to
listen to more of them and to re-listen to my favorite ones.
So, if you find that this podcast goes a little bit slow
for your taste. By all means, turn up the speed.
I listened and overcast personally because I like the
control. It gives me over the speed of
the podcast, all right? Onto the goodies.
Hello, beautiful humans and welcome to the mental Wellness.
Wake up, show a weekly podcast where growth minded creative
people, come to learn, best practices from both spirituality
and psychology that create lasting well-being.
I am your host mental Wellness, expert improvised acting teacher
therapist and Coach, Don McMillan.
Let's get to it. I'm so glad you are here and the
first thing I want to do is I want to thank you for your
patience and tolerance. I know the sound quality of this
podcast, varies a lot. I don't have a bona fide studio.
So I sometimes have to get very creative in order to find both
peace and quiet and I rarely ever actually succeed, but I do
do my best to not have too much overwhelming background noise.
And that can be a challenge. So thank you for bearing with me
with that. The other thing I want to thank
you for is for the feedback in the comments that I get.
I love hearing from you so much, so please continue to reach out
to me. I am at the dawn McMillan on the
socials. Some of my friends have teased
me about being the dawn McMillan but hey there are more of us
than just one. Can you believe it?
It's insane that in a planet of seven and a half billion people.
So Of them would have the same name.
There was this woman, many, many years ago, who did something
called The Grace Lee Project, her name is Grace Lee, and she
went out and tried to meet a bunch of other Grace Lee's.
I think there's some conventions of people who have the same
name. Like, I think there's a
convention for people whose names are Stephen with a pH, and
it's all very much silliness, but all of that to say, thank
you for listening. Thank you for coming back.
Thank you for reaching out to me and to speak about being
rejected. Reached out to I did get some
questions and comments about the burnout episode distress
episode. So what I want to do is I want
to share with you some more practical techniques about how
to deal with stress. There's a great book by the
n'gaa ski sisters called burnout the secret to unlocking, this
dress code. It's really good.
They assembled a decent array of research and put it together in
a bite-sized easily accessible format.
So, I'm going to lean on Framing, because they put it
together in a way that makes it easier for me to just dip in and
share with you. But for your own edification,
you can go out and get the book yourself before are.
Now, I really want to talk about, don't dunk completing the
stress cycle. So when we have more, stimuli
more things coming in and across Ting, or nervous system, then we
can process at the time, it gets stored in Are in our bodies.
It gets stored in our muscle, tissue gets stored in her
nervous response. So it's kind of like, if you
want to think about the alcohol analogy, right?
I believe your liver can process one ounce of alcohol per hour.
So if you limit the amount of alcohol that you were consuming
to one ounce of alcohol per hour, you're not going to get
drunk. But when you consume more than
that, you're going to start to feel Tipsy.
You're going to start to be inebriated or impaired.
It's kind of the same thing with stress, if stress is Get us in
little bite-size, tiny morsels, our nervous system can handle
it. Our coping skills can handle it
and we are fine. Modern Life doesn't work that
way. We are pretty much inundated
with stress, from the time we wake up to the time you go to
bed. So completing the stress cycle
becomes important. It also becomes helpful in
regards to completing the stress cycle of the traumas that we had
in the past and had no way to complete at the time.
We're not going to go into specifics about what that might
look like. You know, your trauma and if you
don't Run, don't walk to go into therapy and figure out ways that
you can unlock those and heal them.
And but for now, let's talk about completing the stress
cycle and one of the best ways to do a tip.
Number one is to shake to literally Shake.
I've talked about this before, and I'm just going to keep
revisiting this because repetition is the mother of
learning and there's really only so many Tools in our toolbox as
biological organisms. So put on Dance music and just
literally Shake It Out animals in the wild do that?
You see a gazelle that gets narrowly escapes Alliance?
Oh, because I was running because I was like, well, I am I
in chases the gazelle because they'll play is dead in order to
escape the clutches of a lion. Eventually the lion goes way the
gazelle literally shakes out. All of those stress hormones
that were produced in having their fight flight or freeze
system activated They complete the cycle.
If the gazelle had outrun the lion instead that stress cycle
would have been completed by the running.
If the gazelle had fought off the lion, much of that stress
cycle would have been completed through the fighting.
So the stress hormones, flood your body for fight or flight.
And if circumstances mean that your other option is to freeze,
it just gets stuck in your body. And even if you do fight or
flight, you still often have more stress stored.
Then you you expelled through, whatever it was that you chose
to do. So, we're all looking around
with cumulative, stress, and literally shaking as one of the
best ways to deal with it. I was at a conference.
And it was just so fantastic because the speaker had put just
put on a set of drums, and it was just, boom, booked tut-tut
like, just as drum beat, and then you just get the drum in
your body. And just said, just shake, like,
literally just bounce and shake, shake your arms.
Shake your hands and just bounce.
Like, you know how little kids at little kid dance, where they
bend their knees and just bought their butts up and down, that's
it just literally shake your body for 2 to 5 minutes will do
wonders for extra credit. You want to have a full-on dance
party. Put on your favorite music and
just bounce around your living room and you will get a sense of
when you're complete. There's a feeling you'll be able
to name it when it happens. But you come home from the end
of the day and you have all the stress if you accumulated from
that day and you have all the stress of you accumulated for
your whole life because you didn't know about this technique
and what can you do? You can dance, you can literally
shake it out. Oh, So let's revisit shaking it
out, that's number one. And then it's also just talk
about again about exercise one of the reasons why exercises so
good for you is this? Yes, it's cardiovascular.
Yes. That helps to, you know, get
your immune system flowing which is so important.
So your muscles Contracting is how the fluid of your immune
system. Your lymph fluid gets moved
through your body. Opening and closing closing your
joints, Contracting and relaxing your muscles.
That's the pump through which lymph gets distributed through
your body so that your glands can expel it and do all of their
processing. So, yes exercise is good for
you, because it gets your heart rate up, it increases your
cardiovascular capabilities, it is the pump.
Your muscles are the pump for your, your immune system.
But and also, it helps you complete the stress.
Cool. There's a whole lot of a lot of
therapies based on this. Absolute complete the stress
cycle. So, if you don't want to
exercise, can you rethink that? And it doesn't have to be
pumping, pumping pumping. You don't have to pumping
anything. It doesn't have to be exercised,
right? It doesn't have to be some sort
of competitive sport where you're trying to impress.
People doesn't have to be about weight loss.
It doesn't have to be about bulking up.
It doesn't have to be about anything.
It has to be your choice and one of the motivations for it really
is To get the stress that you have been accumulating out of
your body. So walk run, Shake dance box.
Lift tap dance, this will kind of dancing the row swim move
your body just do it, do your half an hour a day 10 minutes at
a time if you want put a timer on your phone I use a stand-up
app and if once an hour you got up and you shook it out for 2
minutes, you would do wonders to discharge the stress that you
just Accumulated. So, completing the stress cycle
is important because you're going to get more.
If you don't complete the stress cycle, you're going to have more
added on to that pile. We've all heard at least in
American English, there's a phrase about the straw straw
that broke the camel's back. It's what happens when, you
know, you give someone a 7-Up instead of a Sprite and they
just chop your head off. Yeah, that's someone that was
the straw that broke the camel's back because the all of the
daily stresses have been piling on moving your body removes the
straw off, your back, takes the monkey off your back, the straw
off the camel, fill in your analogy.
So if you're not moving your body on a daily basis, please
reconsider. So for people who have certain
Mobility concerns, there is an option for you.
You don't have to be the one move.
Your body, someone else can shake you.
Someone else can move you around.
You can even use like a vibrating device to stimulate
muscle, contractions like a TENS unit, like people use for shin
splints, it's this little muscle thing.
Chiropractors use editing some massage therapists use it so
since he's little electric shock in your muscles and it causes
them to Twitch, you can use that.
You don't have to move your body under your own power.
Its preferred but not necessary. So if you have certain Cooler or
joint issues that make it hard for you to flop yourself around.
You can get a TENS unit and get your muscles to contract with
that. You can use a vibrating machine
to vibrate your body in some way and I know what you're thinking,
stop it. Or you can also get some massage
that moves your body around. There's a modality that I was
trained in and I really love and I don't know why, I don't do
called sensory rip patterning, and it really Is a sense where
your massage therapist or protect practitioner, like, lift
your joints and just oscillate them and you oscillate the body.
So you have someone else's just gently oscillating.
You and that's another way to get this stress cycle completed.
And I'm sorry for being so repetitive, but you got to move
your body or you got to get someone else to Move Your Body,
Move Your Body. The stress is stored in your
body. Your body is the key to getting
it out. And if you don't want to do that
or you can't, that's not available to you.
Progressive muscle, tensing is a miracle.
So the idea is to contract and release your muscles.
You can do that manually. So, if you know or sense or
imagine or intend to, for example, tense, your right arm
as hard as you can. And just hold it, hold it, hold
it, hold it, hold it, hold it. And then release it.
You can complete the stress cycle in that way.
So you can just start with your scalp, your toes, whatever.
And just clench clench, clench clench, clench, clench, clench
clench clench hold. Hold hold hold hold.
And the relax them, and you're going to be completing the
stress cycle. So stress is not bigger than you
are. Not really, you are more
powerful than your stress, and it is so important to complete
your stress cycle. Stress is making us sick, stress
is making as cranky. Stress is ruining our
relationships because if you are stressed out, are you the most
patient person on the planet? Are you giving people the
benefit of the doubt? Are you cheerful and easy to be
around? You are not stress, is making us
eat. My most listened to podcast is
the one called how to stop overeating.
Okay, there's a lot to that, but I think one of it is one piece
of that. Is that we a lot of us
especially since the pandemic had no place to put all of this
stress and food gives you. Pleasure gives your body
something to do and it's one way of kind of completing the stress
cycle. It doesn't work as well as these
other things but there's a natural reason why we would seek
out comfort and food is comforting so stress.
That is not managed is because it's bad for you stress.
That is not managed, is bad for you.
So my invitation is to complete the stress.
Cycle dance, Shake, move oscillate.
Do Progressive tension, but your body is the key.
The stress is in your body. Your body is the key to release
it. Yes.
I believe in the power of the mind.
Yes, I believe in the spirit. Yes, there are other techniques
that help but and also Let's use the tools available to us
because your body is the one, having the stress more than your
mind, your mind does plenty. Don't get me wrong.
You know, this But ultimately, all of that freezing, all of
that fight that doesn't get completed all of that.
I couldn't run away is locked into your nervous system.
So, there you go. Complete the stress cycle.
Move your body every day. Yeah.
That doesn't mean you have to
go, you know, get on the StairMaster every day but it
does mean. You know, just give yourself
that gift. Maybe even be like ridiculous
and you get out of the car and before you make it all the way
into the house. You have a little dance party in
the garage to people parking garages.
Most people don't most people. I know their garage For the
stuff you get my point. I know I'm just hammering this
home and now I'm repeating myself.
Complete the stress cycle, Your Body Mind and Spirit will, thank
you. So, right now, just to give a
little sample of that, I'm going to invite you to do, just a
little tiny version of that. So with me right now, I want you
to squeeze your shoulders, towards your ears, as hard as it
will go, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze squeeze, put as
much tension in your shoulders as you.
Oblique and we're squeezing squeezing we're squeezing we're
squeezing. Oh my goodness this is
uncomfortable I don't like it it hurts keep squeezing squeezing
squeezing squeezing squeezing squeezing squeezing squeezing
and drop it just allow gravity to drop your shoulders as far
away from your ears as it wants to go.
Tada, we took a step toward completing and releasing the
stress cycle for today. Alright.
You gorgeous human you. I hope that answers some of the
questions you asked, and I adore you.
Thank you for listening. Do you adore?
You, you kind of should because you're amazing.
You really are. You're darn right.
Fabulous and do you right here right now.
You are whole. You are perfect.
You are complete. You are worthy and deserving of
all the good things. Until next time.
I am so honored that you share time with me.
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