What is microstress?

Do you suffer from chronic stress or burnout, but struggle to pinpoint what's causing it?

Feel constantly tense, but can't identify why? 

It might be that you're suffering from micro stress-if so this article is for you!!

Micro stress is a fairly recent concept, it affects the body the same as major obvious stresses, but can be far harder to recognise.

While it can be challenging to do so, knowing where the stress is coming from helps our brain process it, and helps us take a structured approach to dealing with it.

With large stresses (ie trauma, natural disasters, illness) the stress arrives all at once and is easy to identify

Whereas with microstress, it's the multiple small stresses that occur constantly in our day to day lives and have a cumulative effect- often we don't even realise they're there, but just feel 'on edge'.

Microstresses are thought to lie behind much of the burnout and chronic stress that's occurring in society, and have two challenges :

✔️they're much harder to identify, as they aren't always obvious

✔️they don't tend to trigger the same level of support from others, or asking for help that larger stress do, meaning we feel like we ‘should be able to manage ‘, even though their cumulative effect can be just as important.

The end result of this can leave us feeling exhausted, isolated, overwhelmed, and tense.

Symptoms such as being ‘tired but wired ‘, struggling to switch off our brain, feeling tired no matter how much sleep we get, having intense food cravings for salty, sweet or high carb foods, or getting sick all the time are common symptoms of microstress. Even things like a racing heart, chest pains, reflux, headaches or diarrhoea and tummy cramps can also be symptoms of microstress!

Fortunately, there are also some great strategies that can really help 

The first step is  identifying where your stresses are coming from

✔️Try sit down and think through your day, then write down each time you think of something that makes you feel tense or stressed

✔️This can help quantify and identify them

✔️If you aren't sure, think of how your body feels when stressed, then think of what day to day situations trigger this feeling

Next, divide this list into what stressors are fixed (ie kids, work pressure, mortgage) vs which are flexible (ie social media use, rushed schedule, lack of sleep, not getting enough excerise, social commitments etc)

Then think of ways that you can reduce the flexible stresses. Things like:

✔️prioritising sleep

✔️getting up 5 min earlier to have more time in the morning

✔️leaving your phone and computer switched for the first 30-60 min after you wake, and instead taking time to read, have a cup of tea, meditate or stretch

✔️changing your commute to spend less time in traffic, avoid areas that trigger stress, or be more active

✔️getting outside in your lunch break to get some fresh air and exercise, and taking time to enjoy lunch rather than eating at your desk,

✔️having regular screen free times etc during the day and replacing these with activities that ‘turn down’ your stress response (ie exercise, listening to music, journalling, reading, meditation etc)

✔️learning to say no to non essential things that you don't enjoy to reduce time pressure

✔️being kind to yourself, and not trying to do too much (or be everything to everyone)

✔️limit multi-tasking (am incredibly common source of micro stress, as its very hard work for our brain to constantly attention switch)

Lastly, think of ways you you can increase resilience to fixed stresses. These are things that improve our nervous systems ability to cope with stress - think of them like a muscle to exercise, as the more often you do them, the greater your stress resilience will be.

Some evidence based ways include:

✔️taking ‘micro moments’ during the day to slow down, take a deep breath, and pay attention to how you feel in your body. Great times to do this include making a cup of tea or coffee, going to the bathroom, washing your hands, or in your morning/afternoon tea breaks.

✔️practicing some deep breathing techniques whenever you feel stressed, we've got some great ones in our movement and mind section

✔️journalling and gratitude practicing (regularly writing down things you're grateful for)..

✔️time in nature

✔️exercise (often gentle restorative exercise is better if you're exhausted ie walks on the beach, yin yoga, slow swimming etc)

✔️flow state (activities where you get absorbed in the activity and switch off your ‘thinking mind’ ie dance, playing music, art, crafting

✔️mindfulness and meditation (check out our videos in the movement and mind section)

✔️physical touch ie massage

Above all be kind to yourself - often in our society there is so much pressure to do everything right all the time, this creates stress in itself!

You aren't a failure if you need to take some time and space for yourself, or step back from some commitments - you only live once ❤️