 In a recent FAC post, we explored what stress is and how it differs from anxiety, with specific mindfulness-based approaches for managing food allergy-related stress. But there's no one perfect way to manage stress! It's important for everyone to find strategies that work specifically for them - and this takes trial and error to determine. Therefore, in an effort to help you better understand your own stress and decide which stress management tools to put in your toolbox, this post offers a variety of videos with different strategies for you to consider. Additionally, it includes skills to teach your kiddos and share with your teens so they also learn how to cope with stress, too! (While these aren't allergy-specific, they will help with allergy-related stress...and are useful in other areas of life as well). Stress Management Skills for Kids
Stress Management Skills for Teens
Stress Management Skills for Adults
Stress Management For Parents & Families
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As we welcome 2023, let's set some mindful intentions for the year. Let's focus on finding practical ways to effectively manage the stress and anxiety we may feel related to living with food allergies and allergic diseases. And The Food Allergy Counselor is here to help you do just that with all of its resources!  Image by 1388843 from Pixabay What Exactly is Stress? According to the American Psychological Association, “Stress is a normal reaction to everyday pressures, but can become unhealthy when it upsets your day-to-day functioning. Stress involves changes affecting nearly every system of the body, influencing how people feel and behave.” Simply put, stress is how we feel and/or react when under pressure or threatened. It’s an emotional and physical response to a thought, feeling or situation, and with it often comes tension and a feeling that we don’t have the ability to manage the stress (or stressor causing the stress). All the way back to the cavemen days, humans have experienced this automatic response to help the body/mind kick into gear to act quickly while seeking out safety/protection. (That's the fight-flight-freeze response). But the typical daily threats we experience today, such as bills and deadlines, don't require such a strong stress response. Therefore, our body's natural "alarm system" sometimes over-functions, leading us to stay stuck in the stress cycle. Physically, stress can show up by causing headaches, digestive issues, high blood pressure, fatigue, problems with sleep, etc. Emotionally, it can give way to irritability, anger, worry, increased anxiety and depression, and even panic. Am I Feeling Stress or Anxiety? It's common to confuse stress and anxiety. After all, both are emotional responses, and they often show up hand-in-hand! But here are the differences to help you determine when you're experiencing stress and when you're experiencing anxiety. Stress:
Anxiety:
 Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay What Can We Do About Stress? The truth is we've all felt stress - we navigate through it each day! Paying the bills, making tough daily decisions, navigating childcare, etc. Some stress we're better at managing, while some feels like a constant struggle to regain balance from. Therefore, it's helpful to recognize the stress triggers you're not navigating well. Becoming aware of them and acknowledging the need for more effective strategies is a great place to start! The key is finding workable ways to manage stress when it does impact your functioning. Therefore, whatever works to help you release the emotional and physical tension should be a tool in your stress management toolkit! This may include physical releases such as movement, walking and exercise. It could include feel-good things such as laughing and connecting with others/friends. Deep breathing, stretching and mindfulness exercises can be useful, too. It’s also helpful to regulate sleeping and eating patterns, as our mind and body are better able to handle stress when rested and fueled. How Can We Manage the Ongoing Stress of Food Allergy? For many, food allergy and allergic diseases likely fit into the category of an ongoing stressor, causing chronic stress. While that may be the case, we can still approach the stress in a way that makes it feel more manageable. Here are some tips for making allergy-related stress more manageable:
Final Thoughts.... Stress is part of life, so learning how to effectively navigate it and manage it well is crucial. Living with food allergy and allergic diseases does add more stress, but even so, we can still find workable ways to deal with it. Start by taking inventory of your biggest stressors, and an honest look at the stress management tools you use (or don't use, but likely should be using). Commit to trying one new approach to managing your stress over the next week, and then reflect on how it impacted your physical and emotional stress levels. You can do this! want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails! And don't forget about ALL of The FAC resources here to support you!
Did you know that you can use the perspective of time to help you decide how deeply to engage with an unhelpful or uncomfortable thought, feeling or decision, and that time can help you look at things from a different point of view?  Here's how to use the 5x5 rule to help you gain space between yourself and unhelpful or stressful thoughts and decisions.... Start by asking yourself:
Asking yourself these questions helps gain perspective on how important the thought you're having or decision you're struggling with is - just how much impact it will truly have on your life. Something that's pretty minor (even though it's stressing you out currently) likely won't matter to you 5 days, 5 weeks, or 5 years from now. In that case, give yourself 5 minutes to think about it. In that time, you're going to allow yourself to connect with all the thoughts and feelings you're having, and then once that 5 minutes is over, you'll make a decision that will help you move forward, and/or remind yourself that you're done thinking about that topic because it's not worth more of your energy. If what you're anxious or stressed about is a more major decision that might matter to you in 5 weeks or 5 years from now, then it's appropriate to feel more stressed and anxious about it. In that case, give yourself a specific amount of time to think about it, but then set it aside and come back to it at another point in the future. By doing this, it allows you to take a break from it, but commit to revisiting it at a time when you may be able to process it differently. Here's another approach for using the 5x5 rule.... Ask yourself:
Maybe you're stressed about all of the allergy-safe cooking you have to do for the week ahead. Yes, that may still feel stressful in 5 hours, but will you see it differently in 5 days? Probably! You'll likely feel BETTER in 5 days because you prepared meals today! In that case, remind yourself that you'll be able to see this as helpful once you're removed from the situation, so don't spend too much time overly-engaged in the stress you're currently feeling. When you asked yourself these questions, also think about the following...
Looking for videos on perspective-taking approaches to help build these skills for your anxiety and stress management toolkit (allergy-related or otherwise)? Check these videos out:
want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
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