The Impact of Stress on Spiritual Wellness
Spiritual Wellness is the concept of buying into and subscribing to something beyond ourselves. Spiritual wellness can be completely independent of religion. Spirituality can be religion but religion equally can be completely unspiritual.
When we are stressed, we can often enter autopilot mode, leaving us disconnected and distant from our spiritual purpose. There are several ways of grounding ourselves to reaffirm and in some cases, redefine our spiritual purpose.
Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation and mindfulness can be incredibly useful in reducing stress and allowing you to connect with your inner self. Engaging your mind and body can help you find direction, focus your thoughts and increase resilience. Once in the habit of listening to your body, it becomes easier to identify emotions, desires and gut instincts.
An easy way to introduce yourself to meditation is by exploring simple breathing exercises. These can then be extended and altered as you become more familiar with the practice.
Be a Master of Your Time
Time management is very important for handling stress and ensuring that you are able to focus your energy on what is important to you. Being efficient with your time will put you back in control of your life, helping to get the most out of your days and maximise your time.
There are a few different techniques which can help when managing your time:
- Better planning
- Better prioritising
- Delegating tasks to others
- Controlling your environment
- Understanding yourself and identifying what you will change about your habits, routines and attitude.
Make the most of your time by listing tasks that you have to do and being realistic about how long each one is going to take you. Make sure that you account for breaks during the day, such as making a coffee or having lunch. Planning time successfully defeats the challenge of unrealistic expectations which can lead to stress, burnout and exhaustion. Order your tasks based on priority, making note of urgent projects and upcoming deadlines.
Stress Awareness Week 2020
Over the past few days, we have explored the impact of stress using the Five Elements of Wellbeing: Mental, Emotional, Physical, Social and Spiritual. Although Stress Awareness Week has come to an end, we want to make sure that you continue to prioritise your wellbeing and manage stress moving forward.
The tips and techniques that we’re discussed over the past 5 days are from the ‘The 10-Step Stress Solution’ written by our founder and Chief De-Stressing Officer, Neil Shah.
Step 1 – Prioritizing your health
Step 2 – Get a good nights sleep
Step 3 – Practice deep breathing
Step 4 – Stay Hydrated
Step 5 – Eat for wellbeing and NOT for stress
Step 6 – Get moving to combat stress
Step 7 – Adopt a positive mindset
Step 8 – Be the master of your time
Step 9 – Don’t be a slave to technology – master it
Step 10 – Putting the 10-step stress solution into action
If you would like to read more on these chapters and purchase Neil’s stress-busting book then follow the link below.
Alternatively, if you would like to take part in our interactive wellbeing sessions, hosted via the research and consultancy arm of The Stress Management Society, International Wellbeing Insights, please follow the link below.
If you missed our previous articles about Mental, Emotional, Physical Wellbeing and Social Wellbeing follow the links below.
