Build more self-awareness and observation muscle around your own stress. In doing so, you can bring together your own knowing with doing and move into action. Invest in your health today.

This podcast will:

• Walk you through getting in touch with your own strengths, people and resources that can make your life better.
• Help you to identify and acknowledge the stressors in your life.
• Present an inventory that can put your stress into perspective.
• Give you an opportunity to envision a picture of your now and future life balance.
• Promote health, engage your creativity and get you moving.
• Provide some ideas for mitigating stress.

Take this short inventory (described during the podcast) to check in around your stress. This inventory provides one snapshot of presenting stress: Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale

A FEW RESOURCES:

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Stop. Breathe & Think App

Breathing App (Pranayama)

This podcast will:

• Define stress.
• Discuss why our continued conversations about stress are important.
• Identify factors that lead to stress reactions.
• Talk about stress reactions. Fight-or-flight (or freeze).
• Look at the impact of Chronic Stress.
• Focus on your own i nternal map of stress and the intersection of mind, body, brain with your world.
• Help you be the change in stressing it down in your life!

MENTIONED DURING EPISODE 03:

Stress is Killing You!

Tara Brach Meditations and Talks

Diaphragmatic Breathing (Harvard Newsletter)

APPS:

Stop, Breath & Think App

Guided Meditation Music: In a Moment by Lee Rosevere

Things that support calm:

Have a routine with flexibility:

Routines help create foundation and help us to feel more settled because they offer intentional predictability. They anchor us. When we have the awareness that yes, of course things are going to change within those routines, we can better be prepared and available to make adjustments and adapt in those moments.

Attend to things that matter and need your attention. Priorities vs. Noise

Work email, checking social media again and again can get people stirred up. There is so much news right now. It is a good thing to be informed. No doubt about that. When we go down the news and social media rabbit hole, it can feel as though the world is coming to end. It can also feel like everyone else's lives are going great. Social media can often represent the "best of" peoples' lives. It's great to see how friends and family are doing but keep in mind that we all have struggles, monotony and no-so-great days.

Take moments to connect with people:

We are social animals and meant to mingle and be with other people. Our well-being is related to healthy inter-connectedness. It can mean making small talk with an acquantince or listening to someone you're closer to and sharing more of what is going on with you. Think of the last time you felt better after sharing with a person you trust.

Breathe:

Deep breaths and diaphragmatic breathing engages the part of the nervous system connected to calm. More intentional breathing can go a long way.

Meditation:

Guided. On your own. It can create calm in the moment and has longer lasting effects for bringing more mindfulness into our lives. Meditation promotes mindfulness. Mindfulness is the thinking about your thinking. When you're able to step back from your anxiety and notice it in a curios way, it has less power. Without internal dialogue, anxiety can just be one big mass of physical and emotional chaos.

Get Support:

If anxiety seems to be getting to be too much, making an appointment to meet with a therapist or psychiatrist who specializes in anxiety. In meeting with a professional, you will be able to share and find some answers and solutions to your anxiety.

Take a break and participate in a guided meditation.

The Walking Dead television series follows the lives of people trying to survive a post-apocolyptic, zombie-ridden world. We follow and witness this cast of characters navigating a world where zombies are predictably dangerous and the living have the potential to help or cause harm. The living are on an ongoing quest for survival and safety. Along the way, they encounter unimaginable traumas within the context of the zombie-plagued and human relationships. The impact of trauma can differ when we look at traumas that involve forces of nature versus the force and harm from other people. So, in the context of this show, what does it mean to be bitten by a zombie versus being "bitten" by a human?

This podcast will look at The Walking Dead through the trauma lens to provide further understanding about the different kinds of trauma, trauma aftermath and healing. Discussion will include information on: Type I and Type II traumas, PTSD, Complex PTSD.

MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST

The Walking Dead

Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman

Private Violence (Documentary)