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Hey, welcome back to another episode of The YouSchool podcast, one of the things that we've been focusing on is equipping educators, teachers in the classroom coaches, anybody that works with kids in an education scenario, to have the competencies that they need the understanding that they need to be able to work with kids well, and model and demonstrate the kind of life that can be lived, that's attainable, it's accessible. And therefore, about a year ago, we started this series called thriving teachers, it was short micro lessons given to teachers across different school campuses and districts, resources for them to think through what they need in order to thrive in order to be able to be more engaged, more present, more thoughtful, and ultimately how to model a life will live to kids. So one of those modules we're going to share with you now, it's a short eight minute, deep dive into stress management. Why is that important? It's one of the critical questions that we ask, and we believe that every single kid needs to be able to answer in order to live a meaningful life. And that question, is this what grounds you? What grounds you what when you are disoriented when you're overwhelmed, when you're feeling stressed? Or attacked? Or under threat? What do you do to number one, understand that to understand what's happening to you, self awareness, diagnose what the problem is. And then secondly, to manage that to self management, prescribe a response that will help you come back to your senses, and ground yourself. So I think this is one of if you're listening, one of the conversations, that you're gonna want to take notes, there's a lot of content, it's only eight minutes or so, but the content is rich, it's applicable, it's relevant. It's something that you could take and use in your life, whether you're a parent, coach, teacher, and educator, or if you're a kid, listen to this, this, these are I call them life hacks, life tips that you can use anywhere, anytime. So welcome to your school podcast. Now, I'm going to introduce you to this module on stress management. Because this is all about you thriving in your life, personally, professionally, so you have all the capacity you need to make the kind of impact we hope you'll make and you hope you'll make on kids in your life students in your life. This one, we're talking about stress, are you experiencing a little stress these days? I know I am. Stress is a part of life. It comes from stressors. These are things on the outside, generally out of our control, not all the time, but generally out of our control. That could be external things, happenings, events, they could also be kind of non events, not happenings. For example, not getting your paycheck when you expect it to that's a non event. That's now a stressor can be an external thing, and also be an internal thing a sense inside that I don't have what it takes, or I've done something that I should be ashamed of these things externally internally cause us to have a stress response. And stress is it's a biological response triggered by a perceived threat or danger. And it's designed to help you escape stress is actually good. from a physical standpoint and a biological standpoint. The problem though, is when it becomes chronic stress, that's not good. That leads to what we would call burnout. And a lot of the content for this learning module comes from a book called burnout. And burnout is a physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stressed. It's when you're just out of resources, you're done.
The biological response. Let's dig into that a little bit. Because it's important to understand the stress cycle starts by releasing this hormone epinephrine. When you experience a threat or danger perceive it that way. Your body kicks into something and it starts producing a chemical instantly called epinephrine. And it pushes blood. This is what it does. It's designed to push blood into your muscles so that your blood pressure goes up, your heart rate goes up your muscles tense and your breathing quickens. Meanwhile, so and this is all designed so you can get out of here. So go to make sure you can haul blank away. And this is a quote by the way for the book from that theoretical charging Rhino, which could be a boss, a colleague, a parent, student, mother in law can be anything. Other bodily functions like growth, digestion, reproduction and immunity. Or I'll slow down. Look at digestion just for a second. Some people when they have this stress response Because digestion kind of turns off that process. Some people just would say, I'm not hungry anymore. I know I'm not hungry and they lose weight. Other people have a habit when they have the uncomfortable feelings of stress. They've they've learned, it's kind of like a cue to a habit to go eat something particularly sugary or high in carbs. And it'll give you a quick dopamine hit, doesn't resolve the issue. And because you're dead digestions down, and kind of offline, people during stressful seasons will often report gaining a lot of weight, which makes sense. If the emotion of stress never ends, the danger is clear. This is what chronic stress does to someone. without resolving the stress cycle, your body will end up with chronic high blood pressure and a corresponding higher risk of heart disease nakid. And due to its compromised immune system and digestive systems, your body won't heal as quickly as it would normally. And you'll be at a higher risk of a number of illnesses, digestion related illnesses, it's not good. We also know that when your body is going through the stress response, there's a part of your brain that turns off, it goes offline, it's your executive functioning. This is where your thinking comes from. This is where your values, your morality, your philosophy about life and a worldview. That's where all that stuff happens. And we're not able to think out of our best highest selves, really, we go to default to a fight or flight or freeze response, which is unhelpful. How are you supposed to think clearly, manage complexity, help other people, process complex information, be creative, draw upon other resources, connect dots and integrate patterns and things you've you're seeing? How are you expected or even able to do that, when you're going through the stress response, this is why it's so important. It's not just a biological thing that happens to you, it affects your job, it affects your relationships. When we're stressed, we snap at the people that we're safest with, we shut down. So this is all not good. What we're trying to get to you is this kind of supernatural ability almost to be able to diagnose what the issue is, okay, I'm experiencing stress. And the stressors I'm experiencing are so the ability to diagnose what the issue is. And then prescribe a response, and emotional intelligence framework or social emotional learning, we call that self awareness, and self management. I know what's going on, and I know what to do to respond. This is what you and I need to model healthy adulthood. To deal with the complexity of our lives, this is also a kids need. And if kids don't see this model than the adults in their lives, it can be really, really, really tricky for them to ever grow into this. So you see why this is so important. There are seven scientifically proven evidence based responses to the stress cycle, so that we can work through it every single day. So we don't carry it into the next day. Even if the stressors are still there, we can work through the biology of our stress response so that we can think more clearly be more creative, connect more with people around us, and just do life better. So here we go. Seven key things that you can do. Number one, I know you might be groaning at this physical activity, exercise 30 minutes a day. The good news though, is if you can't you're you don't have a gym, you don't have the time, you don't want to. Good research says even if you clench every single muscle of your body for the count of at least 10. And do that a few times throughout the day, you can actually experience the same stress relief as a 30 minute workout. Pretty cool. You don't even have to sweat, you might be a little uncomfortable for 10 seconds. But that's cool. We can do this. It helps our brains come back online. It hacks our body and our biology to say no, no, you're in a safe space. Now. Second thing you can do is breathing deep breathing.
You've probably heard that before. Third would be a positive social interaction, especially with someone that makes you laugh. Laughter is another way to work through the stress response. It's really hard to be stuck in stress when we're laughing deep. Laughing. Fifth one would be a hug 22nd Hug where you're getting, you're hacking your body to say I'm in a safe place. It's okay now, and our brains kick back online. Six one would be to be a cry. And if you're not a crier put on the movie that makes you cry. You can even trick your body into that and it releases chemicals as you cry. That helps soothe your body and helps us know the cycles over we made it through the stressful situation. The seventh thing would be to create something. Create sourdough bread, create a piece of arts creates a nice planter box. Create a card for a friend create something What we're trying to talk about and get to would be that we would have resilience. And resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. It's the spring back into shape. That's what we need. That's what we need. And that's what we need to model. And so the question for you, what are you going to do what makes the most sense for you to experiment with to see if you can understand your biology more, hack your body and your brain and become somebody that really manages their stress while we're taking the mystery out of building a meaningful life with a step by step roadmap. In school, you're taught everything under the sun, from algebra to art history, to aerodynamics, but you're not taught how to understand yourself, or given the tools to make sense of all the questions life throws your way. Without it, most people will take the path of least resistance, hoping it all just works out Sunday. That's why the US school is here. for over 10 years, we've been specializing in designing transformative curriculum and learning environments to guide people through life's transitions to find, define and unleash great stories with their lives. You only get one life. You only get one story. Make sure it's the right one.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
