Managing Stress - Part 4
Stress Recovery
I have to tell you about a common pattern I’ve seen with people recovering from chronic stress. I want to give you a heads up so you can understand why you’re feeling the way you are…but I also want to give you a HUGE dose of hope. You can and will recover from this! Your body just needs some time.
During a stressful time, your body is using every single resource it can get its hands on to keep you going each day. It’s doing everything it can to make sure you can get up each morning and get through the day.
So, it’s after that big stress has passed that your body can show you how exhausted and depleted it really is. This can pop up a few weeks or even a few months after the stress has passed because your body wants to make sure you’re no longer in danger before it shows it’s exhaustion.
(all stress, even emotional stress, feels like you’re in a dangerous situation to your body)
Now you might feel like getting out of bed is almost impossible. Your energy is now a 2 or 3 out of 10. You might feel dizzy and light-headed often, and your sugar and salt cravings might be off the charts.
You’re in the recovery time because your body now trusts that the danger is behind you. It will pass and will pass faster if you totally fall into it and rest.
Now, it’s time to rest –
This can be the hardest part of recovery, especially if you’re usually the superhero of the family, able to shoulder all of the stress and emotional labour.
This is an important part of recovery, and it’s what your body really really needs. The more you “give in” and rest, the faster you’ll feel better. Okay, at first you’ll feel even more tired, but keep leaning in and you’ll come out the other side feeling better. Even a few days or a week of deep rest can make a HUGE difference!
If you don’t have time or space in your life to hibernate in your cozy bed for days, then work as much rest into your day as possible. Getting to bed by 10pm and sleeping in whenever you can really help.
The most important thing – just rest when you can. Don’t add “I need to rest” stress to your life or try to rest “perfectly”, every moment of rest is good for your body <3.
Embrace your inner cat. Embrace the cat nap <3
Food for recovery –
In a nutshell, this is food that’s full of nutrients and delicious. Pleasurable food is healing food, so don’t hesitate to grab some comfort food right now.
I go into this in a lot of detail in our Energy Masterclass, in the “Code Red” section. Click the link to head over there :)
If you have any questions, jump to our private Facebook Group or the Ask Lisa page :)