Episode 631: 5 Ways to Relieve Stress (Mindset & Self-Care)

EBT631 – 5 Ways to Relieve Stress

Intro  00:01

Hey food bloggers. Thank you so much for joining me in this mindset and self-care focused episode here on Eat Blog Talk. One of the reasons I started a blog talk was to hold a space to talk about the importance of mindset and self-care. Being an entrepreneur can be a lot. If we are not taking care of ourselves, then getting actionable information about SEO Pinterest or whatever else is all moot. I will meet you back here every Wednesday to discuss various mindset and self-care topics. So you have the energy and space to tackle the rest.

Sponsor (Kristina Cadelina)  00:36

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Megan Porta  01:19

Hello, awesome food bloggers, how are you doing today? How is your week going? Welcome to this mindset and self care focused episode of eat blog talk. So happy to have you listening today. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about five ways to relieve stress. I actually wanted to title this episode five ways to depressurize or five ways to release stress from your brain. But somehow that sounded like we were talking about brain surgery. So five ways to relieve stress it is. As I have mentioned in other mindset episodes. These episodes have described my year personally, with just a few exceptions, I write an outline each week about what I’m personally going through and how I deal with whatever I’m going through. Who knew that these episodes would have been so cathartic for me? I really did not anticipate that they’ve totally acted as my therapist, and I don’t know what I would have done without them in 2024 honestly, and this topic is no exception. For the past little bit, I have felt like I’m an instant pot, like my steam release valve, you know, that little valve on the top that releases pressure and air, like my valve is broken and it feels really hard to get the pressure that’s built up inside of me out. When pressure builds up, which can also be described as stress, things start to happen that signal that it’s time to figure out how to release the pressure. My body does not work properly when I’m pressurized, my thinking is off. I just don’t feel like myself. I have that built up angsty feeling inside of me that makes me feel like I want to cry or scream at any given moment. Just over a week ago, I realized that I had said the same line to my husband about a dozen times within just a couple days. And that line was, I feel like so much pressure is building up inside of me, and that was my cue to do something about it. I knew I needed to fix my steam release handle and start releasing some of that built up pressure because I was tired of feeling that way. 

Megan Porta  03:41

So many different things can cause pressure or stress to build up for me, but when multiple things hit me at once, that tends to be when I can really feel that pressure building up inside of me. We have been dealing with some stuff with our oldest son, nothing huge, nothing alarming, just helping him navigate the idea of turning 18 as a young man on the autism spectrum, as his mom, I have felt so much pressure to figure everything out for him, like it’s all sitting on my shoulders. This time of year for work, always gets me. We’re doing a lot of sales for Eat Blog Talk, mastermind groups, retreats, et cetera, plus just trying to stay on top of blog content and updates and all of the other work that I have going on, and I’m trying to stay healthy myself. After a very difficult summer, I feel so much pressure to get through this fall without being pulled under again. So lots of stuff that has just been building up for me. For the rest of this episode, I am going to tell you the five things that I have been doing that have totally turned things around for me in just over a week. M steam release valve is finally allowing that pressure to come out, and I’m starting to feel like a normal functioning pressure cooker. I mean, human once again. So let’s talk through five ways to relieve stress or depressurize. 

Megan Porta  05:05

Number one sleep. If there’s one single thing in this world that can make me feel like an absolute unbalanced lunatic who’s unable to handle any level of stress, it’s a lack of sleep. I don’t know if you’re one of those people who can scrape by on five or six hours of sleep a night, but if you are, I am so supremely jealous of you because I have always needed gobs of sleep. I’m talking a minimum of eight hours or I cannot even think or function properly when I’m sleep deprived. And honestly, it does not take much for this to happen. I feel fuzzy, foggy, irrational, unclear about how to move through my day, snippy with everyone and just overall unwell. Sleep is everything to me, and I know it’s not just me. I hear experts talk about this all the time. It’s the most important thing when thinking about health and longevity, it is so important. I knew this was where I needed to start, because good sleep creates a solid base to build on. So I’m going to tell you what I’ve done for the past 10 days or so, and these things have really helped me to get back on track as far as getting quality rest every night. Maybe you have different sleep tips, and I would love to hear them actually, so reach out and tell me if there’s anything additionally that you do to get good sleep. The first thing is just getting to bed early. I’m talking 8:30 on some nights, if I need it, I have been letting my gut guide the way with this each night. But if I feel tired at 8:30 straight to bed. Some nights I have been making it to 10 o’clock. I know wild party girl, right? And maybe even 10:15 one night, I think, before I start feeling that tiredness settle in, I’ve just prioritized focusing on my intuition with this every night. Thankfully, my husband is so supportive of all of this. And when I say I need to go to bed at 8:30 he says, Good, do it. And he covers the rest of the evening stuff we need to do. Usually, by that time, there’s not much to cover, but still, so grateful for him and his support. The other thing I’ve been doing is taking supplements before bed and drinking bedtime tea. The supplements we my husband and I both are doing this, are taking are magnesium, threonate, theanine and apigenin. And the tea we’ve been drinking is just called bedtime tea. I think the brand is Yogi. This combination has seemed to keep me from waking up in the middle of the night like I had been doing. I know a lot of people use melatonin for this sort of thing, but melatonin has never worked for me. It’s so crazy. It does the exact opposite of what it should do. Every time I take it, I am up all night. Something else I’ve been doing to prioritize sleep is napping during the day, if I need to. There are some days when I’m feeling like someone drugged me by 2:30pm and on those days, I lay down for a 30 minute power nap, again, just tuning into my body and listening to what it needs. Last, but not least, meditation. I have been regularly meditating for the past 10 days, every single day, and it gets me into the mode of clearing my mind, therefore making sleep comes so much more easily. There is a huge connection for me between meditation and sleeping well. So this is a huge priority. You know what those things are that help you sleep better? Do them and maybe try some of these suggestions that I ran through, if you feel like you’ve tried everything and you’re still sleeping terribly, it is so, so, so, so very important to figure out what helps you sleep better. Everything else in the entire world goes much more smoothly when you’re well rested and you feel good. 

Megan Porta  08:57

Number two, vigorous exercise. Getting vigorous exercise is something I have prioritized for most of my adult life, but after an entire summer feeling like I could barely walk around the block without getting depleted, I had gotten out of the rhythm of working out. My energy levels have been increasing since about the beginning of September, and a few weeks ago, I finally felt like I was back to where I was in, I don’t know, March or so of this year, when I could work out five days a week. This was huge for me. It has felt so restricting not to be able to work out like I’ve wanted for the past couple weeks. When I finish a hard workout, I feel this new thing that I’ve never felt before after a workout, I feel infused with gratitude. It’s such a welcome and refreshing feeling. I’m just so grateful to have the energy to work out and to have a body that can really get into that vigorous exercise. So when the pressure started creeping in, and I felt like I could get back into a good workout rhythm again. I knew I needed to step up my workouts in order to help relieve some of the built up pressure. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve done five hard workouts per week, so weights and cardio followed by a walk after sleep, this has been the single most important factor in relieving stress and releasing that pressure that has been building up. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this book. It’s called Burnout by Amelia Nagoski. I read it recently. You guys, if you deal with stress, burnout or depression, or anything in between, you’ve got to read this book. It is so good. I tore through it recently, and I loved something she talked about a lot in the book, and that is that all stress cycles need to be completed. So if you’ve allowed stress to accumulate and you don’t do anything to finish what’s been started, the stress will stick around, and it’ll actually start to do really bad things to your mind and to your body. I think we’ve all felt this on some level. Some of the things that help complete stress cycles are crying laughter. She talks about so many other things in the book. I’ll let you read it to really get into those. But one of the things she mentions is that vigorous exercise is a really good way to complete stress cycles. There is just something so powerful about that physical exertion and release that comes from working your body really hard. If you’re already moving your body, but the stress is still building up, consider moving your body more or maybe differently. You could add weights to your routine, or if you already are doing weights. You could use heavier weights or add cardio or core exercises. There are always things you can do to make things more challenging and change it up a little bit. And when you start doing this, watch the pressure move right out of your mind and body. It’s like magic. 

Megan Porta  11:56

Number three, speak up or vent. This point has been really powerful for me as well over the past few weeks. I don’t know about you, but most of what seems to build up inside me is mental clutter or stewing over things that don’t actually matter. The pressure builds up even more when I keep these unresolved thoughts inside of me. They keep brewing and stewing, and they get thicker and more powerfully pressurized. I am a really good stewer. I stew well. I knew this was contributing to my stress and just feeling like I was about to explode, like those pressure cookers you hear about that explode randomly in people’s kitchens and cause, obviously, tons of damage when that happens. I made a decision and a commitment to speak up about the things that would normally stew inside of me. It really has been as simple as that some of the things that were stewing or stemming from things other people had said, I immediately brought up these things to relevant individuals, I cleared the air, and that was that a really good place to start with. This is to write down those thoughts that begin to clutter your mind. Just getting them on paper makes you see them in a different light, and it’ll give you the clarity you need to address them somehow. When I keep things in my head, I can convince myself that the thoughts are valid and that I should continue stewing. There was something that my husband said to me about a week ago that normally I would have let totally build up inside of me this time, though, in my dedication to relieve the pressure, I wrote what he said in my journal, I saw that I likely misinterpreted it and just approached him about it. The air was cleared immediately. It was super easy. Wow, if there’s anything lingering in your mind that feels like it’s adding stress to your life, address it as soon as possible. The sooner, the better. And if there’s not necessarily someone you need to address something with maybe you just need to vent about something. The word venting feels so appropriate, because unloading thoughts that have built up in your head can literally vent or release the pressure you’re feeling. You can vent to a friend or vent in your journal. It doesn’t matter, getting that mental clutter out of your mouth or out on paper, is really so powerful. It’s incredible how much pressure releases when your mental clutter is cleared.

Megan Porta  14:28

Number four people, this is maybe my favorite point in this episode, because I love people so much. There’s so much power in having good people in your life. Have you ever had a really stressful day and then you meet friends for dinner. Afterward, you’re like, Why was I so stressed earlier? If the pressure is building up in your life, make plans as soon as you can to get together with people you know and you love and who you know are going to make you smile and laugh. I met my two lovely sisters for dinner last week, and. This very thing happened afterward, I just felt so light and happy and like a few pounds of pressure had been released from my brain and lifted from my shoulders. People who know you well can be such a good healthy distraction for stress. And remember what I mentioned from the burnout book a little bit ago, laughter can help to complete stress cycles, so get out with people you love and get laughing. This could be a quick coffee with a friend, a phone call with a family member. Do people actually make phone calls anymore? Or maybe just a heartfelt text exchange dinner out with a group of friends. Invite people over to your house to spend time together and maybe play games or something. Getting out board games for our family always makes us laugh. It’s such a good way to complete those stress cycles through laughter. Spend time with people you trust the soul reminds you that you’re not alone. It will help you to tap into that joy, even in the middle of a stressful time. 

Megan Porta  16:04

Number five, gratitude, sometimes we can focus so much on what’s causing stress or what feels off that we forget about all of the good things. This happens to me all the time. We see more of what we focus on in life. If we feel nothing but pressure and stress, we focus on all the things causing pressure and stress, all of those negative things, but what if we interrupt the stress by doing a gratitude dump? This feels so oversimplified, but it can be a really powerful and very simple exercise. I have an art table in our house that has sadly been neglected for the past few weeks, in some of my most stressed moments, recently, I’ve literally forced my legs to walk over to that space and just sit down. I have plants in this space. I have inspiring pieces of art that both my mom and I have created. It’s just a positive, colorful, uplifting space. I knew if I could get myself there, that I would feel better just sitting in the space. I also knew that my gratitude journal was on my art desk, and that I needed to open it up and start writing. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to do these things, and once I did, I literally couldn’t stop seeing a massive list of things that I was grateful for written out on paper. Was so powerful. Don’t underestimate the power of this exercise. Doing a gratitude dump can totally transform a day for me and help me to see things with a much more positive outlook when we intentionally look for things to be thankful for, we are inviting more peace into our lives, more joy, more of all the good stuff, and it becomes harder for stress to take over our thoughts. Take just a few minutes today to write down what you are grateful for, or even just say it out loud, or think it. This will transform your day and help you to see life through a much lighter lens. Gratitude is a simple yet powerful way to dissolve stress and bring us back to what actually matters. 

Megan Porta  18:10

That is all I have for you in this episode. Stress can so creep up on us, am I right? It’s pretty amazing how sneaky it is. Sometimes actually it’s super important to have strategies in your back pocket ready to go, so you can relieve stress before it takes a toll on your physical and emotional well being. In this episode, I shared my top five ways to manage stress recently, getting good sleep, exercising vigorously, speaking up and venting, connecting with people and practicing gratitude. Remember that finding even one or two strategies that really work for you can make a huge impact, helping you release that pressure and feel like yourself again. Thank you so much for listening food bloggers, I just realized this episode is going to be published on Christmas Day. So Merry Christmas. And it’s also the last mindset episode of the year, which is kind of crazy. We’ve completed an entire cycle of mindset episodes one full year, which aligns with our topic, because we talked about completing stress cycles. So completing cycles all over the place. Thanks for being here. Can’t wait for another year of mindset episodes and all good stuff in 2025. 

Outro 

Thank you so much for listening to this mindset and self-care episode here on Eat Blog Talk. If you are a food blogger providing a service for other food bloggers, and you want to spread the word about the value that you offer. I would love to offer you a free way to do just this. Send me a 60 second audio clip to be featured in a mindset and self-care episode here on Eat Blog Talk in 2024. Go to eatblogtalk.com/audioclip to learn more.