The Mindset Mentor - 8 Steps to Relieve Stress

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

Do you ever feel stressed or anxious? If so, listen to this episode to learn eight different ways to relieve stress!   Want to master your mindset? Every Monday I send out an email with mindset tips for the week, click here to receive that email: http://mondayemail.com/ Follow me on IG for more inspiration here: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/ Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor, give us a rating and review however you listen to us. Whether that's Apple Podcasts, whether that's Spotify, if you go onto those platforms and give us a rating and review, however you listen to us, whether that's Apple Podcasts, whether that's Spotify. If you go onto those platforms and give us a rating and review, the more positive ratings and reviews that we get, the more that those platforms say, hey, this seems to be doing pretty well. This seems to be helping people. Maybe we should go and show it to people who have never heard of it before. And that way the podcast grows organically.

And that's one way that you can really help us out. So if you would do that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Today, I'm going to be giving you eight steps to relieve stress from your life. So why do we want to go over this? Because one thing that I've noticed over the past couple of years is people are much, much more stressed than I've ever seen. The amount of people that are going through traumatic events, that are going through crazy things in their life has doubled, even tripled in some places. If you look at the amount of people that are calling the prevention hotline for suicide, it's gone up three times in the past few years. So 3x what it was a few years ago. And so some of these strategies will be able to help you to be able to calm you down because when you are stressed, when your emotion is high in a situation,

your logic is low. When your emotions are really high, it actually turns off a part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking part of your brain, where it actually allows you to think correctly. So if we feel stressed, if we feel anxiety, if we feel something, we can remember these eight things to kind of bring ourselves back to at least a little bit closer to baseline so that we can make sure that we're making the right decisions, taking the right actions, and doing what we need to do to help ourselves in our life.

The first piece and the first thing, which I think is probably, probably the most important is your breathing. The first thing that I recommend that any person do that's going through stress, anxiety, something like that is to focus on their breathing. Why? Because when you have a state change, the very first thing in your body to change is your breathing. You know, if you're very happy and you're very calm and then something, boom, happens

to you. Maybe you're driving your car and you're listening to your favorite song and you're good, your breath is all good. And then somebody cuts you off and almost runs you off the road. The very first thing that happens, you hold your breath for a second and then your breath goes from calm in and out to and your breathing is actually the first piece of your state change. So if you notice that your state has changed, which is stress, which is anxiety, the way to change our state back is to then focus on the thing that changes first, which is our breathing. And it's been found by studies over in Japan that six deep intentional breaths can completely change your state. And what you want to do is you want to breathe into the nose and breathe out through the mouth. And I've done this many times in the

podcast before, but it's super important. I think people need to hear this every single day. You breathe in through your nose. When you breathe out, you breathe out like you're breathing out through a straw. So it is a long exhale. Why is that? Because it is proven, scientifically proven, when you breathe out slowly. So a breath in through the nose and breath out through mouth to sound like this. It's proven that a long exhale actually slows your heart rate down. And if you do six deep breaths, not three, not five, not seven, but six is the minimum that you want to do to actually start to change your state. So many times that I've taken people through clients over years where they come into a call with me and we're working together and they're just like, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress.

I'm like, okay, hey, listen, here's what we're going to do, man. Let's do six deep breaths and then we can talk about this. Okay. We do six deep breaths. It takes about two minutes to do six deep intentional breaths. And at the end, I'm like, how's that feel? Oh my gosh, I'm so much more calm. I'm so much more relaxed. I'm so much more centered. Okay. Now we can make decisions from a calm. I mean, would you rather, would you rather make a decision from a calm, centered, relaxed position or from heightened? Oh my God, I'm pissed. I'm stressed. All of this stuff. Right, from calm, centered, relaxed. That's where you want to make your decisions from. So the first thing I want you to do is to remember, lock it in your brain right now, change your breathing when you're in

a stressful state. Next thing, number two, focus on gratitude. Focus on something to be grateful for. What you focus on grows. So if you're focusing on what's stressing you out, you're going to become more stressed out because you're focusing on that thing. Focus on what you want, not what you don't want. You don't want that stress anymore. So stop focusing on that stress as much. Stop focusing on the thing that is stressing you out and actually go, you know what, what can I be grateful for in my life? Don't focus on what you don't have. Focus on what you have. Don't focus on what you used to have, but you don't have have. Focus on what you have. Don't focus on what you used to have, but you don't have anymore. Focus on what you have in front of you. And what happens is I'm not saying ignore the thing that's stressing you out. That's actually the last thing I'm saying.

What I'm saying is instead of being stressed and coming and trying to solve a problem from a state of stress, I want to focus on how to get yourself out of that stressful situation, that stressful mindset, that anxious mindset. And now that we got yourself out of it, now we can actually work at what is making you stressed or anxious from a better state of mind. That's the point of focusing on gratitude. That's the problem when people are like, positive thinking doesn't work. Positive thinking is not just about ignoring the negative. Positive thinking is finding a way to be positive and come from that state to then overcome and work through the things that might be negative. Okay, so that's number two is to focus on what it is that you have to be grateful for. Find anything. It doesn't have to be how much money does your

bank count or all of the friends that you have. it could literally be, I'm grateful that the sun came out today. It's been raining in the past few days. I'm grateful the sun is out. I'm grateful that the weather feels so nice outside. It was so hot a few months ago and now it's cool and it feels great. It could be something really small. I'm grateful for the breeze on my face. Find something you could be grateful for and allow that to help you change your state so that therefore, once you get into a better state, you can work through whatever it is that's stressing you out or making you anxious. That's number two. Number three is to go for a walk. Forward motion is actually proven. If you go through forward motion, go on a 10-minute walk, don't bring your phone, don't bring anything,

just go on a walk. 10 minutes, 15 minutes has been seen to lower cortisol in somebody's body and their brain. Cortisol is a stress hormone inside of your body. And so when someone is walking and slowly things are starting to pass by their peripheral vision, it's actually kind of a meditative state. This is why a lot of people like to go running, why a lot of people like to go jogging, why a lot of people go for a walk. And why it actually calms them down is because the actual passing of things through your peripheral vision makes somebody start to calm down. And so if you're noticing that you're in a heightened state, maybe something's going wrong at work, take a 10 minute break, go outside, go for a walk. And actually, you know, being outside as well, trees, the sun, all of those things are actually linked to lowering cortisol and maintaining a

homeostasis, you know, a state of homeostasis. So going for a walk can really help you out as well. So number three is go for a walk. That right there is another sale on Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business. Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere. Whether your thing is vintage teas or recipes for geese, start selling with Shopify and join the platform Simplifying Commerce for millions of your favorite businesses worldwide. With Shopify, you can create an online store in your vibe, discover new customers, and grow the following that keeps them coming back. Shopify has all the sales channels sorted out so your business keeps on growing from in-person POS system to an all-in-one

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Visit sundayscaries.com and use my promo code DIAL for your discount. That's promo code DIAL for 25% off at sundayscaries.com. Number four is to write everything down on pen and paper, pen and paper, not type it out. Write everything down pen and paper that's going on in your head, that's stressing you out, that's making you anxious. And a lot of times the solution is way easier

than you think that it is. And so I always think of it this way. If I gave you a complex math problem, it'd be really hard to figure out that complex math problem in your head. But if I give you pen and paper, even if it's not super complex, even if it's just 42 times 34, you're going to have a better chance of figuring that out if you have pen and paper. So if you have a very complex life problem and you're trying to figure it out in your head, it's pretty damn hard because life problems are way more complex than math problems, a multiplication problem, something that you learn in third or fourth grade, right?

And so if you take it and you put it down on pen and paper and you say, okay, how can I work through this? And you actually use the pen and paper to work through it, it makes it so much easier. Why? Because when something is on paper, it can be planned. It can be worked through. It could be manipulated and moved and you can start to come up with new ideas. So what I recommend is take everything that's going on in your head and put it on a pen and paper. Put it on that paper, write it down, big, small, everything, right? Everything that you possibly can down with pen and paper and see for some people, literally I've heard this many times, just writing it down and getting it out of your brain relieves like 90% of people's stress because it's not actually

what's going on that's stressing people out. What's stressing people out a lot of times is trying to hold all of it in your brain, trying to take all of these complex things and work through it. Maybe just put on, you know, on a piece of paper, your brain goes, okay, well now it's on that piece of paper. I can kind of let it go. And you don't have to keep going through every single thing. So a big tip that I'll give you is just start writing more things down. Use pen and paper as often as you possibly can. Number five, a lot of you guys are not going to like this. Consider less caffeine. Consider less caffeine. Try to remove a little bit of caffeine from your life and see what happens to your stress levels. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of their stress actually comes from too much caffeine. You're going into a heightened state at work, anxious, stress state, and then you're

adding caffeine on top of it. It's going to make it a lot harder to work through so try it out for 30 days try replacing your coffee with green tea you're still getting some caffeine but you're not getting as much caffeine so number five just take it into consideration you coffee addicts i know i love my coffee i just had mine like 15 minutes ago what What I'm going to tell you though, is consider less caffeine. Try it out for a little while and see what's going on. Okay. That's number five. Number six is to get your blood levels checked. I promise you this, this was super eyeopening for me. The first time when I was like, Hey, I feel like I'm kind of, I feel like I kind of don't have a whole lot of energy. And I was like, maybe I'll just go get my blood levels checked. It wasn't cheap, but you know, there's cheaper ways to do it if you want to.

And I actually had a vitamin B3 deficiency and a vitamin D deficiency. And literally I went to the doctor. He's like, okay, you've got this, this, and this. Everything else looks pretty good. He gave me some supplements to work on. Hey, also make sure you know the vitamin D. Besides taking the supplement, go outside and get 10 minutes of sun every single morning when you first wake up. Gave me a few things to work on. Hey, also make sure you know the vitamin D. Besides taking the supplement, go outside and get 10 minutes of sun every single morning when you first wake up. Give me a few things to work through. I take them in the morning now. I feel like a new human. It's wild. And so

sometimes you might just have some deficiency that you don't realize that's actually stressing you out more than you realize. And so just something to think about. If you want to just take it to another level, go get your blood levels checked and see if maybe you're deficient in something and fixing that deficiency actually might help you with your stress, your anxiety as well. Number six, get your blood levels checked. Number seven, I love this one. This is one of my favorites. I run a business. We have 30 something employees that are here, people that work for the company, a lot of moving parts. I'm the CEO of the company.

So I have to know everything about everything that's going on a lot of times and the minutia of it. And you know, it's, it can be stressful sometimes. One of my favorite things to do when I feel like I'm stressed is to just go, you know what? I'm going to take a 10 minute break. I'm going to put on comedy and I'm going to watch some comedy for about 10 minutes. And what happens is I put on comedy and laughing releases dopamine and dopamine is proven to lower cortisol.

Cortisol is what I was talking to you about a few minutes ago, which is the stress hormone. And so one thing to do is if we feel like we're in a stressed or anxious state, actually just go and put on some comedy and just watch some comedy. Take a 10-minute break. You'll be fine. You're stressed, you're anxiety, all of that stuff will be waiting for you 10 minutes later when you're done with the comedy. Just try it out and see if you can find something that makes you feel good. You watch some comedy. And what happens is that dopamine that's released, laughing releases dopamine, and dopamine lowers cortisol. Watching comedy can actually lower your stress and your anxiety throughout the day. And then last but not least, number eight, put on some slow music. There's

music that's actually designed for relieving stress. There's a study that was done. There's a song that I listen to a lot if I'm driving my car and maybe I had something stressful happen. There's a song called Weightless by Marconi Union. I have no affiliation with whoever the hell Marconi Union is, but I was reading an article. I found it one day because they said it was actually proven to be the most stress relieving song that's out there. The calmest stress relieving song that makes people's state change quickly. So not if I'm driving, but if I happen to find myself in a stressful state and I'm not driving, I'll put that song on and then I'll just do my 60 breaths in through the nose, long exhale through the mouth. And I noticed my state changing very, very quickly. And then another song that works for me, I remember doing this years ago when I ran my first office and I was 21 years old. I had a

franchise with a company. I had tons of people. I had a couple of hundred sales reps that were working. I had employees, all kinds of stuff. And I would have stressful moments and I would shut the door to my office and I would put the song on. It was a theme to Out of Africa. For some reason, for me, that theme song just happens to be a song that when I hear it, it's like, all the stress just seems to disappear. And so maybe you can steal these songs. You can use them if you want. Or maybe you have a song that pops up top of mind for you that you think of, oh yeah, you know what? That song really helps me relieve my stress.

It always makes me feel a little bit more calm. So notice the music that's playing around you. Maybe you're listening to some crazy pump up EDM or maybe some death metal, whatever it was earlier today. Nothing wrong with those things. I enjoy both of them at some points in time. But maybe if I'm trying to change my state, the first thing I should pay attention to is my breath and I should pay attention to writing things down. And maybe I can pay attention to, you know, closing my eyes and breathing for a

little bit. Or maybe I could pay attention to changing the music that I'm listening to and putting on something and being intentional about putting on calming music. What it really comes down to is that just because I'm stressed or just because I'm anxious doesn't mean that I can't change that. And so these are the eight steps to relieve stress and anxiety from your life. Number one, try some breathing. Number two, focus on what you're grateful for. Number three, go for a walk. Number four, write it all down, get it out of your brain. Number five, consider some, you know, less caffeine. Number six, get your blood levels checked. Number seven, watch 10 minutes of comedy. Number five, consider some, you know, less caffeine. Number six, get your blood levels checked. Number seven, watch 10 minutes of comedy. Number eight, put on some slow music. And ultimately you realize you don't have to do all these. You can do one of these,

you could do two, you could do three, whatever it is, but you realize that your state change is actually up to you a lot more than you thought it was. It's not something that just happens to you. It's something that you could be in control of. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to share or follow this podcast on Instagram, you can follow this podcast. We have one specifically for the podcast. It is The Mindset Mentor Podcast. Once again, The Mindset Mentor Podcast. We put a lot of clips up from this podcast, but also some unreleased stuff that we have as well. So if you want to follow us on there,

go ahead and follow us on there. We post multiple times a day. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope you have an amazing day.