stress and pregnancy

Our family has been going through some growing-we came down pregnant in October of 2011 with our second child, a baby boy.  We are looking forward to also expanding our home to include a single family home and moving out of our long standing home that we've made in our current townhouse for almost 7 years.  With any type of change in life comes stress, the good kind and the bad.


The good stress, also called eustress, is the good stress that helps us increase our performance, it drives us to succeed and to ace that test or score that big promotion, etc.  When our eustress gets to be too much to handle it turns bad, like the Mr. Hyde of stress, it's just waiting to take over and make everything go south.  When Eustress Turns Bad, it's like a bad title for a self help book, I digress, when eustress becomes it's evil twin, it is called distress.


Distress can lead to many things, especially if you get stuck in a cycle of distress and it never recedes or lets up, as when you have too many stressors (car breaks down, laid off from work, someone gets sick and you need to take care of them- when these all happen within a short time they can lead to distress).  

Here are some different ways that could help reduce stress:

1. Meditate
2. Visualize yourself relaxed as you do this exercise: close your eyes and tense up all of your muscles as you sit in a chair.  Starting at the top of your head relax your muscles from head to toe concentrating on each set of muscles as you relax, remembering to also visualize yourself relaxed as well.
3. Exercise, as little as walking 20 minutes a day can lessen stress by increasing endorphins that your body makes in response to exercise.
4. Monitor your breathing
5. Diet, lessen junk food and sodas/sugar filled items from your diet.  Eat more healthy and your body becomes what it eats. Drink tea instead of coffee, tea has a lot more health benefits than coffee does.
6. Take an Affection Time Out, hug your spouse or children and/or snuggle your pet. WebMD says that, "Experts say social interaction helps your brain think better, encouraging you to see new solutions to situations that once seemed impossible, she says. Studies have also shown that physical contact -- like petting your dog or cat -- may actually help lower blood pressure and decrease stress hormones."
7. Make time for You.  Get a massage, take part in a class, or join a meet up group for people that like the same thing as you.  If you can't get a massage, you can get one of those massage chairs or learn a few self massage tricks.
8. See a Dr to check your levels.  Are you vitamin deficient?  Maybe you need to supplement.
9. Get More Sun and Nature. 
10. Listen to music.  Music has a somewhat magical quality to it, especially music that speaks to you personally.

I need to keep a lot of these things in mind when I feel like I'm going to explode, it might help others as well.  The last thing I am is a yogi though, so here are my references for this blog post.  ;)

Complete Well Being

Holistic.com 

WebMD 

Plus the hotlinks in the list.