Here at The YMCA of Greater Toronto, we respect and admire the expert advice provided by our partners at The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. That’s why we’re excited to bring you even more great reading material written by the team at this other health-focused charity! In this next piece, Heart and Stroke experts talk about managing stress.

Stress is a part of life for just about everyone. Sometimes it is not easy to recognize stress because we are caught up in the flow of life; at other times, it can be very obvious. Many of us are noticeably more stressed out due to COVID-19.

Often, stressors are things you cannot control, like major life events (a global pandemic, or the loss of a job) or conditions in your life (like not getting along with someone close to you). Your responses to these stressors are your stress reactions. Stress reactions vary from person to person. For example, if you hate your job, losing it can make you feel free. For someone else, losing a job may be terrible.

Although stress happens first in the mind, it has a strong impact on the body. Stress can even damage your heart health. Sudden intense stress increases the short-term risk of a heart attack. Too much stress over a long time (months to years) is called chronic stress and it has been linked to an increase in coronary artery disease.

Recognizing your stress reactions

Everyone has his or her own individual stress reactions. Think for a moment about when you are stressed out or upset. What happens to you?

Consider your thoughts:

• Do you have trouble concentrating?
• Do your thoughts race, or freeze up?
• Do you start to think “the worst”?
• Are you more likely to see yourself, your future or other people negatively?

What about your emotions:

• Does stress lead you to have angry, anxious or sad feelings?

Check-in with your body:

• How do you feel physically?
• What happens to your breathing?
• Are your muscles tighter?
• Does that create pain anywhere, like headache, back or jaw pain?
• What happens to your sleeping patterns?
• How does your stomach feel?
• Do you sweat, have dry mouth, diarrhea or constipation?
• What happens to your heart rate?
• If you measured your blood pressure, what would you see?

Behaviour and actions:

• How do your habits and behaviours change?
• Do you eat more or have more junk food and sugary drinks?
• Do you stop exercising? Do you start smoking? Drink more alcohol, or use prescription or non-prescription drugs?
• Do you become nervous or keep to yourself?

All these signs point to something real that you can feel: your mind and body are connected. Stress happens first in the mind, but has effects all through the body, including, of course, the heart and circulatory system.

How can I manage stress?

It may be possible to change or remove the stressor – for example, you may be able to change your job, your work schedule, or avoid difficult people or unpleasant situations.

But in many cases removing the stressor is not possible. In this situation, you need to change your stress reaction. Here are some strategies to help you:

Mental responses: You cannot control all parts of your life, but you can control your response to stress and keep a positive attitude. Identify your “thought habits” that can make stress worse (most of us have at least one). Here are a few examples:

• Deciding right away that it is going to be really bad, without looking closely at the facts
• Looking only at the bad parts and not seeing the good
• Worrying about problems that are really not yours

Emotional responses: Figure out your emotional reactions to stress and talk about them.

Physical responses: Try deep breathing and relaxation exercises, like one of our online Yoga classes.

Behavioural responses: Decide what you can change about the stressor and then take action and do it. Keep up your healthy habits. Spend time with friends and family.

Try our activities page for online group fitness classes or social events. Or you can read more about ways to integrate mindfulness and meditation into your day. 

Thanks to our partners at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada for their expert advice. Look out for more relevant information on our site, or visit theirs for more details.

Here at The YMCA of Greater Toronto, we respect and admire the expert advice provided by our partners at The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. That’s why we’re excited to bring you even more great reading material written by their team! In this next piece, Heart and Stroke breaks down how stress can impact our health and what we can do to manage the “bad” stress in our lives.

What is stress?

Stress is the body’s response to a real or perceived threat. That response — which can include a racing heart, tense muscles, and sweating — is meant to get you ready to act and get out of harm’s way. Stress can be helpful, but too much stress can harm your health and increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.

There is “good” stress and “bad” stress. Good stress can be managed. It can stimulate you to get things done. You can handle good stress.

But “bad” stress, which can last for hours, days, weeks, or more, can be dangerous to your health. Bad stress feels different than good stress. It can make you break out in a cold sweat, make your heartbeat furiously, scare you, and make you feel sick.

Your perceptions, thoughts, and actions can make a big difference in turning bad stress into good stress. By understanding your personality and your reactions to stressful situations, you can learn to cope better.

How does stress affect the risk of heart disease and stroke?

There are undeniable links between heart disease, stroke, and stress.

Stress can cause the heart to work harder, increase blood pressure, and increase sugar and fat levels in the blood. These things, in turn, can increase the risk of clots forming and travelling to the heart or brain, causing a heart attack or stroke.

If you feel stressed, it can be hard to lead a healthy lifestyle. Instead of using exercise to relieve stress, you might overeat, eat unhealthy foods, drink too much alcohol, or smoke. These behaviours, in turn, can increase your risk of developing heart disease and stroke.

Responding to stress with anger can also make matters worse. Anger increases your heart rate and your blood pressure, putting you at risk of a heart attack. People who are prone to anger are also more likely to turn to unhealthy behaviours.

Having a serious health event — like a heart attack, stroke, or being diagnosed with an illness — can also be stressful. And that stress can slow down the recovery process or even create health problems that weren’t there before.

Understanding stress

To deal with your stress, you need to recognize when you feel stress and how it affects you. Examine the causes of your stress, your thoughts, how you feel, and how you respond.

What is a stressor?

Stress-provoking situations are called stressors. They are all around us, almost all the time.

Stressors can be major life events such as losing a loved one, changing or losing a job, moving, divorce, and most recently, a major stressor we are all experiencing: a pandemic.

Stressors can also be routine events, like traffic jams, work pressures, or family responsibilities.

And they can be ongoing pressures: not being able to afford food, not being able to find a job, or not being able to secure affordable housing.

If you can identify your stressors, you can start to learn how to deal with them.

The stress response

Here’s how your body reacts to stress.

Stage 1: Mobilization of energy

Your body reacts to a sudden, frightening stressor such as narrowly avoiding a car accident. This is called primary stress.

Or, you can deliberately enter a stressful situation, such as going for a job interview. This is secondary stress.

In both cases, you may feel the following symptoms:

• your heart rate increases
• you breathe rapidly, in short gasps
• you experience a cold sweat
• you have butterflies in your stomach. Maybe you have indigestion or no appetite at all
• you feel dizzy or lightheaded

Stage 2: Consumption energy

If you don’t recover from Stage 1, your body will begin to release stored sugars and fats, consuming vital resources. As a result, you may:

• feel driven and under pressure
• become exhausted to the point of fatigue
• overeat or have a poor diet
• experience anxiety or tension
• have difficulty concentrating
• suffer illnesses, such as colds and flu
• increase unhealthy behaviours

Stage 3: Exhaustion

If your stress doesn’t go away, it can become chronic. Your body will need more energy than it can produce, and you could develop a serious illness, such as:

• heart disease
• stroke
• high blood pressure
• mental illness

Or, you may experience symptoms such as:

• insomnia (difficulty sleeping)
• errors in judgement
• personality changes

There are many great tools for managing stress right here on The Bright Spot.

Try our activities page for online group fitness classes or social events. Or you can read more about ways to integrate mindfulness and meditation into your day.

Thanks to our partners at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada for their expert advice. Look out for more relevant information on our site, or visit theirs for more details.

We’ve all heard that practicing yoga can help you find balance — and we’re not just talking about standing on one foot. Yoga can help you restore your energy levels, find peace, and build overall emotional resilience during this tough, stressful time. And moving through life with more ease and less stress means more energy for the things you love! So we asked Emilie Wong, a yoga and meditation teacher, to share how yoga can help support your mental health.

How to connect your mind and body through movement

Asana, or the physical practice of yoga, loosens up your joints, builds strength, and counteracts the effects of our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, which is even more important now that we are all staying home as much as possible. By practicing yoga regularly, you can mitigate pain or, in some cases, even get rid of it entirely. In part, that’s because yoga boosts endorphins — the brain’s feel-good hormones — which also act as pain killers.

While those are great benefits in and of themselves, yoga is also meant to prepare the body for meditation. Stiff joints or nagging back pain are distracting; loosening up and alleviating pain with regular yoga can help you clear your mind and live in the moment.

A simple breathing exercise you can try right now at home

Stand up tall with both feet planted on the floor. Start to notice how your weight sits in your feet. As you inhale, take your arms up overhead and reach for the sky. On your exhale, fold forward at the hips and allow your head, neck, shoulders, and arms to be weighed down to the ground. Stay in this forward fold for a few comfortable breaths, allowing your spine to lengthen. When you’re ready, press into your feet and roll up to standing as you inhale. Repeat the whole thing two to three times. As you go, gently note how this simple activity of connecting your breath to your movement can melt away stress and reduce stiffness in your spine and neck.

Truly be in the moment with our live yoga and meditation sessions

On The Bright Spot, our yoga instructors are leading live classes you can join for free. We hope to see you soon (virtually!) for some gentle stretching, breathing exercises, and guided meditation that will soothe both your mind and body.

What can you do to stay calm and optimistic when this crazy situation starts to take its toll? Well, yoga! Instructor Emilie is here with an easy exercise you can do right now, from the comfort and safety of your home, to help boost your emotional resilience and feel a little more positive.

Breathe your way to enhanced focus

If you’ve ever attended a yoga class (like the ones we’re offering on our Youtube channel these days!), you may have already felt the wonderful effects that pranayama, or guided breath work, can have on your nervous system. These ancient breathing techniques can positively impact your body almost instantly. But they also help you focus your busy mind, become more present, and feel grounded in the moment.

How to try it right now from home

Take a gentle breath in. As your lungs expand on the inhale, think of it as an opportunity to create more room within your body. When they deflate on the exhale, imagine letting go of any negative thoughts, tension, or residual energy. Repeat five times and then sit quietly with any sensations that arise. Allow your breath to return to normal.

If you’re about to do some self-guided yoga, or you want to enhance your virtual class, you can also set an intention for your practice by repeating a positive phrase towards yourself or someone close to you. Some examples of intentions I like are “I am radiant” and “sending out love.” Say one calmly in your head as you practice your breathing.

Remember, we are all in this together. If you’re feeling inspired, spread the word by sharing this article with a friend or family member who might also stand to benefit from a rush of feel-good endorphins during this stressful time.

We’re all doing our best to adapt to this new normal, but it’s tough. We asked yoga instructor Emilie to share some techniques for building emotional resilience, or the strength we need to handle challenging situations (like the one we’re in right now!) calmly. Here’s her simple step-by-step guide to meditation that will leave you feeling a little more zen.

Build emotional resilience through meditation

The science is in on this one: people who meditate regularly have higher emotional resilience. That’s because meditation can help you be more mindful: more present with what is, whether it’s good or bad. This ability to stay present in difficult times means you’re better equipped to process challenging emotions and cope with adversity — which is what emotional resilience is all about. There will always be difficult moments in life, just like the one we’re going through right now, but your reaction makes all the difference in how we experience those moments.

Try it at home

The best time to meditate is when you’ve warmed up your body and done some breath work. Set your alarm for five minutes so you’re not distracted wondering how long you’ve been meditating or how long you have left to go. Find a comfortable sitting position, keeping your spine long and rest your hands in your lap or on your knees. Start by gently closing your eyes, and tuck your chin in slightly towards your neck. Soften your jaw, throat, heart, belly, and base of your pelvis. Focus your attention on your breath: inhale through your nostrils, and exhale through your nostrils. Notice how your breath feels as it moves in and out of your body. Your thoughts will wander, and your mind will distract you from your breath. When you notice it happening, just return to your breath and notice sensations as they arise.

Many people feel great after just five minutes of meditating. But to really enjoy its effects on your mood, I recommend meditating every day for at least two weeks — and beyond.

To try yoga, breath work, and meditation by joining one of our virtual classes. We are offering a number of free low-impact yoga classes online that can help you unwind and find more inner peace. Browse our live and pre-recorded group fitness classes like Soothing Yoga, Bodyfit Chair, Bodyfit Gentle, Chair Yoga, and Arriba, and find the ones that make you feel good!