What is stress?
It is an automatic, adaptive response designed to help us cope with a short-term emergency.
It is our fight/flight/freeze response readying the body for a life threatening challenge for immediate action.
The brain switches the body’s priorities from long-term to short-term survival and biological resources are switched to systems needed for the emergency reaction.
Fuel reserves are mobilised and sent to brain and muscles and extra oxygen is taken in to burn those fuel reserves.
Blood pressure increases, heart pounds, blood is shunted from extremities – hence cold hands and feet, muscles tense ready for the fight or flight.
Digestive processes are slowed down, as are all the processes governed by the major organs of the body.
And so on……
What we need to learn is how to manage this response which was designed for survival in our cave-dwelling days, and is now inclined to be triggered like that fire alarm that goes off when you grill the meat, when we are not in mortal danger – like when working at a computer!
What are the computer stress symptoms to recognise?
- Tension in the neck and shoulders
- Tingling in arms, hands or fingers
- Irritation with the equipment or interruptions
- Headache
- Eye strain, dry eyes
- Concentration difficulties
So, when you find yourself wanting to stamp on the mouse, or hurl your coffee cup through the screen….
STOP!!!
Preferably, stop before the irritation sets in!
And then….
Sit comfortably (spine straight)
Focus your attention on the spot deep in the body halfway between navel and coccyx
Let your body expand from that point as you inhale slowly.
Feel the diaphragm being pulled down towards the navel as your lungs fill from the bottom to the top.
On the exhale, relax your belly and your diaphragm, emptying the lungs from the top to the bottom.
Repeat at your own pace.
OR YOU CAN DO IT LYING DOWN AS BELOW…. (Make sure the boss or a customer can’t catch you at it!!!!)
To release tension:
Start with the feet, tense all the muscles in the feet and then release them
Move to the calf muscles, tense, release
Then to upper legs, tense, release and so on… until you get to your shoulders (lift them towards the ears and then drop them down).
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