Set Point
Can you change your set point when it comes to effective management of stress?
If I asked you, “What number would you rate your stress at when you start your day?” “Somewhere between 0-10 you could give me a number, correct?”.
If you asked yourself this same question for a week straight and averaged the 7 numbers, you’d get an average of what number you feel you start your typical day with. That can also be called a “set point”, the number you automatically start your day at in terms of daily stress. There is also a set point theory regarding weight and body fat, that I will get into on 4.15.24’s blog post. Stress does affect this number as well, so add my blog posts to your favorites, a new one drops every Monday!
So, for today, let’s focus on a level of stress you start your day at that you can measure, yes this is a subjective number, but to make it easier to rate you can use the pain scale 0-10 and the faces assigned to them as a measure.
Here’s an example of a set point and how yours can affect your day and why effective stress management, which is this month’s challenge, is vital for health and considered a foundational habit to build for improving health and well-being.
Say you wake up to an alarm and are angry that you need to get up, so you hit snooze. Then when you do wake up after 3 snoozes, you are running late. You bang your toe in the shower cause you’re running late, then the zipper on the pants you ironed is broken, and your shirt is missing a button. You then grab coffee and a left-over piece of pizza because the wardrobe malfunctions left you no time to make breakfast. You race into the car, forgetting your computer, so you go back into the house. You trip on someone’s shoes left on the floor and blow a nail. Where do you think your stress is now? It’s like a 9/10 before your day really got started.
Are you a thermostat or a thermometer when it comes to managing your stress?
Point, if you start your day at a high set point, like 5 because you stayed up to late and now what to snooze, you can increase that number significantly with the other foibles life tosses at you. This is one way to live, reacting verses being pro-active about dealing with stress. The person in the example doesn’t view stress as a motivator (Kelly McGonigal TED Talk) and doesn’t practice any tools for stress management. They simply take the temperature of the “room” and see it that is going up, knowing at some point, they are gonna blow. Then they resort to ineffective methods of stress management like alcohol, avoidance with plopping on the coach and binge watching a show or they are eating feelings.
Are you a thermostat or a thermometer? Do you simply measure your stress like a thermometer or can you self-regulate like a thermostat.
Answer these questions and it might help you decide which one you are:
· What do you tend to endure or allow without attempting to address?
· Are you aware of your own “set point”? What is it currently?
· What has formulated that set point to be where it currently is?
· Does your current set point have you stuck and unable to move forward?
· Do my behaviors express what is important to me and are they congruent with my values? If yes, explain, if no, why?
· What strategies do you use to raise set point?
I hope this blog post made you think about your stress level and determine if you are using effective or ineffective coping strategies. Effective coping tools create resilience or the ability to bounce back when life happens. You learn how to manage stress effectively and could de-escalate and self-regulate your emotions. You have a healthy view of stress, that it is a motivator not a killer. Chronic stress that is pushed down, effectively managed or seen as a threat which causes fight or flight is the stress that makes you sick, is part of burn-out and leads to health issues. Stress is a good thing! It is a motivator! God built in physiological processes to amp us up to deal with the stressor. When you view it in this healthy way, you can effectively manage stress with tools and lower your set point. If tension or triggers come, you can utilize a tool to manage it and then use the physiological effects to push through and remove the obstacle.
