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We’re diving into some real talk about stress today. I’m sharing my three steps to reduce stress almost instantly. Stress isn’t the bad guy; it can actually help us in tough situations. The trick is to manage it instead of trying to eliminate it completely. I’ll break down how to soften the stress, listen to it, and understand it better. Stick around for the end where I share these steps that can really help you out.

Stillness in the Storms dives deep into the world of stress management in a really relatable way. Steven Webb, our host, shares his personal experiences with stress, making it clear that it’s a common struggle we all face. He emphasizes that stress isn’t our enemy; rather, it’s a response that has evolved to protect us. Stress can be beneficial in short bursts, like when faced with dangerous situations, but it becomes harmful when it lingers. Stephen explains that the key to managing stress is not to eliminate it completely, but to understand it and reduce its impact on our lives. He introduces three simple steps to help us handle stress better: first, we need to shut up—stop talking and let ourselves breathe; second, be still—calm our minds and bodies; and third, be open—acknowledge our stress and accept it as part of our experience. These steps encourage listeners to embrace stress as a natural part of life and learn how to control it rather than let it control us. With practical advice and a personal touch, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to navigate their own stress more effectively.

Takeaways:

• Stress is not our enemy; it's a natural response that can protect us.
• We can't get rid of stress completely, but we can learn to manage it.
• The key to reducing stress lies in being quiet, still, and open to our feelings.
• Prolonged stress is harmful, so we should be mindful of how long we remain stressed.
• Understanding that stress can inform us about our needs can help us cope better.
• Being curious about our stress can help us engage with it in a healthier way.

Welcome to Stillness in the Storms.

I'm Stephen Webb, your host.

This is the podcast that helps you to reduce your suffering through difficult times.

And on this week's podcast, we're talking about my three steps to reduce stress virtually instantly.

And I will share them with you near the end of the podcast.

Before that, if you can leave a review or if you click follow on this podcast or share it out, that'd be brilliant.

I'm trying to build up some listeners and I'm trying to get to my 5k downloads.

That would be awesome if you could help me do that.

So.

Right.

How do we reduce stress?

Well, first of all, let's understand stress a little bit.

Let's understand.

And you know, people often look at me and they go, well, you don't get stressed, Stephen.

I really do.

I suffer from stress quite a bit.

It's, you know, it's not something that is unfamiliar to me and I come from a family of stressors and most of my family are still stressors now.

And also being paralyzed just below my neck or just above my nipples.

And I never know how to explain that.

It's not quite just below my neck because I got my arms a little bit, but my hands are paralyzed and I, I can feel my nipples slightly.

Why am I sharing this with you on a podcast?

It's in there now, you know, you now know I can feel my nipples a little bit.

Well, there you go.

You weren't expecting that, were you?

But anyway, right, let's bring it back, let's bring it back.

Let's, let's bring the tone back under to some kind of control here.

Where was I?

Yeah, I have 24 hour carers and you know, most of the time they cannot even make toast for me properly or at least the way I want it.

You know, I get a piece of toast and I'm like, what's that?

And they'll go taste.

I'm like, no, that's like warm bread with some butter on it.

And then they'll bring down a piece of toast and it's dried up and it was buttered like two days after it come out of the toaster.

So yeah, I, I know what stress is.

Like, I, I, I get it.

You know, they gotta shower me, they gotta do like the most intimate things and all that.

In my personal care, I know what stresses, you know, I have my fair share of it, but I've learned to deal with it.

I've learned to.

And plus, I'm on the city council, I'm a politician.

You Know if that doesn't qualify for someone that has some kind of stress.

But anyway, right, let's go back to.

First of all, there's a few things I want you to know about stress, and that is, you know, stress is not your enemy.

We often think we have to get rid of it.

We have to get rid of any kind of stress, get rid of any kind of anxiety or any of those things that give us an adverse effect.

And we don't.

You know, it evolved to protect us.

It saves our life.

You know, this stress mechanism, this anxiety mechanism that comes up, it's that same friend that pulls us back when we're just about to step in front of a car.

It's giving us information.

It's telling us that, hey, look, I think something's wrong.

You need to take notice.

So stress is not the enemy.

It's not about getting rid of stress.

That's the first.

And if you only take that away from this podcast.

Stress is not the enemy.

You don't have to get rid of it completely.

We just have to soften it.

We have to quiet it down a little bit, and we have to listen and understand it.

Hopefully that makes a little bit of sense.

Not easy to do.

Don't get me wrong.

When other people are like.

We feel other people are causing our stress, it's really not that easy to do.

I know.

Okay, if stress is a friend, how come it kills so many people?

How come it's so dangerous for us?

Well, it's not the stress is the problem.

It's that prolonged stress is the problem.

It's that.

It's the fact that we get stressed, like as if we're in the middle of.

And we use this example all the time.

A saber tooth tiger.

500,000 years ago, you're in a forest and suddenly you look up and this saber tooth tiger's looking at you and you know that it thinks you're lunch.

Well, that stress mechanism is going to save your life.

It's going to do all the things your body needs to hopefully survive the next five, 10 minutes, when you need to get the hell out of there or you need to freeze and fight, things like that.

But the problem is, it's when we're.

When we're feeding that stressed mechanism, when it's alive and alert in our bodies for hours and hours and hours on end, it builds up the chemicals in our body that our body was not designed to have it for hours on end.

And that lies the problem.

That there is the problem.

So.

So stress is a is a friend, it will save your life.

B, we just need to make sure that it's not there all the time.

It's really over sensitive now, it's missing.

You're misinterpreted in the messages.

You know, we, we get stressed if our tea isn't right or if we're two minutes late or we're stuck in traffic when most of these things there's nothing we can do.

You know, I had a discussion with my stepdad at some point and I said to him, and this is when I first started studying all these like to reduce my stress and all that.

And I said to him, he's a lorry driver.

And I said to him, well you get really stressed if you're following a really slow bus or something or a slow car.

And he goes yeah, bloody right.

And I said yeah, but what if you just lowered that stress and thought well I'm still behind the car or bus or something anyway.

And he goes yeah, but it's making you bloody late in it and they should drive quicker.

And I'm like, well you can think all those things but you're still behind it.

Nothing's going to change.

So you can either be stressed about it or just ah.

Or you can use my three steps to reduce stress instantly.

So most people almost feel like they need to be stressed in order to be doing something that, that need to.

Well, if I'm sitting here stressed, that means I'm accomplishing something where you're not really, you're just feeling stressed.

That's the reality of it.

You know, stress doesn't actually accomplish anything beyond the initial saving your life.

If you're confronted with a saber tooth tiger, and I'm guessing you're not very often confronted with a saber tooth tiger, not in this day and age.

So how do we get rid of stress?

Well, you can't.

It's part of the body's mechanism, it's part of who you are.

Getting rid of stress is like trying to get rid of your heartbeat or your thinking, your brain, your mind's designed to think, your heart's designed to beat.

You're not going to get rid of the emotions know that have evolved to help you in life.

But what we can do is we can take control over it and that's what we want to do.

Instead of the stress overwhelming us and controlling us, we want to reduce it.

So we're in control of the stress and we do that by softening it, evening out, listening to it.

You know, stress is a autonomic Response system just the same as your breathing.

Like I said, just the same as your heartbeat.

It's gonna happen anyway.

You know, you try stopping your breathing for too long, it's gonna breathe.

You try completely getting rid of your stress mechanism, it's going to manifest somewhere at some point.

There's nothing you can do about that.

So to recap then, at the beginning, I said I was gonna go give you three, my three steps, and I will in just a moment.

But you know, stress is not the enemy.

You use it as your friend, start embracing it, and then you'll take control of it a little more.

You cannot get rid of it.

No matter how much you try.

It's going to creep up on you at some point.

You're going to be in a situation where your bodily intuition, which is beyond us and our subconscious mind is beyond us, is going to protect you.

It's going to creep up and it's going to save you.

So you don't want to get rid of it entirely.

It's all about how long you spend stressed, how many hours of the day if you're walking around.

I'm stressed, I'm stressed, I'm stressed.

Hour after hour.

The testosterone and the hormones and all that in your body, you know, the extra glucose and the extra.

All the chemicals and things like that.

I forgot the names of them.

Now, the extra things that it produces are not good for you in the long run.

That's all we need to know.

Right.

So it comes down to information, really.

And what information can you deem from feeling stressed?

So my three steps to reduce stress instantly.

Thank you for listening this long.

And they're really quite simple.

And number one, Shut up.

Be quiet.

Now you're in a stressful situation.

You're.

Somebody's in your face or something like that, you know, just stop.

Be quiet.

Lower your shoulders, bring your head back a little bit.

You don't have to be in the position that you're attacking mode.

So just be quiet.

I remember a guy just up the end of the road.

He's passed away now, but a few.

About 15 years ago.

No, nearly 20 years ago.

Wow.

He was in my house screaming and shouting at me to move the van.

You need to get that van moved.

And I was.

I had about five or six guys around me because they were doing building work in the house at the time.

And they were all looking at me and I said, look, just explain to me why you need me to move the van and I'll move it quite happily.

And you know, I'm good with moving the van, but you just.

Can you explain to me why I need to move it?

You just need to.

And he was going on and on and on.

And in the end I just went quiet.

I just stayed there, you know, non confrontational.

And I just stay there.

Give me a.

Give me a good reason, otherwise we'll come and move it when the work guys go home later in a couple of hours.

And in the end he walked down the house and the office said, how did you deal with that?

I just said, I don't know.

But I just, I didn't have the words.

I was just quiet.

So number one, be quiet, shut up, stop talking.

Number two, be still.

And there is a difference between being quiet and be still.

You know, choir is, you know, I'm not talking, but the mind is racing.

The mind might be getting angry and the stress is building up inside and all that.

Everything that's happening inside.

Being still is, you know, being quiet is shutting your mouth.

Being still is just slowing the flywheel of the mind down, moving from your head to your heart, moving to your body and just slowing down.

So you can always imagine your body going from a run to a walk to a sitting to eventually lying down.

It's just, just slowing down.

So first one, be quiet.

Second one, be still.

The third one, and this is really important one, is be open.

Be open to, you know, what's going on, what's happening right now.

Be accepting of this current moment, I'm stressed.

And be okay with that.

Be okay.

We've been stressed because normally we're stressed because we care.

We normally stress because there's a reason behind it.

And they're probably.

When we are open about it and when we're accepting about it, the stress normally reduces because it's been listened to.

And that makes sense.

Then it's just like, okay, I can calm down because I've been listened to.

And very often we want to sound off at somebody else.

And this three steps will stop that.

So be quiet, be still and be open.

And I got a bonus for you.

And it's kind of an extension of the be open.

Let's be curious, you know, be friendly curious with what your stress is.

Hi stress, how are you feeling?

Why are you here?

Where are you two in my body?

What's the reason you're here?

Is it a strange same stress last week?

Is it the same ones the week before?

Is this something I need to listen to?

Just be curious within and you'll find out just the same as anger, just the Same as grief and all the other feelings that we deem as not very nice.

Inside, you'll find that you just care.

And that's the important part.

So when we shut up, when we go a little still, and when we open up and then we're curious and you do those four things, and instantly any stressful moment would just reduce.

Boom, just like that.

And it's not the fact that you're getting rid of it.

And it's really important I say my three steps to reduce stress, not my three steps to get rid of stress, to banish it from your life.

We want to get.

And you don't want to do that.

That's not the answer.

That.

That.

That won't serve you in any way.

In actual fact, you'll.

You'll probably become.

So.

I think it's nihilism or something.

I think that's a word where you just don't care about anything.

Not bothered.

You know, if you get angry and you get stressed, you care about something deeply.

It's normally someone's.

We're feeling like someone's pushing our buttons the wrong way or something like that.

But, you know, and that might be the case.

You know, I'm not here to.

I'm not here to discuss or say whether or not your stress is justified, but I can say just turn the volume down on it.

And just being quiet, being still, being open.

And then as a bonus, be curious and do it as a process.

Don't do it all in one go.

The better you get at it, the quicker you can go through the process.

And instead of, like at a volume 110, when you're not so good at it, we turn it down 10%.

10%, and then we've got to work on the next 10%.

Whereas when you get really good at it, you got a volume of 110 and it's boom, right down to like 30%, just like that.

And then it's manageable.

And then we could do something with it.

Sometimes we need to do something.

Sometimes we need to pick up the phone to the person and clear up whatever we're stressed about.

Sometimes we need to deal with it.

So, yeah, I hope this podcast helps.

You know what?

Christmas just around the corner.

You could do me a massive favor.

As a gift.

You could share this podcast on social media.

You could leave a comment, you could leave a review.

If you're listening to.

On an iPhone or an iPad and on Spotify, you can subscribe.

And whatever platform you're doing it on, just do whatever it does hit a heart or leave a review or listen to another episode.

The more people listen to it, the more it's shared.

The more reviews, the more people it's going to help.

And this podcast is to reduce your suffering when the life is difficult and everybody goes comes across difficult times, even, even at Christmas, people have difficult times.

So take care guys.

Have an awesome week and I will see you next week.

Merry Christmas.

Namaste.