A Strategy to Deal With Stress
By: God Beast
Tags: Stress Management

As someone who has recently joined a coding boot camp, dealing with waves of stress is something I’ve had to do daily. Studying helps this panic the most in my mind, but the lasting effects of those moments stick elsewhere, especially between my shoulder blades.

Instead of tackling a complex issue of coding for a beginner or expounding upon some area of lax documentation, I am going to dive into stretching and its importance in dealing with stress.

I’m not going to recommend any stretches or routines… I’m sure you all know some of them and can look up many more through a quick google search of Yoga or aerobics videos from the 70’s or 80’s. Instead, I am going to be talking a little about how to stretch in your mind in order to effectively stretch your body. Hopefully this mindset can help alleviate some of the pent up stress of staring at yet another new and interesting error message that has just popped up.

Jim Carrey’s Clint Eastwood Impression circa 1991

Above is an example of what stress can do to a face. Note too stress can do this to any part of the body.

Below is a video of what a muscle fiber is doing in order to contract and relax. If you don’t want to watch it all, watch the end where it shows muscle fibers climbing the sarcomere.

Libretexts.org

Remember too that these sarcomeres, or the sacks around bundles of muscle fibers, twist up a bit when they contract. Muscles knotting up is a decently apt description, but it is more like the knots a rubber band gets when twisted, rather than knots tied with rope.

Personally, I had been stretching wrong my entire life and hadn’t noticed. “Touch your toes.” Anybody ever heard that in their life? Get in this position, now do this action, now relax. Seems simple… but it isn’t. I believe a major reason for this is we all learn how to stretch at a very young age and very few of us update that knowledge.

One day I started to stretch differently from my childhood habits, and it was only because I had been forced to it. ACL surgery with a bit of meniscus work thrown in. It was years until I felt comfortable stretching and over that period my left hamstring had been tightening up slowly but surely. In hindsight it wasn’t just my left hamstring. It was my calf, and my hips and lower back. My left shoulder, collar and the back of my neck. It was the rest of my body protecting my knee.

That protection order had been issued by the stress in my mind. A major stressful incident, in this case an invasive surgery, had sent my body in to overdrive to protect itself. I had to start stretching outside in, instead of inside out. At least… that is the only way I can see to put it.

When I went to touch my toes, I focused on everything else. I focused on my toes, and how they were dug into the ground. I focused on my calves, and how they were flexing because of my toes and this transferred some tension in to the back of my knee. My calf was hell bent on protecting my knee. I focused on my hips, and how tense my thighs were. My back wasn’t straight, my neck and shoulders rigid.

I stood back up, relaxed, and touched my toes. It took about 5 minutes. I had to close my eyes and think about each of those places, as if I was looking at them in my mind. Eventually they relaxed, but it was an odd place to go. The more I thought about them the more they listened and relaxed. The more the little pieces relaxed and stretched, the further down I reached.

When I finally made it to my hamstring, after relaxing and stretching everything else, that was the only thing I needed to think about. I stretched that hammie that day. It was stretched. And it was good.

After that experience, I have thought differently about stretching. The above video is to reinforce the idea that sometimes it takes multiple systems relaxing in order to truly stretch out your muscles. The center of your muscle and the ends both need to relax in order for your muscles to stretch. Here are a few ideas to ponder while stretching…

Focus first on the rest of your body. Relax before you begin to stretch.

Keep your posture. Push with your body, don’t reach with your arms.

Relax the ends of your muscles. The connection points. Work your way towards the center. If you can’t, repeat from step one.

Stretching should feel good. If it feels unpleasant or burns, repeat from step one.

If you stretch one side of your body, stretch the other. Front to back, left to right or vice versa in both cases.

Close your eyes and look at your muscles. I know it sounds weird but try it. Just focusing your mind on a spot while stretching can help tremendously. Move your thoughts around the muscle groups that are giving you trouble. Follow them past the specific muscle group you are focused on. Be a detective.

If you don’t stretch, try it. It might have been because you learned as a child and never really learned how to stretch, so it isn’t all that enjoyable. But it can be, so try it out. The tension in your mind will build up in your body, and that tension and stress kills. Stretching can help release that tension.

Try it right now if you can. Touch your toes. Relax. Dive in with your mind, because just thinking about relaxing your body will help to relax your mind. Your thoughts might slow down, and some of that stress just might disappear.