What Do You Do About Stress?

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Walgreens would love to hear what else you do for stress. This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and fitness hall of famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. All right, Star Bolt from my favorite Facebook community asks, would love to hear what else you do for stress. Well, I'll be right back with that.

Hey JJ Virgin here.

Okay, real talk.

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So I have been under my fair share of stress in life. I bet you have too. About seven years ago, my 16 year old son was in a hit and run accident. He was crossing the street, a car hit him, left him for dead in the street. And the next four and a half months, the reality the next five to six years were incredibly stressful. The first four and a half months it was literally like, was he going to make it through? And then the next five years were what they don't tell you when you're helping someone through a traumatic brain injury and multiple surgeries and injuries from all the different things that happened to them. And so I'm going to tell you some of the things that I used share with you some of the things I used during that time because I realized the first night in the hospital as I was having massive heartburn and my adrenaline was up and I felt like my, you know, chest was just coming up through my throat because I realized that the only way I was going to get through this is if I put my self care at the top of the list because I had to show up for him in an ICU and I couldn't be sick. And stress is the thing that takes you down. So I fortunately had already had some practices in place that served me well. And what I love about this first one I'm going to give you is it's so simple to do, costs nothing, doesn't take much time. So it's sort of the trifecta, I call it my jam. And it's gratitude, appreciation and miracles. So every morning, and this is really important because one of my mentors early on taught me to control my environment. Trash in, trash out, right? So you know, don't watch negative news, don't read negative books, don't hang out with negative people. So first thing in the morning, gratitude. And I would wake up in the morning and I would be grateful that I could go over to the hospital and that my son was alive and getting amazing, incredible care. So I always found some things to be grateful for during the day. And this is appreciation you use to help keep you there, keep you in check. And I found sometimes I started to get a little bit irritated and upset and freaked out and scared. Most of that was coming from fear. And so what I found that would help there is that I would send out a text of appreciation. And it is amazing how much that helps you get out of your own way. Like when you go throw love on someone else. First off, what's super cool is when you throw love on someone, you appreciate them. And I like to do that. I mean, pick up a phone, send them a text, send them a card. But what's awesome is, guess what you get back. Yep. So appreciation out, appreciation in. And then finally, at the end of the day, looking back and went, what? What was great today? What. What were the wins? What were the little miracles of the day? You know, Grant winked at me, Grant squeezed my finger. Grant made eye contact. Whatever those things were, I found them. So think of your jam. And by the way, that at the end of the day, if you're hanging out with your family, having dinner, this is a great thing to do at the end of the day is the little miracles. And speaking of that, the next one that really helps get me through is. Is my community, my friends, my family. I call my extended. My friends, my extended family. I'm an adopted kid and didn't have a big family growing up, so I've kind of created one and. And I'm deeply connected with them, even though they're literally all over the world. And there's amazing now all the technology we can do to stay connected between FaceTime and Skype and Zoom. So makes it easy. All right, then another one. One of my top ones. And if you've been on my any of my Instagram lives or Facebook lives, you've probably seen my dog Daisy. And boy, it is really hard to be stressed out when you've got this dog who's like, oh, my gosh, you're home. Ah, I've missed you so much. Even if you just walked out the door to get the mail and walked back in the door. Gotta love these dogs. So my dog Daisy, hanging out with her, giving her little belly rubs. Always a way to get me back in check. I also highly recommend tapping. My buddy Nick Ortner has a tapping app on the itunes store for free. And then meditation. And that's where I do shout out to my girlfriend, Emily Fletcher of Ziva meditation. And when I use a lot, that works really well for me. I always tease Emily and go, I like to exercise, meditate while exercising. But exercising is one of the biggest ways I kind of blow it all off. And I am fortunate, like, beyond fortunate. I live on a canal in Tampa, and My house is on a canal, so my backyard is water.

And.

And so one of the ways that I de stress is I go and I paddle board. And what's cool about that is you just have to like, you got to let go of all the other stuff when you're paddleboring. Otherwise you're just going to fall off the paddle board. So it just makes you kind of go. And then another one is I love hot baths. That's the other thing that was kind of sold me on this house when we were looking is it had this most beautiful bath and I have a ton of Epsom salts. Epsom salts. And then I also, my husband got this me this really cool thing that sits on top of the bath that holds my book. And I here's my guilty pleasure that de stresses me because it completely takes me into another place. And this doesn't happen when I watch movies or tv, but when I read, I escape. And so I read like spy novels and romance novels and medical thrillers. So that's what I do. I love to read those types of things at night. That's my guilty pleasure. You heard it. And then I'm also going to give you resources. So my book started out as Miracle Mindset, and then I retitled it to Warrior Mom. You might see it in either one. Highly recommend that because I talk a lot about the different strategies. It really talks about how I got through what I went through and all the lessons that you can use in your daily life to really help you deal with stress. Because one thing I know for sure is we'll all go through stressful periods, right? And then we also did the Miracle Mindset Academy from that. So those are two resources you can do as well. And the most important thing is find your bliss. Find the thing that helps you. I gave you a bunch of ideas. Grab a hold of one of those and put it into action. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Boeckle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next reading. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And, of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast, and Visit our website whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.