At the root of our obstacles to better health, and indeed a cause of many health problems is stress. It’s not hard to find advice for coping with stress - many people will recommend meditation or yoga, and these are a great place to start. But what you might not know is that managing stress for the long term is a challenge that is best met with a balance of two specific approaches.

In this podcast Performance Psychologist Dr. Simon Marshall, PhD. describes the two best strategies for managing the stress of life, along with a simple way to determine which one you’ve been relying on (often to the exclusion of the other). We also discuss some of the most common social stressors and ways for you to detach from stressful thoughts and feelings.

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Here’s the outline of this interview with Simon Marshall:

[00:02:19] Many dimensions to health.

[00:03:02] Headspace.

[00:04:13] Book: Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.

[00:06:35] Stressor vs stress response.

[00:07:22] Task-focused coping.

[00:09:04] Emotion-focused coping.

[00:13:47] Wherever you go, there you are.

[00:16:25] Limits of emotion-focused coping.

[00:17:50] Gaining new skills.

[00:18:53] Progressive muscle relaxation.

[00:21:18] Audit tasks and emotions: identify your strategies.

[00:22:13] Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, by Mark Manson.

[00:23:45] Book: The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT,

by Russ Harris.

[00:24:02] Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

[00:27:07] Diffusion, detachment.

[00:30:58] Detachment strategies.

[00:33:38] Exercise dependence.

[00:34:50] Social stressors; social comparison.

[00:39:52] Strava.

[00:41:28] Zwift.

[00:43:35] Moderation vs. abstinence.

[00:44:50] Summary.

[00:45:49] forum.nourishbalancethrive.com for audit examples.