Hey Reader,

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Welcome to Day One of the IBStress-Less September Challenge!

I'm so excited to kick things off with you today, so let's get down to business!

Each day you'll be getting a short article and accompanying video to take you through the topic of the day.

Make sure you click here to download the challenge workbook as there are exercises each day to help you go deeper into the content.

At the end of the article and in the workbook you'll find the action step for that date to ensure you start taking action and seeing progress!

If at any time you have a question, just hit reply and let me know what you need.

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Day One: Increasing the Size of Your Stress Bucket

Hands up if you’ve ever felt stressed or overwhelmed before?

(Pretty sure you should have your hand up right now!)⁠

Stress is a normal part of life, but large amounts of it, or long-term, chronic stress can start having an impact on our health.⁠

And often, stress is the reason why you’re struggling to find the pattern to your IBS symptoms.⁠

Stress is a huge trigger when it comes to IBS. I would maybe even go so far to say that it’s the number one trigger!

It might be why one week a meal can be perfectly fine, and the next week the exact same food ends up in a flare up.⁠

But when we think about types of stress, we often overlook or downplay the importance of certain areas.

While this is by no means an exhaustive list, below I’ve summarized some of the big types of stress with examples.

• Physical stressors
  • Over-exercising
  • Sedentary lifestyle
  • Poor sleep (quality and/or quantity)
  • Injury or illness, surgery
• Chemical stressors:
  • Allergens (whether food-related or otherwise)
  • Alcohol
  • Tobacco
  • Drugs
• Sensory stressors:
  • Bright lights or chaotic colours
  • Loud noises
  • Crowded or cluttered spaces
  • Strong scents
• Psychological:
  • Deadlines
  • Traffic jams
  • Financial problems
  • Relationship issues
  • Anxiety or worry about your IBS!

So now that you have an idea about what types of things might be causing stress on your body, let’s look at two angles to consider stress management itself:

1️. How big is your bucket - aka how resilient are you to stress? How effective are you at dealing with and recovering from it?⁠

2. How full is your bucket - aka how much stress are you under? What areas can you identify to decrease the total amount of stress hitting you?⁠ ⁠

Most of the time, when we talk about stress management, we focus on tactics that build resiliency.

These are actions and habits that you have that reduce the overwhelming feeling of stress or help you increase the size of your bucket so that it takes more stress to even make you hit that feeling in the first place.

Often these are activities that feel relaxing or recharging in some way.

Examples could be:

• Meditation/breath-work
• Journaling
• Bath
• Exercise
• Being in nature
• Yoga or stretching
• Talking to a friend
• Snuggling a pet
• Reading a book
• Sex
• Shopping
• Watching a TV show or movie
• Listening to music
• Doing something creative
• Gardening
• Etc.

⁠Focusing on stress-relieving activities is a great approach, but don’t completely overlook ways to also decrease the total amount of stress your subject to!⁠ We’re going to get into this more in the Masterclass on Day Three. ⁠

Day One Action Step:

Today’s action step is pretty straight forward. Choose one action, whether from your own brainstorm or from the list above, and do whatever it is on top of what your usual routine is. So if you already have, for example, a killer yoga and meditation practice, today you’re going to do something extra on top to give yourself a little extra self-care.

Watch today's video:

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