Ways to Deal with Stress

Thursday Halaqa Notes
Dr. Kinda Jasim
1/16/14
MCA Santa Clara, CA

Stress part 2

• Stress is not necessarily a bad thing, because it helps us deal with the things that happen in our life. 
• When the stress happens, first the adrenaline is made, then the cortisol is made. But the problem comes when there is constant stress and the hormones stay too long in the body. 
• The way we deal with stress affects how long the cortisol stays in our body.
• So thinking about what makes you stressed and finding ways to deal with your stress is the solution.
• There is no magic pill. You have to learn how to deal with your stress.
• It is impossible to not have stress, especially in these days.
• Stress has always been around, but people didn’t use to complain about their stress like we do today.

Ways to deal with stress: 

1. Balance your life 

• First, look at your life and make a schedule: give all the obligations, activities, and things you like to do a certain time in the day.
• When we balance our life, we can take some time for ourselves without feeling guilty. 
• If we gave a time to all our priorities, then we would have time and energy to pray in a relaxed way. Then our Salat could take us to another place and be a relaxation for us.
• Sometimes we are in a situation where we have to pick our child up from school and we delay praying Dhuhr because we think we will be late. It takes 2 minutes to pray Dhuhr. These 2 minutes are not going to make you late. If you pray them before you pick up your child from school, you will leave the house feeling good. Then you don’t have to worry about it later when your children are home from school and you are distracted with many things.
• A mom has house work, raising children and also needs some time for her work and herself. 
• So when you first wake up, fix your bed so you put in your mind that sleep is over. Get out of your room and start your day. 
• First thing: preparing the kids for school. You have to wake the kids, make breakfast, and get out the door - while staying calm. 
• Don’t expect perfection or changes in the first day. It takes time.
• First problem: yelling - ‘Why didn’t you dress up?? Where’s your HW??’ When a kid turn 5 and starts Kindergarten, he goes to school and the teacher treats him as a responsible person. She expects him to put his papers in the cubby and hang his jacket and bag. We have to deal with them the same way. Teach them to be responsible. 
• Our responsibility to Allah is not to be over our child every minute. If we do everything for our children, then one day if you are sick they won’t be able to help you. They won’t know how to do things on their own.
• Don’t let your children’s faults and weaknesses effect you. If they didn’t get a good grade, the grade is for them not for you. 
• Let the child suffer the consequences and learn from their mistakes. If our child failed a test - maybe this is a chance for him to learn a lesson. Example: a child was always the last in the class. The next year he repeated the class but became the first in the class.

2. Check your goals and priorities

• Our job as a mom is a very important responsibility. 
• Realize that you are raising the next generation of Muslims.
• You have to put parenting goals.
• In addition to our goals of taking care of our kids, helping them with their school work, feeding them healthy meals, making sure they have clean clothes - we also have to put goals for the akhirah, the hereafter.
• Our work as parents gives us big rewards from Allah.
• If you think of parenting in this way, it will help you deal with your children.
• It helps you remember, that when you are dealing with your children - you are waiting for a reward from Allah, not from the children.
• When something happens, we should first think: Is this important right now? Or in one month? Is this a priority? What will happen if the dishes are not done in this minute?
• Remember that most of the time when your child does something, that is has nothing to do with you. If he didn’t listen to you - it has nothing to do with your value. 
• If he didn’t put his clothes in the hamper, is this problem a major issue? You think it is important for you in that moment, but it is not really a big deal when you compare it with the priorities and goals you have for the child. 
• Unless it is something he is doing everyday. Then you should take the example of the Prophet (S). Find a way to deal with it in the right way, for his age, and the priority of the issue.
• Cleanliness has degrees. What you think is clean is not the same as what your child thinks is clean. Each person has a way of cleaning. 

3. Prayer and meditation

• At the age of 7-10 we teach our child how to pray and help him love Salat. After the age of 10, we are allowed to hold the stick. 
• We get upset with our children that they don’t pray on time, when even we don’t pray on time. How many of us hear the Athan and leave everything and go pray? So then we didn’t show our children that the Salat is a priority in our life. 
• The problem with us is that the prayer is not a priority for us. 
• In the old days they used to walk to get to the masjid. We have a car and we don’t arrive on time, then we don’t get to pray tahiyat al masjid, and we miss the first few rakahs. 
• If you go to any doctor, any book, they say meditation. Just sit and focus on how you are sitting, on every bone, on your breath, and don’t think about anything else. But Allah told us to think about our blessings, nature, etc. 

4. Create a good environment at home for your kids

• Make your home an environment where children can be independent.
• Make your home child proof, not your child house proof. 
• If you want your child to do their HW, you have to make it an environment for studying. 
• Bedroom should only be for prayer, sleep, reading a book. 
• They should study in front of you in the dining room. 
• The TV should be off everywhere in the homework time.  
• Kids need to be watched while on TV or computer even if you trust them, which is hard to do if they are in the bedrooms.
• The TV should be in one room. 
• The computer and TV should not be in the bedroom. Because if it is in the bedroom, then the TV will be your child’s friend. 
• Families are growing apart. The family should spend as much time together as possible. 
• If you keep sending them to their room then they don’t learn how to be with their family and you will be with your kids like room-mates, not family.  
• If you are cooking, and they are sitting at the dining table studying and talking - you will figure out what they are thinking, especially if you pretend you are not hearing. 
• Kids need to know that you are checking their computer, phone, TV watching, Ipad.. etc. If we can’t trust ourselves and have to make dua for Allah to steady our heart on His deen, then what about our children? 

5. Problem Solving and Prevention

• There’s a lot of things in our life that we cannot change. These things we have to just accept them and find ways to deal with them.
• But there are also a lot of things that happen that we can prevent.
• Keep a journal: every time you yell, you write down what made you yell, what you did, and how you dealt with the issue. What was the cause? 
• You are not responsible for others’ reactions and actions, but you are responsible for YOUR reaction and YOUR actions. 
• You are not responsible for your husband’s anger, but you are responsible for your reaction to his anger. 
• We need to be patient in the first moment when something happens to us. 
• In a stressful situation: walk away. Don’t yell, don’t argue - just leave. You calm down and come back and then deal with it.
• The Prophet(S) didn’t get angry except when religious boundaries were crossed.  
• Don't care too much about what others think about you - you have no control over that and you are not responsible for that.
• Don’t try to figure out why people made mistakes. When your child make mistakes, it’s not because they don’t value you, it’s because they are human. We ourselves make so many mistakes throughout the day, so what about them? 
• If a lady did something to you, there’s no use in getting angry, and then carrying the anger to everyone in your life. 
• Never give up. Don’t let guilt stop you from trying again. You will fall sometimes and that is ok, you just learn from it and try to do better the next time. 

6. Sleep and exercise

• Our body makes serotonin in the day. Serotonin is responsible for relaxing the body and making you feel happy. In order to make serotonin, you need to see the sun. So in the morning, go outside and exercise. Even if it’s just 10 min but 30 min is better. 
• Walking everyday helps you deal with your stress.
• Don’t think about your problems when you are walking. Stop and smell the roses. Just look at the greenery and trees around you. We keep thinking about the past, and worrying about the future. We need to live in the present.
• Then at night, the body makes melatonin. Melatonin relaxes the body and helps you sleep. In order to make enough, you have to have made serotonin during the day. 
• For the body to make melatonin, it has to be dark in the room and it has to be cold. When you are asleep you won’t realize the cold, you won’t feel it. 
• Sleep problems: make the bedroom for sleep only. Turn off the tv and turn off the cell phones or put on silent, and put upside down so the light won’t show. Think back a few years, didn’t we used to live without a cell phone? 

7. Stress relief hormones and support from friends

• Women have two issues that help them deal with stress. We have the hormone oxytocin. In childbirth it is responsible to return the uterus to it’s shape. It also relieves stress in the body. Estrogen in the women’s body helps the oxytocin work better. 
• Also, women can talk with other women. 
• Men don’t have this estrogen and they don’t ask for help from others. 
• So women can handle the stress in their life better than men. 
• When you ask someone for help, it doesn’t mean you are weak. But choose someone you know could give you good advice and help you. 
• Also, you can get help without telling others about your problems. There are some people who can relax you by their positive attitude and good company.