Dr. Michael Olpin: How to Easily Decrease Your Stress Today

Stories of Hope in Hard Times

Michael didn’t set out to be a college professor, he just wanted to learn to manage his stress, but this quest led him to not only lower his blood pressure but influence tens of thousands to live a more healthy lifestyle.

Episode Discussion Points

• Looking younger than you are has pros and cons
• The diagnosis and curiosity around “meditation” that led to his becoming a professor of stress management, health and wellness.
• Stress plays a part in high blood pressure
• Dr. Olpin has learned several tools, including meditation, that help bring out bodies back into balance, and when a body is in balance it can heal.
• Everyone has more stress than is useful
• What turns on the stress response
• Stress makes every health problem worse
• As stress levels go up, immune function goes down.
• The impact of losing his older brother to suicide had on him and his journey toward acceptance which included forgiving and letting guilt and negative self-talk go.
• How God helped him change his thinking so he could work toward peace, and how meditation helped him hear God’s spirit speaking to him and guiding him.
• When he meditates before prayer, his prayers and his ability to listen are exponentially more powerful.
• How are thoughts are like bees busy buzzing around and meditation calms them and puts them back in the hive. And once they are quiet they can hear inspiration.
• Studies show that people who meditate frequently can get into the theta and delta levels in their brain (*which usually appear when people are in deep sleep).
• People who meditate are biologically 12 years younger than their age.
• Every system in the body breaks down when we are in a stress response (fight or flight)
• Meditation helps stop the stress response and bring the body back to normal
• Meditate means to focus—whether it be on a mantra, watching the sunset, a campfire, or the ocean waves rolling in.

A Simple Meditation You Can Do Anywhere

• Put one hand on your chest and try NOT to make your chest or shoulders move as you breathe.
• Put your other hand on your stomach to help you breathe deep and expand.
• Breathe in naturally through your nose.
• Then exhale as slow and soft as you can.
• Don’t worry about how fast or slow you are breathing
• Simply focus on your breath, and bring your mind back if it wanders (don’t get mad at yourself if it does wander).
• Then move through your body from the top of your head taking each part and relaxing or releasing the muscles with each exhale (ex: inhale, breathe out—relax your eyebrows, inhale, breathe out—relax your cheeks and jaw, inhale, breathe out—release your neck and shoulders, inhale, breathe out—release your arms, then hands, your back…on down to your toes.)
• This type of breathing is the exact opposite of fight or flight breathing and will automatically calm you down.
• His goal with his mind body wellness is to help people live at their peak levels.
• The waves of stress never stop, but we can learn to be peaceful through the waves of life.

Favorite Bible Verse

Proverbs 3:5-6—especially where it says, “Lean not unto thine own understandings.” Don’t get cocky. Lean on God and He will steer you in better direction than you could go on your own.

Every time Dr. Olpin tries God and His promises things work out for the best.

“We can’t out-God God.”

Dr. Olpin likes to apply this verse every time he presents by saying a prayer before he teaches and asking for God’s help to reach His children. And it always goes better.

Connect with Dr. Olpin

• Websites: michaelolpin.com and https://stressmanagementplace.com get his free newsletter or reach out to contact him on either website.
• Textbook: Stress Management for Life: A Research-Based Experiential Approach
• Award winning book: “Unwind: 7 Principles for a Stress-Free Life”
• Additional book: “The World is NOT a Stressful Place: Stress Relief for Everyone.”
• You can also get his workbooks with his online classes or on his website.

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Transcription

You can find the transcription of today's episode here: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/podcasts/dr-michael-olpin-how-to-easily-decrease-your-stress-today