Understanding Stress
The only time you have nothing to stress about is when you are no longer with us!
Stress is a normal part of life. The body is designed to deal with stress. The problem is that most of us create far too much of it for our own good. We have not evolved to handle lots of the chemicals we have created in the last 100 years nor has our physiology evolved to handle the stress we have created for ourselves in the last 100 years. Physical evolution takes a lot longer than a century.
A few thousand years ago, our life was much more simple than today but we also faced frequent life threatening situations, for which our bodies are very well designed. When we detected the threat, like a lion, for example, our body would (and still does), shut down all immediately unnecessary functions such as digestion and sexual function. Blood would then be concentrated in our major muscles to help us “Fight or Flight”. Our adrenal glands release hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol. In many other ways our body goes into “High Alert”, ready for anything. Back in those days, these situations would bring about major physical exercise (either running or fighting for your life), which dissipated the stress hormones and returned the body back to normal, if we survived the situation.
Our major challenge these days is that we get many more stressful situations presented to us. Look at the information technology and how it has changed our life. On top of that we have multi billion dollar advertising campaigns telling us basically how we do not measure up to the ideal and we should be doing something about it. Consequently, with all our choices and impossible ideals, we encounter stress far more than our ancestors. Unfortunately, when the guy toots his horn at us, our body perceives the same threat as the lion – life threatening.
When we allow ourselves to become stressed, we go through exactly the same physiological processes as if we are about to be eaten by the lion. The big difference, apart from the frequency, is that we do not go through the vigorous exercise to dissipate the stress hormones. This then results in us having those stress hormones circulating around in our system for far longer than is appropriate and they can lead to all sorts of negative health outcomes. It is also not desirable for any of our major systems to be shut down for long periods of time.
Since we are not well designed to cope with modern life, we must learn to do so. Like any other learned skill, it requires practice and instruction. This is where meditation, yoga and many other practices have their place in our lives. Just like we need to discipline ourselves to exercise regularly, we need to discipline ourselves to de-stress regularly. As a support to this process we recommend a very high quality herbal supplement which has been clinically shown to control the main stress hormone, cortisol. Many industry experts believe that some pharmaceutical stress solutions are sometimes over prescribed. There certainly is a time for them but with the many negative side effects, we feel other paths are worth exploring unless it is a critical situation.
You can do yourself a great deal of good by adopting very simple activities and doing them regularly, such as performing gratitude each day, or practicing ‘mindfulness.’ This is worth researching but in summary, it is maintaining a high awareness each day of your thoughts and behaviours and asking yourself these questions: “Is this behaviour/thought/reaction really me? Or is it an old habit I do automatically and have never questioned? If so, how would I like to be instead?”
Most people have a spiritual authority that they look up to. It may be whatever you define as God, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna or maybe even New Age gurus such as the Dalai Lama or Eckhart Tolle. Regardless of who you admire, one thing they all have in common is they all practice the following attributes to all forms of life: Peace, Unconditional Love, Forgiveness, Acceptance, Gratitude, Harmony, Interconnectedness, Giving and many more. As often as you can remember, try to ask yourself, “What would *my spiritual guru* do now? How would he/she act? How can I embody these attributes in my situation right now?”This usually results in an immediate change in behaviour and thinking, as well as dissolving much of your stress.
You can do yourself a great deal of good by adopting very simple activities and doing them regularly.
Please click here if you would like to know more about how stress affects your life and especially your weight loss attempts or click here if you would like to download our ebook 12 Industry Secrets of Anti-Ageing for Free (normally $37).
About the author: Di Porter is a Principal of Revival Anti Ageing Clinic in Peregian Beach, phone 5471 2288.