Our culture typically rushes to work, suffers various interpersonal tensions, and sleeps poorly when worries cyclone through our minds. (By Cliff Jia/The Epoch Times)
Toxicity is not an overstatement, as current research shows exactly how damaging mental and emotional stress is for the physical body, from body fat storage to disease proliferation. Numerous emotional and physical disorders that have been linked to stress, including weight gain, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, skin and digestive syndromes, and neurological disorders.
The underlying reason behind stress is the way a person perceives his or her changing environment. The very simple secret to understanding stress lies in you and your thoughts.
Our culture typically wakes to a blaring alarm, rushes to work, sits in traffic, has an unending list of things-to-do, suffers various interpersonal tensions, is short on money, and sleeps poorly when worries cyclone through our minds.
The negative stress response is usually a chronic “fight-or-flight” response that occurs due to stressors like not having enough money and time. Stress relievers, like gardening and meditation, encourage an opposing bodily response that supports functions to “relax-repair-rebuild.” Counting the waking hours of the day shows that most people spend many more hours in chronic “fight-or-flight” responses, rather than experiencing a balance of the two.
When we deal with stress in a panic, it causes a sustained release of stress hormones, that can burn out the adrenal-thyroid connection, and ultimately ends in a number of chronic diseases. Even many situations that are seemingly stress-free, like watching your favorite television show, often induce a fight-or-flight response. If you feel this sort of stress response occurring, a tremendous amount of research has shown that it can be reversed with almost any stress treatment such as yoga, gardening, playing an instrument, or simply deep breathing. All treatments allow you to enter the “relax-repair-rebuild” cycle, which stops your body’s reaction to pump stress hormones.
But, if a thorn bush continues to slash your bare legs, is it better to leave the house each day with band-aids or pants? Although some stress is good, our society is overloaded with high stress factors that we often do not handle well. For most people, many suggested stress-reducers act more like a band-aid than a permanent solution. They don’t change a person’s reaction to a potential stressor.
The secret to moving past stress may lie in changing your perceptions. It has been said, “People respond to perceptions of reality, not reality itself.”
Wishful thinking leads many people to assume that stress is temporary or unchangeable because it is caused by other people or outside events. Common excuses include, “If it weren’t for my stressful work,” or “I can’t believe she said that to me,” or “It’s just a stressful time right now.” Though they may seem comforting, these thoughts place your stress into the hands of others and you avoid taking responsibility.
Consider the following parable. Genetically identical twins work for the same shoe company on the mainland. They are each sent to a remote island to explore the possibility of selling shoes and both discover that no one wears shoes on the entire island. Dismayed, the first twin reports to his boss that the probability of selling shoes is dismal. The second twin, however, returns excited, reporting that the entire shoe market is theirs to claim! The only difference is perception.
This parable is not so different from a husband and wife who perceive their financial situation differently; or coworkers who view their job and boss in different lights; or parents who disagree about whether or not their child should drive at age 16. Even “eyewitness testimony” is notorious for telling very different accounts of the same event.
Whether the sight of your boss heading toward your office floods a concoction of stress hormones through your bloodstream or not is dependant on your perception, attitude, and outlook at that moment. The same response-decision potentially occurs every time your teacher asks a nervous crowd for volunteers, you hear someone gossip behind your back, and when you’re late and sitting in traffic.
Perception is the key to how you will perceive a situation and your response will determine if stress hormones flood your system. Therefore, your level of stress, with subsequent illness or health, is based largely on perception, or thoughts.
Tune in next week to discover a little-used solution for changing your perceptions: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
James Goodlatte is a certified holistic lifestyle coach who currently assists new parents and pregnant moms to achieve optimal health. He can be contacted at FitForBirth@gmail.com or through his Web sites GetFitForBirth.com, SecretsofPainlessChildbirth.com, and Your SuperBaby.com
