Understanding Stress, Its Consequences and how to manage it
What is stress: It is a chemical reaction our brain initiates when our senses send a message that something is about to get worse in our external environment. This means that whenever our five senses perceive a threat that shit is about to go down, our brain responds to this message by rapidly releasing the hormones of stress. Adrenaline increases our heart rate so the heart can pump more blood to the extremities to fight or flight. Cortisol increases the sugar in the bloodstream, enhances the brain’s usage of glucose, so it can respond more rapidly to the situation, and suppresses some momentarily nonessential systems such as the immune, digestive and reproductive systems. This is a great response for when a Dingo is staring right into our eyes at a close proximity or when we spot a great white shark while surfing. Not so much when the “threat” is our jackass boss, our spouse or a flat tyre.
The consequences of stress: It is logical to assume that when we are under the influence of the stress hormones, we narrow our focus down to what it’s causing the stress. If I came across a dingo in the jungle, I don’t know about you, but all I would need to survive is to keep my eyes locked in on the dingo and my legs and arms to move as fast as possible so I can arrive at a safe place. Once I’m safely away from the threat, I can then broaden my focus back up to clean myself up, have a feast, finish editing the pictures to post on my Instagram tonight and so on.
However, our brain is unable to differentiate what is real and what is not. I mean, we have all had dreams that felt real, we have all driven by our crazy ex and had some bad feelings as though that bitch was betraying us right there and then. This is all to say that we can easily turn on our primitive nervous system (fight or flight) by thought alone. When we think about something, if we are present enough with that thought, our brains activates the glands to release the chemicals necessary to make the body experience the same thing as the brain is experiencing itself. Don’t know what I’m talking about? So, close your eyes, take a couple deep breaths and think of the best sex you have ever had in your entire life. Remember the details of the room you were in, smell the reek of sweat in the air, the taste of what you’re drinking, etc. I’m sure you feel minimally aroused by just thinking about it, don’t you? So, the same way we can deliberately convince our brain that we are in that situation by thought alone, we can also drive ourselves crazy by thinking of threatening situations everywhere we look. As when we are under the guns of the hormones of stress, we narrow our focus down on to the cause of such event and thus we turn our attention away from the solutions we need to address our problems. If we focus on the problem itself we have a hard time finding possible solutions because we are not looking for them. And so all hell breaks loose when we’re in a business meeting or driving our kids to school or speaking with our spouse on the phone and we’re stressed out. What happens neuro-chemically in our body is that the stress hormones are telling our hearts to pump blood to our extremities so we can immediately act on fighting or flying. However, our conscience knows where we are and what we are doing so it prevents us from acting. We are basically pressing the gas pedal and the brake simultaneously. Needless to say, that this causes incoherence between our brain and our heart/body. When our mind and body aren’t working coherently, we experience imbalance, self-doubt, fatigue and ultimately dis-ease.
How to reduce stress: Well, I don’t know any way to achieve something other than preparing for it. So, if our thoughts are causing us a great deal of stress, the first step must be getting familiar with the thoughts we are thinking. Once we are familiar with what we have been thinking, we must start noticing how those thoughts are making us feel. Once we are familiar with our thoughts and how they are making us feel, we must start paying attention to how we are reacting to those thoughts and feelings. In other words, we must observe what we have been thinking, notice how we have been feeling and pay attention to what we have been doing. Once we know all that intellectually, we can then begin to phase out the thoughts we do not want to keep thinking and wilfully fire the thoughts we want to begin to think. This ain’t easy I know, but neither is walking, if you think well about it. In order to walk we synchronise a whole bunch of muscular activity from the sole of our feet all the way up to the top of our spine. If we can do that without thinking about literally any of it, we can most certainly deliberate on the thoughts we want to think.
As we have covered earlier, once we think of something our brain activates certain neurological networks and signals the appropriate glands to release the appropriate hormones so the body can have the physical and emotional experience of that thought. Under the influence of such hormones which were triggered by that thought, we will act and react differently to what is happening in our environment. If we can do this once, we should be able to do it again. If we do it so often, we begin to neuro-chemically train ourselves to act a certain way. If we train something for a certain period of time, we develop the skill to do such thing every time we need or want. Once we have practiced such skill so many times, we do not even have to think of it, responding to situations in a certain way becomes a habit. In conclusion, we went from understanding something intellectually in our brain, to applying such intellectual knowledge in real life, to becoming the person who thinks, acts and behaves in such a way.
If you could use some help dealing with stress in the real world, schedule a Free Discovery Session right away so can start creating a less stressful life sooner rather than later.
