We live in a world where stress is a big part of our lives, too much of stress for prolong period of time can lead in burnout and can have a major impact in our health and well-being. However, interestingly enough, recent studies indicate that is not stress that is causing the problems; The way we feel about stress, the way we think, react and act towards stress is what is creating the problem; thus understanding stress and how it serves us is the first step in eliminating its harmful properties.
Below is an attempt to bring some clarity on what is stress, and how to respond towards stress.
How the Body Reacts to Stress
Stress is a physical expression of our ‘Fight or Flight’ survival mechanism. To elaborate, a threatening situation will trigger a stress response which generates a cascade of stress hormones that produce physiological changes preparing and enabling humans to confront or flee from a life-threatening situation. This survival mechanism is activated in many life situations like when we press on the brakes when the car in front of us suddenly stops.
The stress response begins in the brain; when someone confronts an oncoming danger the sensory organ (eyes, ears etc) send the information to the amygdala (an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing) which interpreters the situation and instantly sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus (the command centre) and communicates with the rest of the body through the Autonomic nervous system (controlling involuntary body functions such as breathing, blood pressure, heart beat dilation or constriction of major key blood vessels, small airways in the lungs as so on).
So once danger is perceived, such as seeing a wild tiger Infront of you it signals the autonomic nerves to send stress hormones such as adrenaline onto bloodstream that lead to physiological changes; these physiological changes allow us to confront the situation, for example extra oxygen to the brain that increase alertness and sensory motor become sharper that enables us to act appropriately faster.
Some physiological changes are:
The autonomic nervous system has two components, the sympathetic (gas pedal- fight – flight response providing the body with energy to respond to danger) and the parasympathetic nervous system (brake- promotes rest and digest). Thus, when stress response is activated the body shuts down all unnecessary systems such as the immune system which is the body’s ability to heal itself so that you have the energy to flee or fight during a life-threatening situation.
All these changes happen so quickly that we are not even aware of this happening. In fact, the wiring is so efficient that happens even before the brains visual centres have had the chance to fully process what is happening ‘that is why people are able to jump out of the path of an oncoming car even before they think about what they are doing.’
When the threat passes, cortisol levels fall and the parasympathetic nervous system puts on a brake and diminishes the stress response.
The Harmful Stress Response
While stress response is essential for our survival it can also be triggered by tense situations where physical action is not an option such as an unreasonable boss, heavy traffic or financial problems.
The continuous non- due to a real physiological threat, cause human to be unbale to shut it down; therefore, it becomes more harmful than the actual stressor itself:
Affects memory and learning
The way to put brakes on Stress
Fortunately, people can learn techniques to counter the stress response.
Dealing with stress could be a matter of changing your mindset. Let me share with you an interesting fact that can be a game changer in our relation with stress. The average time it takes for an emotion to move through the nervous system and body is only 90 Seconds.’ After that for the emotion to survive and keep rolling; we need THOUGHTS; thoughts like I will lose my job, my appraisal will score low; thoughts and scenarios that did not yet happen and the mind goes on and on in a never-ending thinking loop. AND we are stuck in a painful and stressful emotional and stressful mindset due to our own endless stream of inner dialogue. After all we see, perceive and understand the world and our reality from the ongoing story we tell ourselves.
The opportunity hides in learning to recognize and interrupt our compulsive thinking; which allow emotional and behavioural patterns to continue to strengthen over time and break out of this patterning. Mindfulness meditation is a proven technique that can train ourselves to respond to stress in a way that does not strain us. The technique enables us to identify and make advantage of the gap between impulse and action enable us to create room to Interrupt the compulsive thinking that fuels anxiety and other painful emotions.
For example, if we have been caught up in a composing an angry email, we might pause and investigate feelings, emotions and present experience with kind attention; and you might decide not to press the send button.
When we notice our heart raising before a presentation take a moment to notice those feeling.
When it comes to stress do not pretend it doesn’t exist; acknowledge that is there to serve a purpose, look on the positive aspects to it and exploit that.
Another way to work on your stress level is to include in your life any physical activity that helps to deepen breathing and relieve muscle tension; such as yoga, tai chi, and qi gong as they combine fluid movements with deep breathing and mental focus, all of which can induce calm.
We can never reverse our experiences, whether pleasant or unpleasant, we can only direct our respond to it.