presents |
|
Welcome
to our website! Contents |
Distressed
By Stress?
How
to turn off your body's automatic tension switch It
looks like an epidemic. It is everywhere. And it seems as if everyone has
been afflicted by it — mothers, fathers, lawyers, doctors, nurses,
preachers, teachers — no profession or individual has been left
unscathed.
I
call it Public Enemy No. 1. You may just call it stress.
You
experience stress from four basic sources:
1.
Environment. The sun, rain, pollution, noise and more can affect your
mood.
2.
Social stressors. Outside forces such as deadlines, financial problems,
your work environment, long hours on the job and staff shortages can
increase your stress level. Personal changes like the loss of a loved one
or constant demands on your time from family and friends can also be a
factor.
3.
Physiological stress. Biological changes like menopause in women, illness,
aging, lack of exercise and weight gain can increase your overall stress
level.
4.
Your thoughts. Your brain is like a giant computer that interprets changes
in the environment and decides when to turn on your body's emergency
response. How you interpret and label your present experience and what you
predict for the future can serve to either relax or stress you.
Stress
really begins with your appraisal of a situation.
The
Stress On/Off Switch
Hans
Selye, the first major researcher on stress, found that any problem —
real or imagined — can cause a biological response. When a potential
stressor is identified by your brain, the cerebral cortex sends an alarm
to the hypothalamus. That, in turn, stimulates the sympathetic nervous
system to make a series of changes in your body. Your heart may race. You
may start breathing faster. Your hands and feet may get cold as blood is
directed away from your extremities and digestive system and into the
larger muscles that can help you fight or flee.
Unfortunately,
problems arise when the fight and flight response continues unchecked as
it does during times of chronic stress. Your adrenal glands start to
secrete corticoids (adrenaline or epinephrine and norephidrine), which
inhibit digestion, reproduction, growth, tissue repair and the response of
your immune and inflammatory systems.
Fortunately
for us, the same mechanism that turns on the stress response can also turn
it off. This is called the relaxation response. As soon as you decide a
situation is no longer dangerous, your brain stops sending messages to
your nervous system. Three minutes after you shut off the threat, your
brain stops sending messages to your nervous system and the fight or
flight response burns off.
It
is interesting to note that approximately 3 minutes after the fight and
flight response is extinguished, your metabolism, heart and breathing
rate, muscle tension and blood pressure all return to normal.
Coping
With Stress
We
must be very concerned about continuous stress. Stress can be cumulative
if the stress receptors are constantly turned on. For example, stress from
2 years ago could still be affecting you now. It becomes important to know
ourselves and our ability to cope with stress well enough to know when we
need to ask for help. We need to cope with stress, not bottle it up.
There
are some simple things we can do to reduce our stress level.
Body
Scanning
Body
scanning involves taking a mental inventory of areas of tension in our
body and mentally releasing this tension.
Want
to try it? Close your eyes and ask yourself "Where am I tense?"
Start with your toes and mentally move up your body. When you find a
tension area, e.g., your neck, tell yourself that neck tension creates
tension in your shoulders, your jaw, your entire body. You are hurting
yourself. Tell yourself to let go of the tension. Then do it.
Stress
Journal
Keep
a stress awareness journal for 2 weeks. Make a note of the times of day
that are most stressful to you and what activity or activities you are
involved in.
Be
very specific in your journal. For example: 7 a.m. — Arrived at work.
The night nurses had emergencies all night, the unit feels like a mad
house. I've been here 3 minutes and already I'm tense.
By
keeping a stress awareness journal, you will be able to see your own
stress patterns. You'll be able to plan your day better, thereby avoiding
as much stress as possible.
Next
develop a plan of action to deal with everyday stress.
Meditation
Meditation
is the practice of uncritically attempting to focus your attention on one
thing at a time. It is relatively unimportant exactly what that thing is
and varies with one tradition to the next.
For
example, you could use the cardiac monitor, IV pole, the tip of your nose,
even your mother's maiden name as a focus point. The heart of meditation
lies not simply in focusing on one object to the exclusion of all other
thoughts, but rather in the attempt to achieve this type of focus.
The
nature of the human mind is such that it does not want to stay focused. It
may take some time for you to achieve a meditative state. You don't have
to feel like you're relaxing in order to actually become relaxed while
meditating. However, when you open your eyes at the end of your meditation
you should feel much more relaxed than you did before meditating.
Harness
Your Imagination
You
can significantly reduce your stress with something enormously powerful
— your imagination. While it's hard to will yourself into a relaxed
state, you can imagine relaxation spreading through your body and can
visualize yourself in a safe, beautiful space.
Emile
Coue, a French pharmacist, believed the power of imagination far exceeded
that of the will. Coue asserted that all of our thoughts can become
reality.
How
many times have you heard: You become what you think? If you think sad
thoughts, you become sad. Therefore, if you think happy thoughts, soon
you'll be happy.
Effective
Visualization
There
are some ways to make your visualization more effective. First, find a
quiet place where you can be by yourself. Loosen your clothing, lie down
and close your eyes. Mentally scan your body to see if there is tension in
any specific muscle. If you find tension, relax that muscle. Use an
affirmation. Repeat short positive statements that affirm your ability to
relax now in this moment. Use present tense and avoid negatives. Don't
tell yourself "I am not tense," rather, say "I am relaxing.
I am relaxed."
Visualization
practice is easiest in the morning and at nighttime while you are lying in
bed.
Scent
and Music Therapy
I
have found that using all kinds of aromatic scents — such as essential
oils or incense — helps me relax. I often combine this with a music CD
designed to help produce alpha waves. Alpha waves are the rhythm the brain
produces when you are in a relaxed state. I combine the two into what I
call scent and sound therapy.
Nourishing
Your Spirit
The
best advice I will give you is to develop a passion for life. Nourish your
spirit.
When
I say spirit, I do not mean spirituality as organized religion. In German
there are two words to represent the different kinds of spirituality.
"Geistlich" means spiritual matters reflecting a religious
orientation and "Geistig" refers to spiritual matters without
ties to a specific religion. It is "Geistig" that I write about.
Nourish
your spirit by doing things that have personal meaning to you and enhance
your life. Take time to hear the squawking of birds; recognize the
thoughtfulness of colleagues.
Lorna
Owens is a motivational speaker and author of Daily Sustenance and lives
in Miami Beach, FL. |