Stress Busting Plan
Although some degree of stress is good for us, we've all had points in our life when stress has overwhelmed us and become a toxin. Sometimes it's for a couple of days; other times it's over weeks or even months. The next time this happens to you, use this plan to help detox the damage.
About stress
Most of us think that stress is a modern-day phenomenon, caused by our longer working weeks or our need to juggle home and career. But that's not strictly true.
While the type of stress we are tackling now may be uniquely of the 21st century, stress has been felt by our ancestors since early times, and it's always been dealt with in the same way. When you start to feel that buzzing sensation that tells you something is starting to stress you, you're drawing on techniques developed by your species centuries ago to handle it.
When something stresses us, the hypothalamus in the brain tells glands called the adrenals to start producing stress hormones. There are many of these hormones (adrenaline and Cortisol being two of the best known) and they lead to a cascade of reactions in the body. For example, the pupils dilate, the immune system starts to release white blood cells and the heart begins to pump more rapidly, sending blood surging to the arms and legs. You breathe faster in order to flood this blood with oxygen, and your muscles tense.
Why we get stressed
The reason all this happens is that back in our primitive days when we encountered stress it tended to be something dangerous. We had two ways to handle it: stay and fight, or run away. The physical activity involved burned up all the chemicals the stress reaction released so when the fight or the running was over, the stress was gone and there were no after-effects.
This can also happen in modern life. We may not run away from the deadline that's stressing us, or fight the boss but if something stresses us we handle it, making all those reactions calm down and go, leaving us unscathed (and probably feeling pretty good). Often what happens, however, is that as soon as we tackle one stressful thing another one hits us. Sometimes we don't even have the time to tackle the original stressor, and others build up on top of it. Over and over again, we trigger the stress reaction without letting it settle down. When this happens, stress becomes a toxin.
Why stress is toxic
Too much stress means that all those positive actions that fire us up to deal with our stressors start to turn on our body. Our increased heart rate begins to put pressure on the heart, fatiguing it and potentially increasing the risk of heart attack. The muscles that have tensed begin to spasm, which leads to problems like backache and headache. Those white blood cells that were released in case we got wounded have nowhere to go, and these can trigger allergies and aggravate auto-immune diseases like arthritis. Finally, after a stretch of pumping out all these chemicals, the adrenal glands start to fatigue, and so do we. Beating stress is therefore a vital way to help our health.
The solution
This plan is probably the simplest to follow in the book. There are ten simple techniques that will help you reduce stress physically and mentally, or that will help strengthen your body against it.
When you're stressed, the last thing you need to be doing is feeling you have to follow a strict and regimented plan; trying to follow such a regime could even add to your tension load. Instead, next time you're stressed, or if you know stress is coming and want to strengthen your body against it, just turn to this plan and use two or three of the following techniques each day.
Stress Fighters
Salute To The Sun Exercise
One Day To De Stress
Living The Detox Life