Everyone in our world is dealing with Stress. There is no way to remove the stress from our lives. As a matter of fact, eliminating all stress in itself is stressful. But we have to learn how to recognize the stressors in our lives, and learn to say NO to ourselves and to others so we avoid certain stress.
The human body is designed to handle fear or danger. Any time it senses fear, it reacts defensively. For instance if your child is running out in the road, your body will kick into action and take whatever steps necessary to go into action. It will automatically take defensive measures, such as secreting adrenaline, in preparation to handle the crisis or to avoid it. This is called Fight or flight. Your body is preparing to stand up and face the situation. This is how we’re able to do super human tasks when in danger.
Also, you don’t have to be in a life or death situation for your body to react. Just thinking or dreaming aobut something can cause your body to produce the same physical, mental or emotional responses. Lets try it out.
You were brought here to do a workshop on avoiding stress. But, in reality, you are all about to do a public speaking course. Each one of you is going to give a speech today about your favorite hobby.
JUST joking! The power of the mind or thought is just as real as the physical realm. So, we should make every effort to ward off stress and worry every day.
Effects of Stress:
What happens when you have something stressful is that it sends impulses to the brain. The brain combines, integrates, emotions with reasoning. With this process, the person reacting to the stressor analyzes the situation and if it’s scary then the body continues in the flight or fight response.
The nervous system responds in 3 ways. It directly stimulates certain organs- the heart, muscles, and respiratory system, with electrical impulses to cause a quick increase in heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension and respiration. It signals the adrenal medulla, a part of the adrenal gland, to release the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline, which alert and prepare the body to take action. This reaction begins a half-minute after the first but lasts 10x as long.
The nervous system also stimulates the hypothalamus in the brain to release a chemical that stimulates the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland releases a hormone releasing adrenaline and noradrenaline and to begin releasing cortisol and corticosterone which affect metabolism, including the increase of glucose production. This third, and prolonged reaction helps maintain the energy needed to respond in a threatening situation. Nearly every system of the body is involved, some more intently than others, in response to the stressor.
Therefore, every time we get upset or excited, or stimulated, even tho we don’t realize it, our entire system is gearing up either for fight or flight to defend itself from the perceived threatening or dangerous situation.
Then, when we calm down we get out of that emergency state and start to function normally again, in the way that we’re supposed to normally. Then, if we get stressed again, the whole process starts over again and then we calm down and it goes back to normal. The effects of that excessive stressing and unstressing has long lasting consequences.