What is stress? Stress is not, has never been and will never be anything outside of you. It is “your” reaction to something that triggers the stress “response” within you. Stress response is what you experience when the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol are released into your system if you are frightened, upset or “feel” threatened.
Stress is not the problem. Actually stress is good. It lets you know something is not quite right. It lets you know, you know something needs to be done, or "not" done. If not for the alert stress gives people, no one would do anything. People are not self- motivated. They are not inspired. They run to pleasure and run from pain. They only seem to do something when a crisis arises. Only when stress becomes or puts you in a state of distress is it a problem. Distress causes disease.
Distress rather than stress is the main cause of dis-ease in our society. It weakens your immune system. Sicknesses and illnesses are more psycho-somatic than anything else. Stress is like an alarm and if the alarm stays on the hormonal chemical flood keeps flowing. That is how the real problem arises. It is like stepping on the gas in your car while stepping on the brake. If you step on the gas in your car and you cannot go anywhere, like when you have the emergency brake on, like your car, since you can’t run, you will sit there and rattle and shake.
The adrenaline, cortisol fight or flight fuels are flowing everywhere and you can’t go anywhere. If you are stressed in the office being yelled at by your boss, where can you go? If it is three in the morning and the baby is crying and you have to get up at 6:00 to go to work where can you go? I tell you the “thought” you attach to the baby crying and you will not get sleep is more of a problem than the baby crying. I tell you the “thought” that your boss is yelling at you and the feeling you are getting “about” what is happening is causing you “more” stress. If you allow it to continue into distress, then you have compounded problem.
When do we stress? We stress when we do not have an immediate answer to an immediate problem, when we become worried or frightened. We stress in states of desire (hope) or fear which are the only two reasons we do anything. Anytime we want to be anywhere doing anything other than what we are doing or being, we compound and create more stress and suffering.
Hope and fear are one and the same emotion. When we hope something will happen, we simultaneously fear it won’t happen. When we fear something will happen, we simultaneously hope it won’t happen.
In life you are either a Warrior or a worrier, you choose!
Worrying solves nothing and instead compounds the problem. It increases your fear and so decreases your ability to think through the problem.
What is the main problem with stress? Under stress we regress.
How many times have you heard a business say, “We’re sorry, our systems are down and we don’t have access to that information?”
That is exactly what happens when you get upset. Your systems go down and you don’t have access to information. In fact it happens even if you mildly stress about a name or a number you can’t remember doesn’t it?
Einstein figured out “the Theory of Relativity” relaxing in his bathtub. He struggled, day in day out, night in night out, to understand. It was only as he was relaxing in his tub that his mind, “Einstein’s mind”, relaxed enough to allow the assimilation of the information.
Again, when we stress we release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones put us in fight or flight mode which causes our “thinking” brain to shut down and make us retain body fat. This is “aside” from what we might gain from “nervous eating!”
So what can we do to Relieve Distress?
It is simple.
To Relieve Distress – Breathe Deep
If you are already feeling stressed out you are actually in a state of distress. You need to flush out the stress hormones that have accumulated in your system. This happens by breathing or anything that causes you to breathe more.
Breathe in deeply through your nose and exhale in a sigh with your mouth slightly open. Do not hold your breath.
WHY? Your system is flooded. If you were an engine you would say, your air / fuel mixture is imbalanced. To regain equilibrium you must somehow burn off the extra fuel that was created by your stressing out. To do that, you need more air, more oxygen to balance out the flood of stress hormones.
Aerobics, resistance training or Yoga, because they require you to breathe, will “also” help burn the excess stress out of the muscles. Yoga, at times is more functional because people tend to stress lifting weights when they can’t get out that “last rep.” You know, the primal scream after they hold their breath and make the face like they just ate something really nasty. By the way, if you are in a gym and you stress and push in an un-relaxed way, you release more stress hormones.
The best thing is to prevent stress all together.
What can we do to Prevent Stress?
Until we are more skilled, there are no specific ways to prevent what we “feel” are our triggers. If we are aware of the triggers as they are happening and we watch “our” response to them, we can prevent stress. We all lose our balance at times. We can, however prevent stress from turning into distress. Triggers are based on our conditioning of what we feel threatens us. More on that later. For now though,
If you find yourself in a state of “distress”, practice the relief first then the prevention. The relief will calm you down and the prevention (below) will help you stay relaxed.
To Prevent Stress and Distress– Breathe Shallow
As soon as you notice yourself getting upset or being affected by a trigger or negative stimulus, relax and begin to breath shallow and soft “through your nose only”. Look down as if looking at the roof of your mouth and just breath slow and soft. If you are driving of course you can’t look down but if you look straight out in front of you as if allowing the sight in softening your stare, this also works.
There is a saying, “God is the breath between the breaths.”
Heaven, peace, nirvana are all located in the “space” between the exhale and the inhale.
Have you noticed, when you inhale, unless you purposely try to hold your breathe, there is a tension? There is an uneasiness about it right? Have you noticed when you are scared, the first thing you do is inhale and hold your breath? You are afraid, you in-hale you in-hell. When you exhale, you feel better. You relax. You ex-hale, you ex-hell. This is called the neutral zone. It is where energy enters on the relaxed in-breath and intelligence rises up on the out-breath.
The more un-forced in-breathe space there is, the more energy you gain. The more “un-forced” space there is between each breath, during the exhale, the more “God”, the source, Heaven is there. Heaven is within you, you are in it. It is a small death. You are free of the body. It is paradoxical yes but true. The exhale is a cleansing. When you exhale you are cleaning out the excess adrenaline and cortisol, the carbon dioxide.
What is more relief, to eat when you are starving or to relieve yourself when you need to, well you know, really bad? Uh huh! Thought so!
The relief and prevention are practices you can do through daily visualizations. See yourself getting upset by visualizing something that upsets you. Practice the relief first then the prevention.
Take a look at the earlier blog on Growing Younger- The New Anti-Aging.
Stress is not the problem. Actually stress is good. It lets you know something is not quite right. It lets you know, you know something needs to be done, or "not" done. If not for the alert stress gives people, no one would do anything. People are not self- motivated. They are not inspired. They run to pleasure and run from pain. They only seem to do something when a crisis arises. Only when stress becomes or puts you in a state of distress is it a problem. Distress causes disease.
Distress rather than stress is the main cause of dis-ease in our society. It weakens your immune system. Sicknesses and illnesses are more psycho-somatic than anything else. Stress is like an alarm and if the alarm stays on the hormonal chemical flood keeps flowing. That is how the real problem arises. It is like stepping on the gas in your car while stepping on the brake. If you step on the gas in your car and you cannot go anywhere, like when you have the emergency brake on, like your car, since you can’t run, you will sit there and rattle and shake.
The adrenaline, cortisol fight or flight fuels are flowing everywhere and you can’t go anywhere. If you are stressed in the office being yelled at by your boss, where can you go? If it is three in the morning and the baby is crying and you have to get up at 6:00 to go to work where can you go? I tell you the “thought” you attach to the baby crying and you will not get sleep is more of a problem than the baby crying. I tell you the “thought” that your boss is yelling at you and the feeling you are getting “about” what is happening is causing you “more” stress. If you allow it to continue into distress, then you have compounded problem.
When do we stress? We stress when we do not have an immediate answer to an immediate problem, when we become worried or frightened. We stress in states of desire (hope) or fear which are the only two reasons we do anything. Anytime we want to be anywhere doing anything other than what we are doing or being, we compound and create more stress and suffering.
Hope and fear are one and the same emotion. When we hope something will happen, we simultaneously fear it won’t happen. When we fear something will happen, we simultaneously hope it won’t happen.
In life you are either a Warrior or a worrier, you choose!
Worrying solves nothing and instead compounds the problem. It increases your fear and so decreases your ability to think through the problem.
What is the main problem with stress? Under stress we regress.
How many times have you heard a business say, “We’re sorry, our systems are down and we don’t have access to that information?”
That is exactly what happens when you get upset. Your systems go down and you don’t have access to information. In fact it happens even if you mildly stress about a name or a number you can’t remember doesn’t it?
Einstein figured out “the Theory of Relativity” relaxing in his bathtub. He struggled, day in day out, night in night out, to understand. It was only as he was relaxing in his tub that his mind, “Einstein’s mind”, relaxed enough to allow the assimilation of the information.
Again, when we stress we release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones put us in fight or flight mode which causes our “thinking” brain to shut down and make us retain body fat. This is “aside” from what we might gain from “nervous eating!”
So what can we do to Relieve Distress?
It is simple.
To Relieve Distress – Breathe Deep
If you are already feeling stressed out you are actually in a state of distress. You need to flush out the stress hormones that have accumulated in your system. This happens by breathing or anything that causes you to breathe more.
Breathe in deeply through your nose and exhale in a sigh with your mouth slightly open. Do not hold your breath.
WHY? Your system is flooded. If you were an engine you would say, your air / fuel mixture is imbalanced. To regain equilibrium you must somehow burn off the extra fuel that was created by your stressing out. To do that, you need more air, more oxygen to balance out the flood of stress hormones.
Aerobics, resistance training or Yoga, because they require you to breathe, will “also” help burn the excess stress out of the muscles. Yoga, at times is more functional because people tend to stress lifting weights when they can’t get out that “last rep.” You know, the primal scream after they hold their breath and make the face like they just ate something really nasty. By the way, if you are in a gym and you stress and push in an un-relaxed way, you release more stress hormones.
The best thing is to prevent stress all together.
What can we do to Prevent Stress?
Until we are more skilled, there are no specific ways to prevent what we “feel” are our triggers. If we are aware of the triggers as they are happening and we watch “our” response to them, we can prevent stress. We all lose our balance at times. We can, however prevent stress from turning into distress. Triggers are based on our conditioning of what we feel threatens us. More on that later. For now though,
If you find yourself in a state of “distress”, practice the relief first then the prevention. The relief will calm you down and the prevention (below) will help you stay relaxed.
To Prevent Stress and Distress– Breathe Shallow
As soon as you notice yourself getting upset or being affected by a trigger or negative stimulus, relax and begin to breath shallow and soft “through your nose only”. Look down as if looking at the roof of your mouth and just breath slow and soft. If you are driving of course you can’t look down but if you look straight out in front of you as if allowing the sight in softening your stare, this also works.
There is a saying, “God is the breath between the breaths.”
Heaven, peace, nirvana are all located in the “space” between the exhale and the inhale.
Have you noticed, when you inhale, unless you purposely try to hold your breathe, there is a tension? There is an uneasiness about it right? Have you noticed when you are scared, the first thing you do is inhale and hold your breath? You are afraid, you in-hale you in-hell. When you exhale, you feel better. You relax. You ex-hale, you ex-hell. This is called the neutral zone. It is where energy enters on the relaxed in-breath and intelligence rises up on the out-breath.
The more un-forced in-breathe space there is, the more energy you gain. The more “un-forced” space there is between each breath, during the exhale, the more “God”, the source, Heaven is there. Heaven is within you, you are in it. It is a small death. You are free of the body. It is paradoxical yes but true. The exhale is a cleansing. When you exhale you are cleaning out the excess adrenaline and cortisol, the carbon dioxide.
What is more relief, to eat when you are starving or to relieve yourself when you need to, well you know, really bad? Uh huh! Thought so!
The relief and prevention are practices you can do through daily visualizations. See yourself getting upset by visualizing something that upsets you. Practice the relief first then the prevention.
Take a look at the earlier blog on Growing Younger- The New Anti-Aging.
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Help them help themselves!
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World Peace is an individual effort beginning right here, right now, with you!
Thank You for visiting!
World Peace is an individual effort beginning right here, right now, with you!
Thank You for visiting!
