Stress Face
Stress Is A Response
Stress is the body’s response to one or more extremes. The extreme can be almost anything; temperature, junk food, intense emotions, toxic exposure, injury, over-exercising, too little sleep, etc. The body’s response is the same no mater what the cause.
Fight Flight Response To Stress
The body responds primarily by releasing powerful hormones that prepare the body for fight or flight. The heart beats faster, breathing increases, blood vesicles open filling the muscles with fuel, the mind and vision sharpen and focus on the threat. Every fiber screams to get the hell out of there or attack whatever is needed. The body is thrown into overdrive by hormones that affect the body deeply.
A few thousand years ago this worked great. Most stress factors we have today were nonexistent then. The air, water and food were pure — OK, there were microbes, that was one of our biggest threats, not really talking about that one here. But, there was no junk food, traffic, or getting into conflict with no release for those intense chemical changes. Basically our ancestors experienced as much stress in 40 years the typical westerner does in less than a year.
Release Is Needed
The fight or flight chemical changes that allow the body to survive intense situations are toxic or at least harmful to the system. So, they need to be cleared from the system. Using up the chemicals while running away or fighting for dear life is natures way of dealing dissipating them. We don’t get to do that very often in the modern world.
Chronic Fight Flight
Stuffing down the reaction to daily stress leads to the body being in a constant state of fight or flight. The body becomes “hyper-vigilant” where there is a constant tension, a preparation, for running or fighting. This not normal or healthy though it is quite common.
Body Systems Are Shut Off
There are systems that are not needed when the body readies itself for battle, so they are shut off. Digestion, reproduction, sex, cellular repair, the immune system, detoxification, even the absorption of nutrients are all turned off or seriously impaired. This is discussed in this article on how the hypothalamus gets locked “on.”
How To Reduce Stress
There is a cycle of having more stress as a reaction to stress, a self perpetuating situation. Relaxing herbs for stress and a long vacation will end this cycle, in most cases. Applied Kinesiology has techniques for changing this quickly.
A fairly new and very easy technique that I have been using lately can be found in The Emotion Code
by Bradley Nelson. There is a problem with finding the emotions though. And, there are several levels of the fight or flight mechanism. I’ll see about presenting this information if there is enough interest. Let me know in the comments below.
I’m interested in hearing about the Emotion Code. Please write about it.
I’ll have to think about that one. On the one hand, there’s not that much to say about it. I can give the technique, but it requires muscle testing or some other way of finding the particular emotion from a list. Muscle testing is a bit involved though, and not available to most people. On the other hand, a teacher of mine has come up with some amazing things using the Emotion Code, things that go far beyond what the author has done I think. I really need to make a trip and spend a day in his office, that would be something to write about I’m sure.
There is another technique that I can teach you though. It’s similar to the Emotional Freedom Technique in that it uses tapping and statements, but it seems to work on a deeper level to help let go of emotions that you are aware of. While the basic technique is simple, there is a lot of depth to what you can do with it. Would that work for you?