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The Nature of Stress
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The STRESS RESPONSE (The fight or flight syndrome developed at time of stress -- used to help us fight harder or to run away faster.) This response can switch on while we are in traffic, dealing with children or attending meetings. The response system is controlled by a primitive part of our brain. When we feel threatened it switches on whether we need it or not. Some of the changes it brings about can actually harm our ability to cope.
The STRESS RESPONSE is like a fire alarm system in your body. The alarm gets activated every time you feel angry, threatened or challenged. When it gets activated it causes a complex set of physical changes to take place.
- Your blood sugar rises to give more engery
- Your breathing speeds up to give you more oxygen to burn sugar
- You heart rate increases to pump the oxygen and sugar faster
- Blood is diverted towards large muscles and away from disgestive system and skin
- You perspire to cool down heated muscles
- Endorphins are released to reduce sensitivity to pain
- Blood changes to carry more oxygen and prevent excessive bleeding and bruising from wounds
Most modern pressures are best solved by sitting down and thinking calmly about what to do. The STRESS RESPONSE makes it hard to slow down and think. As well, it brings on a lot of powerful emotions (like fear and anger) that get in the way of a calm approach to the situation. These emotions can help us fight harder or run faster but that isn't much help when you are asking for a raise. As well, our bodies are not designed to have this emergency system switched on all the time. Long-term stress can make us more vulnerable to disease.
Anything that challenges our ability to cope can activate our STRESS RESPONSE. Significant life events are a major cause. Some examples: Having children, moving to a new home, starting a new job, breaking up with a spouse, dealing with family illness or death. Situations like these tend to overload a person with emotions and responsibilities. The greater the number of significant life events you have experienced over the last while, the morely likely you are to feel stressed.
In addiction, relatively minor events, or hassles, in your life (like mild health difficulties, problems with a coworker, commuting, disagreements with your partner and so on.) can have a big effect on the amount of stress you experience. Some research suggests that these ongoing minor stressors cause more trouble for us than the major events. We Do tend to "sweat the little stuff".
The STRESS RESPONSE gets activated when you think you may not be able to handle the situation. You might be perfectly safe, but you believe that you are in danger then you will experience a Stress Response. If you think you are about to lose your job you are likely to feel quite tense -- regardless of whether you are right or not. The important thing is what you think is going on. If you view a party as a chance to speak with people you enjoy, you may feel quite happy about going. If you see it as a chance for you to humiliate yourself, you might fear and avoid it.
In general
Stituation => Interpretation => Stress Response
We Interpret events in the real world and it is the interpretation that determines how stressed we feel.
We can cope with stress by dealing with the situtation, the interpretation, or the STRESS RESPONSE itself. We cope with situations by defining the problem, breaking it down into pieces, and setting goals for overcoming the problem step by step.
Coping with interpretation means changing the ways we think. The STRESS RESPONSE is designed to protect us in life-or-death situations. But we often show signs of stress in minor situations. This is because we sometimes interpret these situations as being much more important than they really are.
Each of us have our own ways of distorting our view of the world. Some of us search for signs that we are about to be rejected, and we may see them where they don't really exist. Some of us have unrealistic ideas about our role in the world, such as we are personally responsible for everyone around us. Some of us have been taught to believe that we are faulty in some way. Each of these habitual ways of thinking can lead to stress. The soultion is to discover and correct these unrealistic attitudes.
Coping with responses means realxing away the STRESS RESPONSE itself. Useful strategies include deep breathing, mediation, biofeedback and structured relaxtaion exercises.
The way you live your life can have a profound effect on the amount of stress you experience.
So learniing WISE Mind can help us better cope with stress in everyday life.
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