Stress is a Good Teacher

Advantages and Disadvantages of Stress

Stress helps us to learn, to grow, to stretch our capabilities and tolerance for Life’s challenges. It helps us hustle when we have to, and learn that we CAN meet and conquer adversity.

That builds confidence, as well as the thing we call resilience – a collection of positive, learned and internalized abilities.
But when ‘Stress’ becomes your everyday traveling companion, your nervous system and your health and well-being take a beating.

The Body's Response to Stress

Our bodies are designed to weather stressors by rising to the occasion physically; elevating all sorts of biological features in readiness for whatever Life throws at us.  Our bodies have a built-in response, throwing us into high gear.  We suddenly have a hyper-awareness and intake of sensory detail.  Our eyes ‘open’ widely, pupils dilate, to see more comprehensively.  Our blood flow is re-directed, readying our body to take flight or fight if it must, and temporarily suppressing activities such as digestion and executive function thinking. It is an innate  biological preparation for survival - a part of our amazing Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).

The Different Sides of the Nervous System

The readiness part of our nervous system is called Sympathetic, because it is sympathetic to whatever is going on ‘out there.’  Later, when the challenge has been met or has passed, the opposite side of the ANS goes to work - the Parasympathetic.  This system sits alongside the first one, which is why it’s called ‘para’ or ‘with.’  The Parasympathetic part of our nervous system provides restorative functions we often call ‘rest & digest’ . It floods the body with the opposite chemicals to those sent by the Sympathetic, to reverse our body’s activation responses, and to help return us to a balanced, neutral state.

Toggling back and forth between these two states is precisely what our ANS was designed to do. It’s a fine system to support both survival as well as recovery and healing. And as our bodies learn to do this well, we become more resilient in meeting Life’s demands.

Until it doesn’t.  (What ?!?!)

Chronic Stress

Chronic Stress causes us to be in our ’sympathetic’ state repeatedly or indefinitely.  This means we are always on alert, and filled with chemicals readying us for a battle that may never occur or complete.  That kind of endless body chemical bath causes inflammation and break-down, because we are not designed for a life on constant alert.

I’ll repeat that:
We are not designed to live Life on high-alert.
The effects of chronic stress

Broadly speaking, chronic stress causes a chronic chemical ‘marinade’ that causes Inflammation.

Inflammation is the condition that causes our cells to break down, and with it, our organ systems too. It is our cellular response to stress, and that leads to chronic health conditions. Our reactions, from cells to organ systems to our psychological felt sense is …. This is bad!

As my mentor, EFT Master Gwyneth Moss, said:

Something out there makes something in here ….go off…feel off…bad.

If we don’t understand what is happening, or what to do about it, we can easily get stuck in constant vigilance or upset.  That creates a condition called sympathetic dominance.

How to Counter Chronic Stress

How to ensure that kind of  sympathetic dominance stuck WON'T stick?
Don’t give it a chance to stick!   Practice de-stressing strategies in the moment to process and release the stress, the stress reactions, the meaning or judgment we tend to make about ourselves.  In other words, don’t drag the unresolved experience with you.

How do we do that?

• First, try some Emotional First-Aid:  physical breathing and movement strategies to release stress.  You can find a great many of these on our Humanitarian Committee website:  www.R4R.support
• Second, Practice some of your favorites that you find there; just try a few and choose the ones that easily and quickly make you feel soothed, calmed or restored. Once you’ve identified those, the key is to practice them until they’re a part of your everyday living toolbox. Make yourself a promise to develop new, better habits by using them, every day, whenever something you don’t like pops up.
• Third, Do it.  As soon as you can, apply your favorite strategy to the upset. Once you are more soothed and grounded, you’ll easily tune into your more resourceful state.  Reinforce your good decision!  An example:   "Hey!  I feel so much better, now.  I’m glad I took 2 minutes to do that!"
• Fourth, when you’re able, apply some more comprehensive resources, like EFT Tapping, to further sort through and resolve both  the current issue and its inevitable connections to earlier events in your life that felt the same way.

You CAN have a better Life experience, both in the moment, and to resolve old conflicts, hurts and pains and limiting beliefs.

And you don’t have to do it alone!

Jondi Whitis

Jondi is an Accredited Trainer, Practitioner and Mentor.  She specialises in Trauma, work with children, and Emergency EFT.

"If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of Energy, Frequency and Vibration.” – Nikola Tesla