Is Stress a Choice?

Would you like to have some simple, easy-to-learn (and free!) techniques at your fingertips to relieve stress? Read on...

Over 2,000 years ago, Plato pointed out that "The part can never be well unless the whole is well," and Western health care practitioners have been rediscovering that fact ever since.

Our health colors our entire life. Our activities, both at work and play, every relationship, the amounts and kinds of food we eat, our emotional state and even our personalities impact how well we feel.

When you had a headache, you took it with you everywhere. It became the center of your whole life. If you felt sad or a part of you was ailing, all of you suffered. When you felt wonderful, your exuberance and joy were reflected in your experience of life.

Life's Tapestry

Health is the tapestry through which all the threads of our lives are intimately woven. Pull one loose and you risk unraveling or weakening the whole.

One of the fundamental influences on how we experience life is stress. We "see" it everywhere, but it's not really "out there." Stress is the internal response we experience to external changes and challenges, whether real or imagined -- a deadline at work, an upcoming dinner with the in-laws, relationship issues or just our imaginations running wild.

We experience stress when we lose faith in our ability to cope, whether with the world in general or with specific people and situations. At some point in a busy day this feeling of helplessness can strike any of us and we feel "stressed out."

The Adrenaline Rush

Our stress response is a signal that our body and all its major systems have been activated. This classic fight-or-flight reaction is not just in our heads. It's an automatic response that reverberates throughout our entire bodies. Adrenaline is released, our heart rate quickens, breathing becomes shallower, blood vessels on the skin surface contract, blood pressure rises, digestion and intestinal processes shut down, muscles tense up, the stomach tightens.

None of these conditions are meant to persist for very long. The body couldn't stand it. They are short-term responses to immediate dangers. Yet we live in a society that is constantly presenting us with stressful situations. Some are very specific, such as traffic jams, and some are rather vague, generalized feelings of being at the mercy of other individuals and forces beyond our control.

Unless we take conscious action, our stress response stays permanently turned on, even at low levels. Such extreme mobilization can only be maintained for so long before our minds and bodies show signs of exhaustion.

Over a period of time, adrenal stimulation with no discharge of energy will deplete vitamins and minerals from the system, including those essential to the functioning of the immune system like vitamins B and C. Elevated adrenal activity can also cause a buildup of fatty substances on blood vessel walls, and damage the functioning of the digestive system.

Vis Mediatrix Naturae

The antidote to the state of alert generated by the stress response is relaxation. Only a relaxed and balanced mind and body can thrive. The vis mediatrix naturae -- the healing power of nature -- operates at its best only when the body allows it, through rest, relaxation, and the gentle, natural flow of energy.

The remarkable thing about knowing how to relax is that you have more control over your life. You gain tremendous confidence with the knowledge that you can cope with stress and stressful situations. Instead of reacting, you find yourself responding to people and situations from a place of calm and centeredness. Things that used to bother you lose their power.

Reflexology is a non-invasive, natural method that soothes thousands of nerves and stimulates reflex areas on the feet, hands, ears and face to activate the healing powers of the mind and body through profound relaxation. Reflexology provides a faithful, ongoing source of inner strength and well-being.

Reflexology is both a method for helping you feel better now, and for enhancing your everyday life by keeping you at the peak of your energies and creativity. Used as a preventative measure for maintaining a well-balanced mind and body, reflexology can help you ward off illness and fatigue and maintain an optimal state of health and well-being. Whatever you do, you'll do it with more enthusiasm, joy, focus and energy.

Who's the Boss?

The true nature of stress is that it starts within each of us. And since it does, we can do something about it. Choose to start taking back control of your life right now. Make reflexology a part of your action plan. Experience a natural, powerful way to enhance the quality of your relationships, your health and your life.

Would you like to have some simple, easy-to-learn (and free!) techniques at your fingertips to relieve stress? Click here for a free foot chart and some great stress-erasing techniques you can use at home and anywhere else you happen to be.
 - Laura Norman

For more on reflexology, click here.

For more on stress, click here.

Flickr photo by LynneSaurFlickr

 

Follow Laura Norman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lauranorman

Comments

[Kavoom]

08:37 PM on 04/17/2012

Sounds like a zenlike observation. I approach it from the standpoint that life will provide you with stress, get over it, deal with it...or not. The key is to extrapolate from the known and minimize it in the long run. In the Marines they noted the 7 P's. Proper Prior Planning Prevents (colloquial term for urine) Poor Performance. It is something you can live by but isn't as simple as it sounds. If you have no context from which to initiate action, you are already there, in a constant, ongoing reactive mode, doomed forever to reside in an environment of stress. You see recovered addicts who seem to have found a balance... It was only because the stress treadmill and their resulting self medicating response reached a bottom and perspective. Most of us just try to hang on like that cat on a branch. One answer is to first understand the whole and where you are in relationship to it. Good luck how's that working out for you in a world that throws so much info at you at such a rate that your filtering mechanisms are intrinsically in a reactive mode. We now start life in the starting blocks. Birth, go, full speed, don't stop until you die.

Or smell the roses upon occasion. NO, you cannot do that online. You have to step outside of the web...of that which we have created. Find your path, not tied to others. Therein lies yourself.

[MyrtleJune]

07:16 PM on 04/17/2012

I think stress comes from lack of choice, not as a choice. Until people understand and investigate their choices since what they're doing really is not working, they remain stressed. The higher the lack of choice, such as remaining locked into a toxic workplace rather than choosing to be unemployed for instance, can lead to much worse than simple stress. You can do all the imagry, stress point, breathing exercises or whatever to destress, but it will not help a thing until that person chooses to take whatever else comes as a result of removing themself from the toxicity of the situation they're unable to remove themselves from. The removal itself instantly relieves massive amounts of stress regardless of the consequences. Most people choose to not find or navigate those other consequences by removing themself from such toxicity. Nothing except removal will work in this case.

[french queen13]

10:54 PM on 04/19/2012

Well said. The whole 'you choose to be stressed' line is perilously close to victim-blaming, because of its implication that one can just wish away stress if one really wants to. It ignores the realities you describe - the sort of things that come to my mind when I read articles like this - and the fact that you can't stop stress-inducing situations from happening. When unemployment means homelessness, as it does for so many, as well as all the other things that go with being plunged into poverty, then staying in a toxic workplace isn't a choice, it's a necessity. (The idea that everyone has in-demand skills and the freedom to look for another job is a fantasy that the 'just leave' anti-employee brigade will doubtless trot out too.) The very fact that much work is inherently stressful now, because of casualisation of the workplace and the uncertainty of income, is a systemic thing that cannot be overcome so easily.

Sure, it's great if relaxation techniques and the like help people. But they do not change the system causing the stress, and that's what's needed.

[stilllearning2b]

08:13 PM on 04/16/2012

If you had told me a few years ago that I was choosing stress, I would have responded with indignation and anger. Why would I choose to be stressed, after all. I have since learned that I can take control, not of what happens to me, but of how I respond. I have learned through meditation and yoga how to calm my stress response and be more relaxed in all things. It is one of the most precious lessons I have ever learned.
http://lessonsfromtheendofamarriage.com

[Kavoom]

08:40 PM on 04/17/2012

Control is an illusion. A surfer does not control the wave. He or she rides it. Art!