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CHAPTER 1
Stress
Implications of Stress
When there is a disturbance in our energy field, when the heart is incongruent with the mind, this disturbance causes an energy imbalance. In turn, it causes distress in the body, this distress is stress as we know it.
What is Stress?
Stress is the number one cause of all human illness. Stress can mean different things to different people. Stress is often defined as a conflict between the demands placed on us and our ability to cope with those demands. The way we cope with those demands will depend on the way we think, our personality and our previous life experiences.
We live in a world where we hear about stress all the time. We know of the health issues it can cause, the depression, heart disease and the suicides that have occurred from stress, yet we seldom heed what we hear.
Stress is not a fad or a diminishing of one's coping abilities or strategies. It is a danger to us and needs to be dealt with when it is presented.
Triggers that cause Stress
Many things can trigger stress, including change. Changes can be positive or negative, as well as real or perceived. These changes may be recurring, short-term or long-term. Stress is the "wear and tear" we experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment, which creates the positive and negative physical and emotional effects.
Stress Accelerates Aging
Stress doesn't just make us feel older. It can speed up ageing. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that stress can add years to the age of individual immune system cells. [Fig. II]. The study focused on telomeres, caps on the end of chromosomes. Whenever a cell divides, the telomeres in that cell get a little shorter and a little more time runs off the clock. When the telomere becomes too short, time runs out, The cell can no longer divide or replenish itself. This is a crucial process of ageing, and it's one of the reasons why humans can't live forever.
Good and Bad Stress
As with everything in the world, there is good and bad. Therefore there is positive and negative stress. A positive stress influence can help propel us into action. It can result in a new awareness and an exciting new outlook on a situation, event or life itself. Harmful stress, however, can have life-changing effects on our physical and mental health. Stress is compounded by nature and therefore builds upon itself. Without a coping mechanism, for every five minutes of stress encountered by the mind and body, we need to spend twelve hours in relaxation to bring the mind and body back into balance.
How we cope with Stress
People differ dramatically in the type of events we interpret as stressful and the way in which we respond to such stress. For example, driving a car can be extremely stressful for some people but for others, it's simply relaxing.
The ability to tolerate stress is linked to our individual personality, our relationships, energy levels, and emotional maturity. For instance, if we are introverted, we are generally more comfortable with fewer stimuli than if we are more extroverted. If we are in unhappy relationships, it is energy consuming, and therefore our energy levels become depleted and drained, the result is our resistance to stress is compromised. Also, when we are recovering from illness or simply tired at the end of the day, our ways of dealing with the world around us is less robust.
Freeze-Fight-Flight
The human "Freeze, Fight, Flight" response is written into our DNA. It's part of our blueprint, it's a primitive design to allow the body to quickly adapt to its environment, to survive.
During a freeze-fight-flight episode, breathing rate speeds up, nostrils and air passages in the lungs open wider to get more air in quickly. The heartbeat speeds up, blood pressure rises, sweating increases to help cool the body and blood and nutrients are concentrated into the muscles to provide extra strength.
Stress Hormones
Stress hormones, epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and norepinephrine (also known as noradrenaline) are produced by the adrenal glands. These hormones help us think and move fast in an emergency and in the right situation, can save our lives. They don't linger in the body and dissipate as quickly as they were created. Cortisol, on the other hand, streams through our system all day long, and that's what makes it so dangerous.
The hormones that are released and the physiological changes that occur are designed to be a "spurt" and not present in the long-term. Stress prolongs these changes because the body believes that the threat is real. If we live a stressful life, we have then conditioned the body to believe it is in a permanent state of danger.
Stress Effects on Our Wellbeing
The physical and mental wellbeing is compromised by the permanent state of stress and the presence of cortisol in the system throughout the day. The result may produce psychological conditions such as emotional disorder, irritability leading to anger, a sense of rejection moving us into depression and physical conditions such as immune response disorder, chronic muscle tension, and increased blood pressure. These problems can eventually lead to serious, life-threatening illnesses such as heart attacks, kidney disease, and cancer.
Stress Effects on Our Mind
Neuroscientists have discovered how chronic stress and cortisol can damage the brain. Stress triggers long-term changes in brain structure and function. Young people who are exposed to chronic stress early in life are more prone, later in life, to suffer mental problems such as depression, anxiety, mood disorders as well as learning difficulties.
It has long been established that stress-related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, trigger changes in brain structure including differences in size and connectivity of the amygdala. Our brains are mouldable through the plasticity nature of the structure. Chronic stress can prevent the neuropathways, connectivity, and fluidity of the plasticity, making our brain structure rigid and less pliable.
The 'stress hormone' cortisol affects the neuropathways between the hippocampus and amygdala in a way that creates a vicious cycle within the brain leaving it predisposed to be in a constant state of freeze-fight-flight.
There has been much talk and indeed proof that through positive mental attitude supported by heartfelt emotions, people can spontaneously become well, healed and better. Old people can become fitter and fell younger, overweight people can become slim, depressed people can become happy, and the list goes on.
By spending a little time each day in a positive, heartfelt affirming meditation, we can change our subconscious programming from a negative to a positive outcome.
Meditation and mindfulness have been consistently documented as highly effective in retraining the subconscious mind, teaching participants to become more responsible in the management of their inner thoughts, beliefs for their health, vitality, and well-being. Two decades of published research indicates that most people who spend time in meditation or mindfulness practice report lasting improvement in physical and physiological well-being.
For more information on Meditation and Mindfulness, check out my website www.ThePositiveMind.ie
CHAPTER 2
Integration of our Shadow side
Integration of the Shadow Side We, as human beings, have a great capacity for darkness and evil.
We open the door to allow evil to enter. Sometimes we do this unintentionally. Occasionally we are fully aware of what we are doing.
Nevertheless, we don't realise after we open the door that we may not be able to close it. In fact, most times we cannot.
Many of us believe that we are incapable of evil, and therein lies the destructive power of darkness. Every one of us has the capacity for darkness or evil, and there are no exceptions.
We can fool ourselves by denying the truth, but we are only fooling ourselves, and in that denial, we fail to grow and expand into our great potential.
Only when we are fully aware of our capacity for darkness and evil, can we also be aware of our great capacity for goodness and light, and indeed Love.
By accepting we have a shadow side as well as a light side, we gain an understanding in which we can recognise our darker challenges when they are presented to us. This enables us to manage our choices more effectively and more lovingly.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Mind-Heart Connection"
by .
Copyright © 2018 David P. Ellis.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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