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Stanford Medical School and the World Health Organization agree that 90-95% of illness and dis-ease is caused by - "Stress". What is Stress? Briefly, you have primitive fight, flight and freeze responses which are designed to effectively help you deal with immediate threats to survival. When these responses are engaged for long periods without rest the body deteriorates.
Tough times can bring you to your knees. They can also raise you to new heights. You can be stressed to the max on a bad day, yet, as long as life seems manageable, you don’t usually look for new strategies to get through it. The tendency is to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, grit your teeth and keep on going. During prolonged or sudden tough times, though, normal defense mechanisms are not enough to keep you from feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed.
Reiki is a complementary treatment modality that can improve healing. Reiki is the life force that flows through all living things. Stresses of everyday living create blockages and imbalances in the body. Since Reiki reaches all levels of existence, it provides the environment for unification & balance to take place on all levels of the person. Reiki provides support for restoring physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance in a way that optimizes health and healing.
Since we know that most disease and illness is either caused or made worse by stress, addressing stress can help reduce symptoms. There is a simple acupressure approach called the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) that is proven to help reduce stress, pain and other symptoms of illness with no side effects.
The most difficult stressor for most of us is other people. We often blame other people for our feelings, thoughts and choices we feel forced to make. The truth is other people are not responsible for any of these things. When you give others control over your feelings, thoughts and choices, you feel powerless. That loss of control is the cause of stress. The natural response to loss of control is fight, flight or freeze.
Stress is your normal response to a threat. On a short-term basis your stress response is a protective mechanism. It is designed for survival against short term threats. Prolonged or chronic stress, however, can lead to acute illness and chronic disease. How Stress Works
The Mind is a wonderful tool for observation, conceptualization, processing information and in short - thinking. However, when the tool becomes the Master, stress is inevitable. Like a computer, your Mind holds lots of data. It also has a program to organize that data. Each mind programs the input it receives through unique perceptions and interpretations developed in early childhood. This childhood template is your mind’s operating system until you choose to change it. De-stressing involves becoming aware of and updating these childhood beliefs.
Loss of zest, life purpose or perceived identity stresses the human spirit. How you define who you are, and the meaning and purpose of life is core to the health of your spirit. You experience spiritual stress when these definitions are challenged or unclear. The human spirit asks, “Who am I”, “What is life about” and “What is my purpose”? These questions peak at times of significant life change or loss as in the identity challenges of adolescence and mid-life or loss of a child, spouse, job or body part.
Emotional eating is a common response to stress. Do you find yourself reaching for comforting foods when you are stressed? You may also find that the harder you try to control emotional eating, the worse it seems to get. When you understand the forces behind emotional eating, you can see why it's so difficult to control and what works to free yourself from emotional eating habits. Key triggers in emotional eating include early food conditioning and addictive food ingredients like sugar and salt.
We live in a culture where the definition of addiction is our motto: ‘More is better and there is never enough’. The drive for more, bigger, faster does not allow for a state of satiety, a place of feeling full, satisfied, sustained. Addiction comes in diverse packages yet unde eath, all addictions have core characteristics in common. While the word addiction stimulates thoughts of familiar substances like alcohol and drugs, the categories of addiction are growing.
Are you aware of your stress? If you think you have no stress, you are most likely not aware of how stress is affecting you; you’re in denial. In fact, the stronger you think you are, the harder you may find that stress hits you with a powerful jolt. I know this from experience.
My friend, Kay called. Stressed about the impending holiday season, she complained, “I’m planning that dar Christmas Eve dinner.” She is experiencing this once welcomed tradition as a dreaded event. “Can you change traditions? She asked.” The tradition began when her mother married. Since her husband’s family gathered on Christmas Day, she created the Christmas Eve dinner as a special way to celebrate with her family. Over the years, as children married and moved away, the value of the event grew into the highlight of the year!
Fear is a persistent and insatiable guest who is always looking for something to eat. Today's financial headlines and emotionally charged news stories provide a banquet feast for fear. The more fear is fed the bigger it grows. The bigger it gets, the more overwhelming and devouring it becomes. As it inflates, fear bullies us into feeling too vulnerable and victimized to do anything about it. Like most bullies, fear does not have any real power. Though loud and intimidating, fear is powerless to do anything but scream in our ear and shake up our system.
Every fall, I began to feel the constricted pressure of having too much to do and no time to get it all done. One year, I had an epiphany about why this happened and what to do about it. It was a crisp, beautiful fall morning. For me, it was the kind of weather that makes me want to get up and dance my way through the day. Not this morning, though. I sat on the sofa, pulled the cover over my head and wanted to disappear. I didn’t want to die.
Emotional stress comes from the reaction to fear. Anytime we feel threatened by situations we cannot control, fear arises. Emotional responses are expressed in many ways, such as, anxiety, frustration, anger, hatred, powerlessness, sadness, grief, depression and more. The purpose of this article is to provide quick tips to address emotional stress now and over time. it is useful to understand the unique patterns of stress that affect you.