The Stress Belief Paradox

By John Gardner

I spent more than eighteen years researching stress, research that led me to the most unexpected places. Along the way I had many surprises, which led me to realise stress is not at all what I thought it was. The paradox is that stress, that thing we believe is about our head, is actually about our gut. Our health, mental and physical, is dictated by our gut. I can hear you asking, “So I feel stressed because of my gut?” Yes. I know it sounds crazy but it is the simple truth, as I will prove to you.
I discovered how important plants are to our well-being and how some of the commonly accepted ‘health foods’ and ‘healthy plants’ have no place in our diet. I also discovered what we eat is fundamental to our total health because that is what dictates the chemical soup our brain and body need to function. And to eliminate stress it must function well. This is where it all starts, with this chemical soup and the way we look at life. Find this hard to believe? So did I.
Thomas Moffett, a man whose name was spelled in many different ways, was a 16th century British naturalist and physician and wrote, ‘Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die by those fated instruments more than the weapons of their enemies.’ (More soldiers in the American Civil War died from badly prepared beans than from enemy action.) And this is good news because if we can fix our gut, and we can, then we can eliminate our stress not just today but forever. Sounds too easy doesn’t it? Too good to be true? But ask yourself a simple question, where did you get your information about stress from?
So how do you cure stress? Well, you start with what you eat. Curing your stress could be as simple as stopping eating junk food. Stop the sugar, the bread, the pasta, the pizza. All wheat based products are your enemy! But you don’t have to take my word for this try it for yourself. Stop eating wheat based products for just one week and put nothing, absolutely nothing, with sugar in it or on it in your mouth. In just one week see how you feel. Now try it for two weeks – if you can get past the craving.
Good food is far better medicine than drugs and there is, and has been for over seventy years, a huge body of evidence to support that. So if you are serious about eliminating your stress for life then continue reading. And notice I used the word eliminating. I did not write manage for a very good reason. Managing your stress is utter nonsense. Can you manage drowning? Can you manage a heart attack? Can you manage a stroke? No more can you manage stress. What you can do is eliminate it.
Here’s another surprise, your stress may have a physical cause and to find out what that is there is a little tool further on in the book to help you. So, have faith, have courage - help is at hand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Gardner
• Release date: Apr 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463857038

John Gardner

Writing is a passion, as are photography and music, they have defined much of my life.

Book preview

Help is at hand

I believe we all deserve a stress free life but the very process of living creates stress, it is part of being human. This book is your toolbox to help you rid yourself of the negative, destructive forces of stress and make the most of your life so that you can enjoy a happier, more balanced life. And balance is essential if you are to live stress free and happy.

Life is all about the nip and tuck of survival. The skirmishes and casualties, the losses and the successes. All of which leads to varying degrees of the modern bogey man – stress. But what if I tell you all your preconceived notions about stress are wrong. I, like you, had a fairly good idea of what stress was. Or so I thought. But after more than eighteen years researching the subject and examining the evidence I have come to a completely different understanding about what stress is and what causes it.

And it will surprise you.

I started off on this quest when I was a business guru, hired to fix businesses that were not doing so well. My approach was to get a detailed overview of the business; identify the strengths and weaknesses, coldly, objectively; then focus on the people, as they are the primary asset of every business. This is where reality met my objective overview. When interviewing staff the thing I most frequently heard was, ‘I’m stressed!’ And all of those stressed people blamed their boss, the job, the transport in fact everything except themselves and their habits. These stressed people, time after time, proved to be the reason for a company’s failure.

My research also revealed approximately 40% of people in any company are in the wrong job. No wonder so many people felt stressed!

In France 68% of workers claim they are stressed and, hand-in-hand, their obesity problem is also rising. Research is now linking obesity to the same hormone imbalance seen in stress. Something is clearly very wrong. So what is it?

What you are about to read may seem unbelievable but everything in this book has been researched, tried and tested. This practical handbook is your toolbox, journal and guide to help you eliminate stress so that you can enjoy each day and not dread it. That might seem impossible when you feel so completely swamped or feel as if you have fallen off the pier and no one cares. You feel as if you are going to drown and there are people standing on dry land eating ice-cream and telling you to swim harder while describing the stormy sea you are in. They are telling you to manage your situation, not to breathe in the sea water, swim harder when what you clearly need is a life-belt!

Don’t be afraid to make notes on the blank page bits. A short note is better than the best of memories. This is your toolkit, use it to your best advantage.

So, are you ready to start this journey? As Richard Bach so eloquently wrote it in his book, Illusions, ‘What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.’ Are you ready to find your butterfly? I can guide you to the path but it is you who must walk it and then take flight. I wish you every success.

Now let’s get started…

The Paradox

Like you, I suspect, I believed that stress was a thing of the head brought about by the pressures of life, work or relationships but when I started to examine that concept it just did not stand up. We humans have never stopped evolving. We have evolved to live in the world we are in. So why are we stressed?

Let’s start with the accepted definition of stress. According to Longman’s Concise English Dictionary stress is, ‘a physical or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension’. And that is pretty well what most people, and probably you, believe. But here’s where the boat meets the rocks. It isn’t true. I know, you think it is but I am going to prove to you that it isn’t. I am going to prove to you what it actually is and this is good news because it is very fixable.

The paradox is that stress, that thing we believe is about our head, is actually about our gut. Our health, mental and physical, is dictated by our gut. I can hear you asking, So I feel stressed because of my gut? Yes. I know it sounds crazy but it is the simple truth, as I will prove to you. Thomas Moffett, a man whose name was spelled in many different ways, was a 16th century British naturalist and physician and wrote, ‘Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die by those fated instruments more than the weapons of their enemies.’ (More soldiers in the American Civil War died from badly prepared beans than from enemy action.) And this is good news because if we can fix our gut, and we can, then we can eliminate our stress not just today but forever. Sounds too easy doesn’t it? Too good to be true? But it isn’t!

However, here’s where the rub meets reason. Changing one simple pattern to help yourself can be very difficult. Humans are very stubborn creatures who know best – about everything! So let me ask a simple question, where did you get your information about stress from? Are you a believer in ‘healthy’ grains, ‘healthy’ sports drinks, ‘healthy’ sugar substitutes? Where did you get that information? I can tell you. Advertising. What is the function of advertising? To sell products. Advertising is not, and never has been, about telling you the truth. Ever. And it is most assuredly not about your health. It is about money. I used to work in the industry but gave it up because it had nothing to do with humanity and everything to do with money.

Money has almost become the single defining factor of any decision taken anywhere in the entire ‘developed’ world in the past one hundred years. Humanity, health, happiness have been overpowered by money. The modern God. A god whose followers are increasing in number every year. As are the stress figures, suicide numbers, depression and homelessness statistics. You don’t think they are related? Really?

Those fat French workers on track to equal America’s obesity levels in only a couple of years are receiving very little help from the medical profession. How on earth is that possible? But here’s a surprise, it is to British women the title of, Fat Lass of the Year belongs. The reason is in plain sight. Walk down any supermarket isle in Britain and what do you see? A few rows of actual food but row after row of non food: Cakes, biscuits, pastries, bread, crisps, snacks. All of it junk food and all of it playing its part in your stress. Curing your stress could be as simple as stopping eating this junk. Stop the sugar, the bread, the pasta, the pizza. All wheat based products are your enemy! But you don’t have to take my word for it, try it for yourself. Stop eating wheat based products for just one week and put nothing, absolutely nothing, with sugar in it or on it in your mouth. In just one week see how you feel. Now try it for two weeks – if you can get past the craving. Getting past the addictive nature of wheat and sugar is difficult. I know, I’ve done it, but I did manage it and without too much trouble. You, too, can do it.

You see, we are what we eat and more precisely we are whatever we eat, eats. How our bodies react to bad food creates lots of physical problems for which doctors are only too happy to prescribe possibly damaging drugs. At a certain age you will be told you have high blood pressure, whether you have or not, and a doctor will try to prescribe you pills. You will be told you need pills to reduce your tension, help you sleep. Pills for arthritis, gout, stomach ache, you name it. And here’s the daddy of them all, cholesterol. There is more junk, money making junk, written and spoken about this supposedly evil steroid than almost anything else. Let me be clear, our bodies make cholesterol because it’s in every part of us. Our bodies need cholesterol because without it we would die. And here comes the tricky bit, research has shown that cholesterol is linked to longevity. People with higher cholesterol live longer. Argue with the science if you like, but there it is. So why are you being lied to and told you need dangerous statins? Guess. Could it be money? You’ve hit the nail on the head. Money. They swap your health for money.

If there’s a pill a doctor can prescribe to alleviate symptoms he/she will. All natural cures dismissed (cures which have been made illegal in some countries) in favour of treating symptoms with drugs, unnecessary, sometimes dangerous, drugs that provide no cure but make absolute fortunes for drugs companies. You can spell modern day medicine like this H.U.G.E. P.R.O.F.I.T.S.

So how do you cure stress? Not with drugs! You start with what you eat. Good food is far better medicine than drugs and there is, and has been for over ninety years, a huge body of evidence to support that. So if you are serious about eliminating stress from your life then continue reading. And notice I used the word eliminating. I did not write manage for a very good reason. ‘Managing’ your stress is utter nonsense. Can you manage drowning? Can you manage a heart attack? Can you manage a stroke? No more can you manage stress. What you can do is eliminate it.

Here’s another surprise, your stress may have a physical cause and to find out what that is there is a little tool further on in the book to help you.

The fact that you are reading this book indicates that what you want to do is not alleviate your symptoms but rid yourself of stress. Here is a phrase I will repeat over and over again in this book, it is your choice. You choose to be stressed or you choose to get rid of it. You choose.

Let’s begin with how to use this book. Start at the beginning but dip in and out as your situation demands and remember the tools you will discover can be used over and over again. There is no prescribed order for giving stress the boot because, quite simply, everyone’s stress is different. It’s yours, you own it and you can throw it out.

So let’s begin…

Stress – What is it?

Stress is nothing more than a socially accepted form of mental illness.

Richard Carlson

What is it this thing we call, stress? Is it a mental illness? Not at all. It’s not a virus that just suddenly hits you like the flu. It’s not like a cold or a gyppy tummy. It is not a reason to go to a doctor and get a carrier bag full of pills, which, while some of them might treat your symptoms, will do nothing to eliminate your stress. But, I know, you’re stressed and you want to have it your way. Okay, so it’s whatever you think it is and you probably think it’s your job or your sod of a partner or the fact at the end of every month your bank balance is thinner that an anorexic model. Right? Here’s the news… it’s none of those things.

That’s a shock. I understand that but read on. I will prove to you I am right and in the process you will win your freedom from stress.

It has been suggested that stress is the trash of modern life. We all generate it but if we don't dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake our life. Yeeees… and Snow White is a real live person living in a castle in Scotland with James Bond.

However, do you want to know what it really is? Okay, then. It is a cluster of different symptoms