Handle Your Stress

By Don Davies

Stress can be defined as the physiological response to a psychological perception or happening. Stress is not the problem; it is how we cope with the stressful situation that is the problem. Generally speaking, when we are under stress, we eat too much and don’t get enough exercise.

If we are in a situation where there is danger or fear, we will experience an instinctive animalistic physiological response that prepares us to fight or run away. This is commonly known as the fight-flight response or the adrenaline rush. Many physiological reactions happen to enable the body to fight or run away, but once the danger has passed, our bodies return to balance.

In today’s complex society, we are involved with situations that continually cause frustration, anger, insecurities, impatience, etc. Unless we can control this response, we get the same fight-flight reaction as we get from danger, except in a reduced degree. But the body does not return to balance, because we are continually faced with a new crisis or problem. This could go on hour after hour and day after day. The deleterious effect of this mild physiological response, over time, causes the problems, the afflictions of civilization, one of which is heart disease.

It is possible to cope with all this from both a physiological and practical perspective. Physiologically, we need to use the relaxation response, and practically, we need to manage and organize our chaotic lives. Exercise and nutrition will help us cope with stress. Combining the best of all three will give us the best chance of living a healthy lifestyle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638741558

Book preview

1

The Fight-Flight Response

Don’t take life too seriously because you will never get out of it alive!

When we are frightened by a near accident or a dog jumping out from behind a bush, we get an instinctive animalistic response: the fight-flight response, often called the adrenaline rush. It is a physiological response to danger. This FFR causes several physiological reactions in preparation for us to run, or stay and fight: the heart beats faster, the blood pressure goes up, the metabolism is increased, the muscles get tense, and most importantly, the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, along with cholesterol and fat, are released into the bloodstream. Food and oxygen are rushed to the muscles and organs, which are needed to deal with the danger. Therefore, the heart and lungs need to operate at a faster pace so they can supply this extra food and oxygen which is needed to confront the dangerous situation.

I call this the strong fight-flight response (SFFR), and it does little, if any, damage to the body. Because, once the dangerous situation is over, the body quickly returns to normal or balance. The physiological name for this balance is called homeostasis.

We get this response through our senses: smell, taste, hearing, sight, and touch. The nervous system responds to the dangerous event by sending a message to the various organs which respond physiologically. The interesting one, of course, is the message sent to the adrenal glands which secrete the adrenaline and cortisol hormones. These secretions are almost instantaneous because the message is transmitted through nerves. At the same time, however, the endocrine system is alerted and sends messages to the organs by way of the blood vessels, not nearly as fast, because the transportation system is the blood. This response of the hormones being transported by the blood gives the body a more sustained readiness.

The central nervous system, consisting of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves controls our thinking and movement. But there is a second system called the autonomic nervous system. This system has its origin in the brain but is located alongside the spinal cord. This autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating the functions of the internal organs. These two systems work together. The brain reacts to the danger by sending a message to the muscles to get ready to fight or run away, and at the same time, sends a message, by way of the autonomic system, to the adrenal glands which then release the adrenaline and cortisol. All this results in the adrenaline rush or FFR. This is very complicated. All you need to know is that when you get scared, extra hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) are released. This is one of the key concepts in understanding stress management and its effect on heart disease, specifically atherosclerosis.

It is interesting to note that in the first half of the twentieth century, the prevailing concept was that the brain was dualistic—more or less a separation between the cortical and subcortical functions; separate entities. Human behavior was categorized as cortical or subcortical. The voluntary nervous system controlled the voluntary muscles (movement, posture, etc.) initiated by individual volition (will). The involuntary nervous system controlled the smooth muscles (stomach, blood vessels, intestines, diaphragm, etc.) independent of volition, it was believed that conscious control was not possible. However, modem biofeedback techniques upset this theory and demonstrated conclusively that people can indeed learn to somewhat control the involuntary functions and engage in subtle forms of self-regulation.

Therefore, the involuntary nervous system became the autonomic nervous system. This discovery was one of the most profound of contemporary medicine with far-reaching implications for holistic and preventative health care.

The autonomic nervous system is one of the body’s most basic survival mechanisms. There are two divisions: the sympathetic division and the parasympathetic division. The functions of the divisions are somewhat antagonistic. The sympathetic division has an accelerating effect on the organs, glands, and smooth muscles, whereas the parasympathetic division has an inhibiting effect. The sympathetic is responsible for energy expenditure, while the parasympathetic tends to conserve energy and attempts to maintain normal body functions, keeping the body in balance (homeostasis).

Put another way, the autonomic nervous system has two divisions—one that speeds everything up, and the other attempts to slow everything down. Together, they try to keep the body in balance. In the strong fight-flight response (SFFR), the fast division goes crazy, and therefore the slow part does not have much of an influence until the danger is past.

Although not as dramatic or as intense, our bodies go through the same physiological reaction as they do in the SFFR when reacting to situations such as the boss putting us down, an employee getting us upset, or our kids causing us problems. Often, another stressful event follows, and another reaction. This can go on all day, one crisis after another, and our bodies never do get a chance to return to balance. It is just an up and up response followed the next day by more of the same. In our sophisticated society, we often cannot vent our frustrations, and we suppress our true feelings. Our inability to cope with these prolonged stressful events help cause us to develop the unhealthy, deteriorating lifestyle habits, which weaken our bodies and predispose it to many health problems—the afflictions of civilization. There is a definite connection with the inability to cope with stress and these afflictions: hypertension, arthritis, weakened immune system, diabetes, cancer, respiratory problems, and the dreaded atherosclerosis (blockage of the arteries).

It is interesting to note that Robert Ader back in the ’70s was one of the first scientists to connect the inability to cope with stress to immunological problems. He claimed that stress worsens illness and sometimes triggers it. Reducing the reaction to stress is essential to health care. The scientific terminology for all this is psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). So when you are uptight, just say this word; it will make you feel better instantly. The sad point is that even though the afflictions have been connected to stress for over fifty years, we still do not hear or read that much about