Remaining Stress free in a stressful world

So in order for you to read this post which is my first I hope of many you should know my credentials aka my story. I am a critical care nurse for over 20 years. I have my Masters in Nursing and a Ph.D. in Healthcare management. I am also the mother of some great kids a few hundred or so pets over the years and a bonafide techie at heart. This post is covering stress reduction. While the health industry clamors away on what vitamins you should or should not take, or how much exercise is beneficial and so on.

I and many of my colleagues over the years have made some very reliable connections between old age, health and how to get there. I am sure that many of you have one relative who lived to 100 and was eating bacon and eggs every day not minding diet and the only exercise that they formally got was chasing after a bundle of 5 kids or so, or cleaning the house or minding the farm. You fill in the details. If you examine their lives very carefully what we have found as nurses in hours upon hours of bedside conversations with many of these centenarians, is that they managed their stress like not just a pro but with a wisdom that would make the Buddha listen in. Stress is the number one killer of the human body. and let me explain.
The human body is a delicate balance of chemical reactions right down to the cellular level. Every cell in your body, the genes that help develop each protein chain is based on a group of chemical reactions either happening or not. Yes, it is true that some people may have some genes that might predispose them to higher rates of heart disease and so on. However what we know of genetics is that if a specific trait is life-limiting it is eventually bred out of a gene pool because its offspring are not competitive. So then you ask why do we still have these problems. Haven't people been around on the planet for a very long time? Why yes I would answer and up until the last 100 or so years we progressed genetically according to natures plan. People slowly got more resistant to diseases, we grew taller with better nutrition, smarter with the invention of computers and widespread education and then in the last 100 years, we saw a huge divide in intelligence in the population and in an astronomical increase in the amount of disease bloom in the population.
When I was young cancer was not as common as it is today. So what is the common denominator??

Stress.
Now in order for this to be a scientific conversation, you as either lay people ( with no medical training ) or some. I will let you know there are many types of stress. There is the stress you place on a body due to a vigorous workout which causes muscle growth, stress from the environment around you ie. living in a cold climate or a particularly warm one. These stressors will cause your body to adapt to either the heat by shedding weight or lowering your metabolism making you prepare for winter by giving your body a layer of fat to stay warm. Another example is when you live at a high altitude, your body will experience stress from a lower amount of oxygen and start building your body's red blood cell hemoglobin count to be higher so it can deliver the correct amount of oxygen to your cells in your body. These are all automatic responses to stressors placed on any specific body. So lesson 1 in stress is complete, what then is negative stress and what does it do to your body?
Negative stressors in your life, from trauma even these can trigger a normal response to your system by causing your brain to produce and release a hormone in your body called cortisol. It is no news to the weight loss community that high levels of cortisol can lead to obesity, diabetes and so on. But understanding why your body is secreting this hormone can possibly solve many stress-related problems. When your body is traumatized, a car crash, your arm is broken, you're being chased by the lion who would like to make you his dinner
it stimulates a few processes in the body. Initially, it kicks in a dual response generated in the hypothalamus. You've probably heard of it the "fight or flight" response. Your nervous system aka your brain has an "off" switch and an "on " switch. They are called the sympathetic and parasympathetic. One tells yous system to fight the lion and the other the parasympathetic basically tells your body to mellow out you killed the lion the threat is gone. . So what happens when your conscious brain keeps you lingering on about a problem for days, or if your situation of terrible debt lingers for years, or you fill in the blank?? Well that "on" switch stays on and instead of your body generating a quick release of energy by using the epinephrine and norepinephrine and then stopping it when the threat is gone, it keeps pumping out low doses of this cortisol because while your higher brain knows there is no real imminent threat, your subconscious keeps basically telling it that even though you killed one lion off, they travel in packs so you need to stay on alert. Well, norepinephrine will cause your blood pressure to rise and stay elevated and cortisol will help release sugars into your bloodstream to give you that possible boost of energy should you need to run !. But now can you see the overall damage to your body? When sugar just runs higher in your system your cells become resistant to it and stop responding. Almost as if they become lazy. They don't see a boost of sugar as anything to be wary of; after all its always there? Now to give you a disclaimer, the process is much more complex than just two different hormones in your body, but these are some of the major players.

So are you starting to get a picture of what is going on in your body? The first thing that is important to reduce stress and avoid long-term organ or psychological damage, yes, it is my theory that long-term stress is what eventually causes many different types of depression and other mental ailments. This is why 2 people can live through the same traumatic event and have very different outcomes. If one person finds an avenue to relieve their stress they can move forward through the stress, and when the other does not, they suffer from physical ailments and many times psychological damage. Your body or the rest of your body is no different. Long-term elevated blood pressure leads to organ damage, kidney damage, circulatory problems in your legs and all over your body and worse of all your brain and heart! This is why heart disease and stroke are so much more common today than they were 100 years ago. If you think about it people ate more fat, red meat, and smoked tobacco much more than today yet our heart disease is astronomically higher in rate than 200 years ago. WHY?? STRESS!

So the next time your friend asks to take a walk, go walk; get up from your desk. Walk to the water cooler if its the only walk you do. The average American misses out on at least half of their assigned breaks because they think they are out of time, or behind schedule. When in actuality if they took a break for even 5 minutes away from their work they would return with a much more clearly defined schedule and in at least a handful of studies prove you become more productive if you take a break.
So when your smartwatch tells you to stand up and breath ( iwatch has a cute app like this ) or set a timer at your desk so every hour or so maybe 2, it goes off you get up stretch, get a glass of water. If you're a homemaker, stop doing what you're doing, and take that break. I used to play a game with my kids when they were little it was called the 5 minute shhh. If I needed a time out yes me the adult. I said it's time for the 5 minute shhh for mom. If they remained quiet or did deep breathing like I did, then they got a treat when it was over. ( that positive reinforcement has carried through to their adult life). So learn to meditate, drink some tea, relax, take deep breathing exercises. Whatever works, and if it does not work try something different until you find your key. I find journaling is long but does work if you need to look back over your thoughts. There are thousands of things you can do. The most effective ones are free. Just find a way to release. And you are on your way to a happier and healthier life. ( p.s. if all else fails, try skydiving )- it is a one-shot reset that seems to be a kick in the right direction. I can tell you whatever is bothering you before you jump will seem pretty insignificant by the time you hit bottom. Please wear a parachute !!!!! More next time thank you for reading and vote this up and I will post more!!! Have another topic to suggest?? leave a comment. ( unless it's about my poor grammar. LOL )