Stress Management Made Easy

Is Stress Making You Fat, Dumb, and Sick?

All over the planet people are suffering from the effects of stress.  And there is a very good chance you are also. In fact if you are alive right now living in the 21^st century; you have encountered at least one stressful moment in the last 24 hours.  You can’t avoid it and you can’t eliminate 100 percent of it if you intend to live in the 21^st century. Stress comes in the form of job stress, family stress, technology stress, information overload stress, financial stress, news stress and many other forms.  Failure to get your stress under control will have three detrimental effects on your health; chronic stress will make you fat, dumb and sick. This article will explain how this happens and what you can do to avoid this situation. 

What is stress? Stress is a physiological response your body goes through when you perceive a threat to your mental, physical, or spiritual well being. Notice I said perceived threat; that means it can be a real threat or an imagined threat. And in most cases the things that produce the most daily stress are not real, or they are incorrectly perceived as a threat and the stress response gets activated. Here is an example: About 20 years ago I was driving from the west coast to the east coast, and while in Dallas pulled off the high way to get something to eat and gas. While waiting at a red light I put in a cassette tape, that’s what we listened to before CD’s. Just as the light changed and I started to move I heard the sound of a car racing its engine and then slamming on their brakes. The sound was so load I thought someone was running into me, so I slammed on my brakes, looked around and though the rare view mirror and there was nobody around, it was 2:00AM in the morning.  At that very instant I realized it was the cassette tape I just put in. If you are old enough you might remember the R&B group The Gap Band and their song “Don’t Burn Rubber on Me”. Here is a YouTube link to it. Listen to it and you will see what scared the heck out of me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1cpSJtIqM

Now, the point is the thing that stressed me out for that brief moment was all in my imagination. Don’t laugh, most of the things that stress you out are developed in your imagination or you create them and blown them out of proportion. Here’s a few other examples: 

• Each time you have a negative thought about sitting in traffic that creates stress.
• When you watch the news and get upset about the latest homicide or robbery that creates stress. 
• When you read your college class project for the week and think oh-no this is too much, that creates stress. 
• When you yell at your kids for not picking up their cloths that creates stress.

In fact, every time you make an issue about something that did not go your way it creates stress. Notice that all these events only create stress because of the way you interpret them. You could have chosen to react in the complete opposite of the negative reaction.  

We encounter events all week long that send us into this same negative reaction mode and the stress just keeps building and building. At the physiological level what is happening is extremely harmful to your health. When we react in a stressful manner we activate the Stress Response (SR); this is the fight or flight response, we will call it SR.  You activate your SR when you see or hear something that you interpret as harmful, negative or you just don’t like it, and you make an issue about it. The SR was a great idea when we lived in the jungle and needed to run from hungry tigers or other people that wanted to kill us. But evolution has not modified this system, so it kicks into play all day long when you have these negative responses.

How Stress makes you sick, fat and dumb.

When this SR is activate on a regular basis three things happen that you will not like. 

First, the hormone cortisol is released into your blood stream and research has shown that excess cortisol can direct your body to release excess amounts of cholesterol. And excess cholesterol is associated with plaque buildup that leads to hypertension and coronary heart disease. Excess cortisol is also associated with the weakening of your immune system. When your immune system is weakened you become susceptible to sickness and all kinds of diseases. 

Second, cortisol is also associated with weight gain. There is a direct link between stress and food. When we are under stress, food becomes a mechanism to control the stress. When we place food into our stomach a message is sent to our brain that produces a calming effect and decreases the intensity of the stress felt throughout the body. Eating to calm our stress is such a natural process; many people never even realize that’s why they are eating. And if that’s not enough, Dr. Oz says cortisol also causes a build up of fat around the abdomen and thighs. So under stress you eat more and it sticks to your belly and thighs. 

Finally chronic stress overloads our brain with hormones that were intended for short term emergencies. These hormones damage and kill brain cells in the part of your brain used for memory and learning. So, now you can’t remember or learn. If it wasn’t enough just being fat, you have to get sick and dumb all from stress. So what can you do? 

Symptoms of Stress 

According to the Mayo Clinic we experience stress in three ways, body symptoms, thoughts, and behavior. However, the three steps we are going to talk about are designed to catch the stress before it develops into these symptoms. These steps are not a replacement for professional health care. If you are suffering from the below listed symptoms you may need to consult your health care provider. 

Body Symptoms: • Headache • Back pain • Chest pain • Heart disease • Heart palpitations • High blood pressure • Decreased immunity • Stomach upset • Sleep problems

Thoughts • Anxiety • Restlessness • Worrying • Irritability • Depression • Sadness • Anger • Feeling insecure • Lack of focus • Burnout • Forgetfulness

Behavior • Overeating • Under eating • Angry outbursts • Drug abuse  • Alcohol abuse • Increased smoking • Social withdrawal • Crying spells • Relationship conflicts

Immediate Steps for Managing Stress  

Step one is to recognize when you are becoming stress. You can not minimize your stress until you know when it is affecting you. Lets use an example of your company is downsizing and your boss just called you into his office. You immediately get upset and say “OH Shoot I can’t believe they are firing me”.  This thought activates the stress response. You know it because you just started breathing hard, sweating, thinking negative thoughts, and you know from reading the first part of this article that those negative thoughts are activating the SR. Ok good you understand step one. 

Step two is to immediately stop the negative thought.  For most of us these thoughts are automatic and they occur without us ever thinking about them, we just react. What you are learning here is to respond with thinking rather than reacting with behavior. To stop the negative thought pattern you are going to attack it with a giant warrior called NATAK, Negative Automatic Thought Armed Killer. NATAK is a 9 foot tall steel and concrete warrior carrying a giant ray gun, 6 foot long sword and a shield; and he kills negative thoughts before they can fully activate your SR. Every time you have a negative stress activating thought you will say “Get-em NATAK” or “Sick-em NATAK”.  You can do it out load or to yourself. I do it out load and smile at how people react. They look around and say excuse me or are you talking to me. I just smile and say “just killing some negative thoughts.” This action has the immediate effect of stopping the negative thought before it get to the part of the brain that activates the SR. With practice you can learn to do it instantly every time a stress activating negative thought comes into your mind. 

Step three after you have killed the negative thought you want to replace it with a positive thought. In other words instead of reacting you now can respond. In our example your boss calls and says can you come into my office, you sense the negative thought and say “Get-em NATAK”, and you immediately feel a sense of calm.  Next you immediately replace the negative thought with, “I don’t like this Job any way.” In psychology they call that rationalizing, but if he’s going to fire you, so what. Actually a better replacement would be a positive thought like “Humm could I be getting a promotion.” Now you may be thinking this is ridicules, but remember the idea is to turn off the stress response so you can keep from becoming fat, dumb and sick.  Plus if you are getting fired what good does it do to also get stressed. And since most of the things that stress us are imagined what if you got all stress and your boss wasn’t firing you; you just contributed to being fat, dumb and sick for no reason. 

So the first lesson in managing stress is to stop the negative thoughts that create stress all day long and replace them with positive thoughts. This is can easily be done by using the NATAK warrior and with a little practice you will become a master of your thought and close your mind off to the automatic negative thoughts to lead to a life of being fat, dumb and sick. 

Bonus

Since you read this fare you get a bonus step. We already talk about the SR and what activates; but what if there was a reverse response to the SR. What if there was a way to reverse the SR. What if there was a way to activate an immediate relaxation response. 

Well there is, and it is called the Relaxation Response.  Discovered by Dr. Herbert Benson and written about in his best seller The Relaxation Response in 1975. Dr Benson discovered that the SR was associated with breathing and it could be stopped and reversed and a relaxation response activated by learning how to breathing properly. Today this is called diaphragmatic breathing and is a very simple process. When under stress start by taking a moment to relax, then focus on taking three to five deep breaths and pay close attention to the air coming into your nose or mouth, going down your lungs and feel your stomach rise. As you exhale feel your stomach descend as you feel the air leave out though your longs and nose or mouth. Don’t hold your breath and keep your focus on the four steps. Do this 

The four steps are:

1. As you take the air into your nose or mouth feel it and sense it coming in. 
2. Take a slight pause when your lungs are full and feel your stomach rise. 
3. Exhale and feel the air slowly leave your lungs and your stomach descend. 
4. Pause when your lungs are empty for a second and take another slow deep breath. 

Diaphragmatic breathing redirects your focus and attention off of what initiated the stress and turns off the ST.  

Reference:

Benson, H. (2000). The Relaxation Response. New York, NY:  Harpertorch

Mayo Clinic Staff (2009). Stress symptoms: Effects on your body, feelings and behavior. Retrieved June 23, 2010 from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-symptoms/sr00008_d 

Seaward, B. L. (2009). Stress Management: Principles and Strategies for Health and Well-Being. Sudbury, Ma: Jones and Bartlett Publishers

Question of the day and lesson of the week.

Question for the day - Did you eat a nutritious breakfast today; if you did, fantastic. If not go stand in the corner until I get tired. Don’t you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day; it jump starts your metabolism, it sets the tone for the rest of the day, and eating breakfast is a good way to lose weight and maintain weight. Research shows people that eat breakfast are healthier, and thinner than people that do not eat breakfast. 

When you wake up from a good night's rest, your blood sugar, or glucose levels will be very low. Your body is basically now running on empty in the morning. By eating a good breakfast you will 'break the fast and replenish your glucose levels. Glucose is your body's energy source. Your brain lives on glucose, but does not store glucose. With a good breakfast you'll be sharper and have better concentration in the morning.  If you will need to use your brain in the morning eat breakfast it's the healthiest thing you can do. So please eat breakfast!

Welcome fellow Kaplan Students

If health and wellness is important to you, you will enjoy this blog. Every week I will post a topic of interest to those that want to live as healthy a life as possible. Every week you will find information obtained from my weekly reading, course requirements, and projects all specifically related to health and wellness.  I hope you enjoy it and benefit from it.

Seven Goals to Better Health

Health and wellness really is a simple process. If your health is important and you would like to begin a process of getting healthy, and staying healthy here are seven keys that will get you going on the right track.

Goal # 1: Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Our body is more than 70% water and when we are dehydrated this lack of water is the first step to cellular destruction. Dehydration leads to organ failure. When our organs fail we get sick. Goal # 1 is to get 8 hours of water a day.

Goal # 2: Get as close to 8 hours of sleep a night. Throughout the day your cells are damaged by the toxins in the air, the foods we eat, and the stress we put on our body. During our sleep cycle our body attempts to repair the damage create during the day. Chronic sleep deprivation will weaken your body’s ability to repair the damage done throughout the day and you will eventually get sick.

Goal # 3: Learn and use a stress management technique at least once a day. Next weeks post will list several stress management techniques. One of the most destructive elements to our health is stress. Stress does three very serious things to us. Stress causes us to gain weight and get fat, stress weakens your immune system, and stress makes you susceptible to illness and disease. Stress also kills the brain cells in the part of the brain responsible for thinking, rational thoughts, logic, reasoning, and intelligence; so essentially stress will make you fat, sick and stupid.

Goal # 4: Begin a simple exercise program. You can start by walking, and gradually extend the distance and speed everyday a little bit at a time. We have been told about exercise for year and most people know the importance of it, but 70% of Americans still don't exercise. Exercise strengthens your immune system, makes your heart stronger, and helps to reduce your stress. If you have not exercise in a while and you have health problems consult your health professional before beginning a fitness regimen.

Goal #5: Begin eating more fruits and vegetable than red meat. The experts have told us for years how important the right food is to our health. Food can be divided into 2 simple categories: foods that add to hour health and wellness, and foods that deteriorate you health. Foods that contribute to good health are fruits and vegetable. The foods that contribute to illness and disease are red meats.

Goal # 6: Take vitamins. The debate about whether you should or should not take vitamins is over. The experts are all aware of just how important vitamins are, but are you. Most of us do not eat properly in the first place so we are not getting everything we need from the food we eat. Even if you are eating properly most of the nutrients we expect to find in the foods we eat have been depleted from farming. The solution is to simply take a multiple vitamin. The link that follows is the super liquid vitamin I take http://www.betterbrainbody.com/

Goal # 7:  Develop and participate in a strong social network. Research has been pilling up that shows how good friends, family and a social support system is very good for your health. According to “Current Directions in Health Psychology (2005)” epidemiological research indicates that supportive relationships may significantly protect individuals from various causes of mortality including cardiovascular disease. The following link is to a nationwide network of various groups that can be used to find networks you might enjoy. http://www.meetup.com/