By Dr. Howard Liebowitz
I was at my son’s basketball game tonight. His team played very well in the first half. They were up by 17 points at half time. I was pretty relaxed, and so was the team. They looked confidant that the game was going to continue to go their way. The second half however, didn’t play out quite like that. They held their lead through the third quarter, but early into the fourth quarter the wheels started to come off the apple cart. With 4 minutes to go in the game the score was all tied up. The team no longer looked relaxed and confidant, and neither did I. I felt my heart racing. I’m sure my blood pressure was up. I was fidgeting in my seat. I couldn’t get comfortable. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I felt agitated and “STRESSED”.
I was thinking about this on the way home from the game.(They won by 3 in overtime, by the way) Why did I feel so stressed? Is there any connection of these emotions to illness ?
Now, I know that Stress is Optional. Stress is self induced. It is not a real condition. We choose to be stressed. Or put another way, we choose to react stressfully to certain situations. But we don’t have to.We actually are free to choose if we want to react in a stressful manner or not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about all stress. There is physical stress from trauma,surgery, or illness. I am talking about emotional stress. However, the physiologic results of any stress are the same; high blood pressure, high heart rate, high cortisol production, and sleep disruption. This may also lead to behaviour changes such as over eating, binge eating, excessive drinking ,smoking, or even drug use, including pharmaceuticals.
I realized after my son’s basketball game that what I was reacting to was that “things weren’t going the way I wanted them to.” I believe this is the foundation of all stress. This creates a conflict deep in our emotional core over what we want, and what is actually happening. When we can’t resolve this conflict externally we become deeply emotionally distraught, which we identify as stress. Choose anything that stresses you out. Think about it. It could be a financial problem,a marital or relationship problem, a child’s behaviour ,pressure at work,lack of a job,rising interest rates, faltering economy,a natural disaster etc. The list goes on and on. The common thread through them all is “things are not going as we like”.
Well ,sometimes we can’t control the situation, but we can always control our reaction to it. Learning techniques to reduce stress are no more than being conscious to what is happening and then choosing how you want to respond to it. Relaxation technique, meditation, breath work, yoga and exercise are all simple and effective ways to shift our consciousness in relation to a situation that “is not going the way we would like”.
If you would like to learn more about any of these techniques you should schedule an appointment at The Center with either Todd or Pagan. And remember to,just take a deep breath and relax!
This information is for educational purposes only, and is not intended to treat or diagnose any health condition.