Stress is Hazardous to Your Brain

Our rapidly changing workplace and the frequent irritations of everyday life - such as traffic jams or broken appointments or having to rush - often lead us to an accumulation of stress.

Recent scientific studies have concluded that 75% of the ills that afflict us are due to stress.

More and more evidence is being gathered to prove that stress depresses the body's defence system.

Stress, which can be either threatening or pleasurable, causes a reported one thousand chemical and physical changes in our brain and body. For example, stress stimulates the production of hormones to orchestrate body functions.

On the other hand, certain hormones are suppressed during stress.

All of the hormones normally regulate specific physiological functions that help maintain the body in exquisite balance.

When the body is stressed out for short periods of time, the effects of stress hormones in a healthy person may be transient.

However, when the stress response is prolonged, then the persistent elevation of some hormones and suppression of others can have deleterious effects on the brain and body.

As a matter of fact, stress has been known to kill brain cells. Since brain cells create ideas, stress is therefore not a good idea.

The aim of this short article is not to tell you how to avoid stress (that would be impossible), but to help you find the draining stress in your work and life and then minimise it. Then you can use stress rather than be a victim of it.

Here is a collection of simple, common sense strategies for transforming stress into energy creatively and efficiently expressed.

Many of these strategies may be familiar to you. Use them as helpful reminders.

1) Take time to be alone on a regular basis to prioritise your activities, to re-evaluate your goals, to check your intentions, and to listen to your heart.

2) Pause often to take deep slow breaths, especially while waiting in a queue, on the phone, or driving in the city.

3) Do something each day you love to do, something that brings you joy, and that leaves you revitalised.

4) Appreciate the flow of change moment to moment. Welcome change as an opportunity - and challenge - to learn.

5) Remember, it takes less energy to get an unpleasant task done ‘right now,’ than to worry about it whole day.

6) Take time to be with nature. Even in the city, awareness of the sky, the trees and changing weather can quiet the mind.

7) Practise consciously doing one thing at a time, keeping your mind focussed on the present. Do whatever you are doing more slowly and more carefully.

(8)Learn one or two relaxation techniques, e.g. meditation, yoga, and practise at least one regularly.

9) Let your eyes be in soft focus and relaxed.

10) Practise stress-reducing communications: e.g. feel the difference in your mental attitude and your body when you say “I choose to…” instead of “I have to…”

11) Treat yourself to a body massage and/or learn to massage your neck, shoulders and feet.

12) If your schedule is busy, prioritise your activities and do the most important ones first.

13) When you read your mail (or email), act on it immediately, (e.g reply, file it, send it back, toss (or delete) it, etc.)

14) Learn to delegate responsibility.

15) When you’re concerned about something, talk it over with someone you trust, or write down your feelings. Create and maintain a personal support system.

16) Exercise regularly.

17) Smile to yourself and laugh more often.

18) Organise your life to include time for spontaneity and integration. Set a realistic schedule allowing transition time between activities.

19) Be more kind to yourself and others.

20) Monitor your intake of sugar, salt, alcohol and caffeine.

21) Watch clouds or waves on water. Listen to music or the sounds around you. Notice the silence between surrounding sounds and the space between your thoughts.

22) Use your own distress signals to remind you to be more patient, caring and compassionate towards yourself and others.

[Author's Note: In writing this piece, I have had been inspired the classic, Quality of Mind: Tools for Self-Mastery & Enhanced Performance, by Joey & Michelle Levey, Founders and Principal Consultants, Innerwork Technologies.

The book is actually the corporate version of the authors’ earlier book, The Fine Arts of Relaxation, Concentration Meditation.

The authors are specialists in bio-cybernautic training. They were the pioneer developers of the Ultimate Warrior Training Program, known as the JEDI program, for the US Army/Green Berets.]