Understanding stress - learning to relax
It is thought that stress originates from an ancient reaction
to danger called the 'fight or flight' response. Put simply,
this means that, in situations of extreme danger, our ancestors
needed to make split-second decisions about whether it was
better to face their enemy and fight, or to run away from the
danger. These decisions would have been made on a subconscious
level which automatically released hormones such as adrenalin
and noradrenalin into the blood. These hormones would have
hastened the heart beat and so rapidly increased blood flow to
the essential muscles.
Although we rarely require an automatic response to danger in
modern life, we have nevertheless retained this emotionally
triggered response. The equivalent stressors nowadays may be
events such as: speaking in public; standing in endless queues
or meeting new people in social situations. We often feel a
physical discomfort as we struggle with involuntary shaking or
profuse sweating. These uncomfortable and distressing feelings
emerge from the same ancient 'fight or flight' response which
automatically prepared our bodies for action. However, fighting
or running away from the situation is rarely the appropriate
response when perhaps speaking in public (much as we may like it
to be). Therefore, what we now experience is the body's
preparation for action, without the action itself.
Clearly, reacting in such a primitive and automatic way can
cause many problems in life. For example, each time we enter the
same stressful situation, we may anticipate the discomfort we
felt before and experience an even more exaggerated emotional
response. This can eventually become such a cyclical process
that we employ avoidance strategies and start to limit the
things we do. In the most extreme form we may even experience
physical illness or 'panic attacks'. These attacks can involve
rapid heart beat or unusual feelings in the arms and legs - as
blood automatically rushes to the muscles.
Conversely, we may display our extreme emotional arousal as
'anger' and perhaps begin to blame others for the way we feel.
Transferring our own emotions from ourselves to other people may
make us feel exonerated of any real responsibility. However,
this may simply cloud the issues and prevent us from getting to
the route cause of our own distress. Blaming others may also be
extremely counterproductive as we begin to alienate those around
us and become further stressed by confused and conflicting
emotions.
Therefore, we need to relax and take time out of our busy lives
in order to allow our bodies periods of recovery. If we are
affected by high levels of negative stress, this can lead to
physical and mental health problems. Relaxing allows us to take
a break and re-energise ourselves, so that we are better able to
cope. We may also use a period of relaxation to re-evaluate the
way we conduct our lives and work out more practical ways to
deal with the things which cause us negative stress.
This re-evaluation could include more controlled or logical ways
of thinking about our emotional responses and accessing our
'emotional intelligence'. Becoming more attuned to our inner
signals may help us to recognise knee-jerk reactions and keep
them in check. Equally, retaining the ability to look at the
bigger picture may help with more measured responses to specific
situations.