Life Issues In-Focus - Emotional stress
Do you want to shift energetic patterns that keep habitual, emotional and mental stress in place?
Emotional Stress is this feeling of being overwhelmed by the tasks of life, losing control or worrying about the future.
Emotional stress is not only induced by changes in life such as death, accidents, job change, moving, marriage or parenthood. A lot of emotional stress is created in your mind by the way you think about the future or respond to unexpected events.
Worrying about losing the job, lack of money or the loss of a loved one has the same effect on the body as if those events are actually happening. The body does not discriminate between the outer and the inner but responds in the same manner.
Whenever you feel threatened the instinctual response is to activate the sympathetic nervous system in a flight or fight response. When this response becomes chronic through a constant emotional stress overload it will weaken the immune system and make you susceptible to colds, flues or infections.
The key for emotional stress is how you respond to the events of life. You may stand on a street and see a car coming at you in high speed. Your instinctive sympathetic nervous system will make you jump aside. Your mind will now come in and allow for two responses:
You may say: “This stupid person. Can’t he see that I am standing here” and feel angry for the rest of the day
Or you may say: “Thank Goodness that I jumped in time. I wonder where this person was looking that he didn’t see me,” and you feel relief for the rest of the day.
In the first case, the anger will have a negative physiological effect that will weaken your immune system. In the second case, your sympathetic nervous system has the instinctual response to jump but this response only lasts a few seconds. The relief will activate endorphins in your system that is strengthening your health.
Your response to the events in life determines how emotional stress will affect you. Positive thinking is paramount for living a relaxed, self empowered, healthy and fulfilled life.
Other important tools to stay relaxed include a broad range of relaxation techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, gentle stretching and progressive relaxation of the muscles, Yoga, Chi Gong or T'ai chi. Just even going for a walk, listening to music, reading for pleasure, talking to a friend or taking a bath often helps to cope with emotional stress.
I offer free courses with detailed suggestions of how you can cope with stress in different ares when you click the link in the main menu
In my Ebook: Beyond suffering (Printversion: Growing through Joy) you will find a broad range of techniques how to cope and breathe with the challenges of life |
