Definition: This is the body’s response to perceived threat or danger. During this reaction, certain hormones like adrenalin and cortisol are released, speeding the heart rate, slowing digestion, shunting blood flow to major muscle groups, and changing various other autonomic nervous functions, giving the body a burst of energy and strength. Originally named for its ability to enable us to physically fight or run away when faced with danger, it’s now activated in situations where neither response is appropriate, like in traffic or during a stressful day at work. When the perceived threat is gone, systems are designed to return to normal function via the relaxation response, but in our times of chronic stress, this often doesn’t happen enough, causing damage to the body.
Stress can come from any situation or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, nervous, or anxious. Stress is triggered by an existing stress-causing factor or “stressor.” However all stress is internally generated. The external stressor triggers an internal reaction. Stress is what happens inside you!
Your stress response is the collection of physiological changes that occur when you face a perceived threat—when you face situations where you feel the demands outweigh your resources to successfully cope.
When your stress response is triggered, a series of changes occur within your body. They include:
- A quickening of your pulse
- A burst of adrenaline
- Redirection of blood away from extremities and to major organs instead
- The release of cortisol and other hormones, which bring other short- and long-term changes.
The stress response is intended to give you a burst of energy so you’re able to fight off attackers or run away from them effectively. This helped our ancestors, who faced numerous physical threats, to stay safe.
However, now our threats tend to be less physical and more associated with our way of life—a challenge to our status, a demand for performance, etc. In addition to giving us a set of changes that may not match our needs as well (it might be more effective for us to have a burst of mental clarity or wisdom than a burst of physical strength, for example), the stress response can actually cause harm if it leads to a state of chronic stress—that is, if our stress response is triggered, and then our body doesn’t go back to its normal state via the relaxation response.
Therefore, it’s important and healthy to find a collection of strategies that can help reverse the body’s stress response, and bring it back its natural state. A good first step would be to learn to use the Emotion Stress Release from Health Kinesiology.
Emotional Stress Release™
This emotional stress relief technique can help to gently and easily take the edge off any emotional or mental stress. Developed by Dr Jimmy Scott for Health Kinesiology (http:www.HealthK.org), this technique will gently change the blood flow in the brain to allow us to think more logically and rationally in the face of stress instead of being limited by the emotional flight or fight response which gives us very limited options of how to deal with stress. By lightly and gently holding these neuro-vascular points, you encourage the brain to restore blood flow to its normal pathways rather than the limited pathways of a creature under stress. This can be very useful to do before tests or exams, interviews or potentially stressful situations. It is also handy to do before eating if you are a nervous, anxious or very busy person as our digestion does not function correctly when we are in a stress mode.
Chronic stress is a state of ongoing physiological arousal. This occurs when the body experiences so many stressors that the autonomic nervous system rarely has a chance to activate the relaxation response. (We were built to handle acute stress, not chronic stress.) This type of chronic stress response occurs all too frequently from our modern lifestyle, when everything from high-pressured jobs to loneliness to busy traffic can keep the body in a state of perceived threat and chronic stress. In this case, our fight-or-flight response, which was designed to help us fight a few life-threatening situations spaced out over a long period (like being attacked by a bear every so often), can wear down our bodies and cause us to become ill, either physically or emotionally. Dealing with a serious illness or caring for someone who is, can cause a great deal of stress. In fact, it’s estimated that up to 90% of doctor’s visits are for conditions in which stress at least plays a role! That’s why it’s so important to learn stress management techniques and make healthy lifestyle changes to safeguard yourself from the negative impact of chronic stress.
Autonomic nervous functions are involuntary vital functions regulated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and consist of heart functioning, digestive functioning and glandular functioning. During the fight-or-flight response, the ANS automatically alters the functioning of these systems in response to perceived threat, preparing your body to fight or run. Heart rate increases, blood flow is shunted to the major muscle groups, digestive activity slows, blood pressure rises, and other changes occur. After the body no longer feels threatened, these functions return to their regular level of functioning; this change is known as the relaxation response.
Relaxation Response: The counterpart to the fight-or-flight response, the relaxation response occurs when the body is no longer in perceived danger, and the autonomic nervous system functioning returns to normal. During this response, the body moves from a state of physiological arousal, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, slowed digestive functioning, decreased blood flow to the extremities, increased release of hormones like adrenalin and cortisol, and other responses preparing the body to fight or run, to a state of physiological relaxation, where blood pressure, heart rate, digestive functioning and hormonal levels return to their normal state. During acute stress, this response occurs naturally. However, in times of chronic stress, when the body is in a constant state of physiological arousal over perceived threats that are numerous and not life-threatening, the relaxation response can be induced through techniques such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, deep breathing exercises. Health Kinesiology helps your body restore its normal relaxation response as well as break the chronic stress cycle.