Healhy Thinking

Healthy is the one who extends mercy for they shall have their prayers answered.

The link between stress and illness has been so widely reported that it is common knowledge. Everyone knows that chronic stress makes you more susceptible to illness and people who are chronically stressed take longer to heal. Ailments that are linked to stress, not surprisingly, include depression, hair loss, anxiety disorder, sexual dysfunction and ulcers.  What may come as a surprise is that obesity has also been linked to stress.

 There are many was to define stress.  Researchers who study stress have examined the effects of “daily hassels” or conditions found in our everyday environment- things like living conditions, financial concerns, work issues or relationships.  Daily hassels are relatively small stressors but they can contribue to  an overall heightened stress level because they happen frequently. There are major life events that can be stressful.  Life events can be positive (getting married or stating a new job) or negative (getting divorced or the death of a friend or  family member). Both positive and negative life events can be stressful. Finally there are cataclysmic events like Hurricane Katrina. Researchers have measured heightened stress levels in those that were affected by Hurricane Katrina some years later. In addition, people who were not directly affected also reported stress by the constant images and news coverage during and after the hurricane.

All of these types of stressors, daily hassels, life events or cataclysmic events can cause physiological changes in the body which is another way to measure stress. Stress has a hormonal signature and it is the release of  hormones (particularly adenaline but there are others) that have adverse effects on the body over time.  What the three types of stressors have in common is that they they depend on the left hemisphere. What I mean by that is, words are the means of communication about the noisy neighbor or the bad husband that took everything or the earthquake in Haiti. Words form the basis of the narrative  and when the words are  repeated and rehearsed and replayed in our minds we can create a permanent level of stress. The brain reacts the same way to stimuli whether imagined or presented from the outside, so a rehearsed narrative will be the truth….whatever is being thought is the truth, as far as the brain is concerned. What you think about constantly you teach the brain to believe.

In my view the only way to “reboot” from the narrative or storyline is to have regular periods where the sound is muted. Create a quiet mind or at least allow the right hemisphere some action for a minute. This may sound simple but it is definitely not easy.  Meditation and mindfulness techniques are one way to elicit a quiet mind but there are others such as walking in nature or being fully focused on an activity that takes all of your attention.  There’s also the practice of “Being Present”, being fully focused on whatever you are doing. This is also known as “Be here now” or “As of now.” You place your attention on the sensations of this present moment not the TO DO list or the sense of loss or the horrific images from TV news. 

Of course, none of the effects of a quiet mind will do much good if when you come back to your story there is hatred, bitterness or unforgiveness. Keeping the upset going for days, weeks, years or decades will hurt you in the end and will curtail any progress you may wish to make in your spiritual journey. As a matter of fact, to forgive, to release from blame to love, this IS the spiritual journey.

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Closely examine the relationship you have created between feelings of stress and the behavior of eating.  Write down in your notebook anything that comes to mind.