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Lauren Muney at age 40:
Wellness coach and featured in
"Fit Over 40: Role Models for Excellence"
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STRESS:
One more step to the grave: and how to slow the march.
by Lauren Muney
What an ominous title this article has . . . and I
meant to do this. I meant to scare you to reading the article,
possibly, and decide for yourself whether you fall into these
categories:
IS THIS
YOU?
 -
I work for a company which
piles work on top of me, so that I can barely think about each
project completely, much less finish each one properly -- or even
have a rest between projects. I am asked to work late frequently,
and/or work through lunchtimes and break-times.
- I feel I have to do
everything at home - take care of all the chores, whether I do
them 'perfectly' or not - and everything still piles up.
- My partner (spouse,
significant-other, etc) is always pressuring me to keep up my
end of the relationship. I feel I am so busy with the stress of work
and projects, this request is simply adding to that stress.
- I am frustrated by difficulties
with my child (or children). There are problems with his/her
behavior, and it's adding to my stress.
- When I get stressed, the first
thing I discard is any sense of healthy food or exercise. I keep
reading how much these elements will help me --they will make me
feel energized and help me reduce stress further-- but I tend to
skip meals or just grab sugar and coffee to keep me awake and alert.
- I have to travel for work, and
the constant stressors attached to travel simply add to the work
problems, relationship issues, food/exercise issues, and trying to
raise good children.
- I'm in the middle of a vast
life-change (job change, marriage, divorce, moving, grief from
death, medical issues) and that new stressor is compounding my other
stresses.
- I cannot keep up with the
financial demands being placed on me, and this is yet another stress
on top of the stresses!
- I handle stress just fine. I
have an activity that I can escape into, and I spend a lot of time
there. It calms me down. Sometimes I spend more times there than
others. In this way, I don't have to think about my stresses. (ie:
television, Internet, eating, drinking, pornography, gambling,
working more, shopping, 'collecting', even intense exercise or
dieting).
And the list goes on...
 Stress.
I truly don't mean to scare you, but I want to remind
you one of important factor: pushing a stressor aside because it
stresses you, does not solve the problem -- in fact, it may
make a snowball effect.
There are so many articles written about the effects
of stress, one of which is an excellent, easy-to-read document by
Psychology Today:
"Stress: It's Worse Than You Think"
In a nutshell:
Extreme stress releases cortisol, one of the hormones released by the
adrenal glands, which are long known to be our "fight-or-flight"
mechanisms. However, cortisol (and other adrenal hormones) was created
for our cave-dwelling ancestors to help him run away from a bear!
Cortisol regulates of blood pressure and
cardiovascular function, as well as regulation of the body's use of
proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. The body tries to regulate the
biochemicals which are now rushing around; not only are you dealing with
the stressor itself, but now you have the body completely unbalanced
by its own self!
IF your body is being constantly bombarded by cortisol
(and other stress hormones) which were meant only as a momentary rush
of energy, the constant rush of hormones, and the reactions caused
by those hormones, and the body's attempts at re-balancing, all
jeopardize the body and mind themselves!
(Here is a great description of cortisol and the
way stress works in the body: from About.com's Stress:
Cortisol)
Your mind, chemically, is affected by stress
hormones. I have a theory that our brains
actually shut down in the presence of stress - that we can
only focus on the task at hand, simply to preserve our brain cells. In
other words, it's as if we go into 'lockdown' mode, to keep our
brains from exploding.
Stress is different for every person, and stress even
varies for YOU at different times. One thing that you'd handle very
smoothly on one day, may be a heart-pounding stressor another day. It's
up to you to understand your limits, watch the stressors
carefully, and make changes accordingly so that a minor easily-solved
inconvenience doesn't because a major trigger!
Imagine: you are under stress from a project or a situation.
You need all your energy, all your thoughts, all your perfect functioning.
BUT, the mere length of that stress, is actually eating away
at your brain and body -- so that you are not only sub-optimally functioning
on the project, but you are actually destroying yourself in
the process. The destruction is an ongoing process, leaving you vulnerable
for the next time a difficult situation pops up: like a stretched rubber
band, weakened.
Here is a very good scientic article on stress (acute
and chronic), from Reuters Health: STRESS
 Depression: this seems like a Prozac world all
of a sudden. But "depression" isn't just 'getting the blues': depression
is actually a chemical inefficiency which produces the same
responses as if we had the 'blues'. Without getting into the
specifics of depression, it's can be from several different
chemical difficulties, which is why you might hear about so many
different types of medications.
How does stress affect depression - or even cause
depression? "Stress", once again, is simply the body's outpouring of
hormones (chemicals) in response to events (the stressors). "Depression"
is the brain's neurotransmitter's response to too many (or not enough)
chemicals.
 You can't do something with (or to) your body without
something being affected! You can't put the body under stress and
not have a reaction! You cannot deny the body healthy food without
something breaking down inside, and you cannot press weights (ie:
stress) onto the body without something 'giving-way', including
patience, compassion, common-sense, civility, loving-speech, calmness
while driving, and other details of an advanced society. . . . and if
you are depressed, or in any way affected by neurotransmitter issues,
you may find that your whole brain feels better when you are eating well
and rested, rather than stressed and sugared-up.
Additionally, you are, truly, ASSAULTING (!)
your body every time you choose poisons to eat while you are under
stress. In fact, you are ADDING to the stress that your body (and mind)
are encountering. The body has to work even harder to eliminate the
toxins, to try to draw any SCRAP of nutrition from those insufficient
'meals', not to mention its need for water in every single cell -- yet
caffeine and sodas rob those cells from the nourishment they need.
Please take my deepest
apologies:
This column is not about chiding you for having a job, projects, or a
family. The column is about telling you of the dangers of
ignoring
the warning signs in your life.
Caffeine:
Many stressed and overworked people take or drink some form of caffeine
to feel alert. Caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands, and is also a
diuretic - meaning it extracts water from the cells and makes you want
to pee. Caffeine creates the same "fight or flight" mechanism in our
body as stress does:
a) the body isn't meant to be running on adrenaline for more than a few
minutes, and
b) the more caffeine, the more it leeches water from the cells -- water
that the cells need desperately to work well.
Most of us who want to work through high stress (and
little sleep) take some form of caffeine to stay alert and awake:
coffee, tea, soda, even the "energy drinks" have high amount of caffeine
and guarana, of the same chemical composition as caffeine, 'theine'
(tea) and cocaine!
The problem is not simply one cup of caffeine; it's
the detail that caffeine is highly (HIGHLY!) addictive.
"How Stuff Works" says, "Among
its many actions, caffeine operates using the same mechanisms that
amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin use to stimulate the
brain. On a
spectrum, caffeine's effects are more mild than amphetamines, cocaine
and heroin, but it is manipulating the same
channels, and that is one of the things that gives caffeine its
addictive qualities."
Read that again - caffeine is addictive like heroin.
As science says,
"For every action, there is an equal and
opposite reaction." (Newton's Third Law of Motion). This
means that you cannot PUSH on the body (and/or the mind) without the
body and/or the mind breaking down or pushing back!
Gee. Really hard to read this stuff, huh?
I am so sorry to talk about this so strongly. The
reason why I am doing this is to WAKE YOU UP.
So many people have pushed aside their stressors that more stressors
have come on top of those stresses -- and they are essentially at the
bottom of a huge well, dug so deeply because the well grew up around
them.
What can we do? (Glad you asked).
* STOP DENYING STRESS'S IMPACT.
* FACE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN YOUR LIFE.
Assess yourself honestly.
Ask yourself: What do people keep saying to me? Could it possibly
be true?
*DECIDE WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU: You
should be deciding that health and well-being of yourself and your
family comes first. After all, you can't take care of them
(or your job) if you are ill or dead (from stress).
* STOP DOING THE "EASY THINGS" WHICH PUSH EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE:
ie: eating fast food, sugary foods, caffeinating yourself, drinking,
doing any addictive behaviors which draw your focus from
'solutions'.
* START COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR OWN
BODY, YOUR BOSS, YOUR PARTNER, YOUR KIDS.
* FORTIFY YOURSELF WITH GOOD FOOD, EXERCISE,
AND . . . SOME IMPORTANT CONCEPTS (below)
Ugh. Hard topics, I know. How can you do all this?
First of all, please know that every person's life is
different, so I'm going to give a couple of suggestions to think about.
FIRST:
Make a list of things you love and feel grateful for.
This list can start with: your
partner, your children, your home, etc.
These are the things you want to
protect: these are the things you want to put the
most effort into NOT IGNORING. Please make an effort to
continually go back to this list and ask yourself,
"How
can I keep my love alive during the stress? Am I
skimping on these things when I am burnt out? Can I do
any small thing to show I am still caring for them?"
--------
Work:
Feel piled with work? Is the boss complaining that
more-more-more has to be accomplished? Well, the
more which gets piled onto an employee, the less gets
accomplished. Studies have been shown that
MULTI-TASKING is actually less efficient, and causes
more stress and more mistakes, thus leading to the
physical, emotional, and mental breakdowns listed above.
SOLUTION:
Start talking to your employer, calmly and honestly.
Document the levels of project inefficiencies. Be
very professional and businesslike; notate if details
were overlooked because of the workloads, in lieu of
"getting more done". You may need to memo your
documentation and your thoughts. But the point is to
begin the processes of communication and solution.
Be honest about your feelings and open
about mutually-acceptable solutions.
Volunteering:
Enjoy volunteering for projects, especially outside
projects? That's wonderful to get so involved. However,
next to these projects, are you feeling worn down? Are
you eating well, and taking care of yourself, your
family, yourself? Look deeply inside yourself to
discover 'why' you are really on so many committees, and
can you reduce the amount of projects? If you are
skimping on basics like family, health, eating, and
exercise (simply to volunteer on more projects), then
the projects are running your life, and you will soon be
losing that life.
(Once again - you can't help anyone when you are DEAD)
SOLUTION:
Weed out the least important projects, and put them on a
back-burner. If you love all your projects,
decide if you can take a less-active role in many: for
example, as chairman of a board, can you simply be the
consultant -- and not the "life-blood" of that board?
Eating/nutrition:
Once again, I can't emphasize this enough: you cannot
help anyone if you are dead [from inappropriate
nutrition]! Or if you are in a jelly-like coma at
the end of the day because you have been eating sugar,
or trying to stay "alert" through the stimulating
chemicals of caffeine, you are actually hurting your
body! It takes so much longer to recover from the
detriment than if you took a couple of extra moments to
choose the right foods, and not the wrong ones.
SOLUTION:
Stop, take a breath, and truly
assess how you
have been treating your body while you have been under
stress. This can be a secret-assessment if you
like; no one else has to know. . . . you need to realize
what you have been doing to feed yourself fast food,
sugar-foods, perhaps heavy drinking of alcohol, heavy
caffeine intake.
Now, after assessment, decide
whether that's how you want to continue this type of
PUNISHMENT on your body.
Don't feel guilty. Stop that
guilt cycle - it won't do you any good! That's why you
can consider doing the assessment alone. Just
make the DECISION that you don't want to add to your
stressors by stuffing yourself with bad food any more.
You don't have to starve, and you don't have to "deny
yourself" - you just have to BEGIN. START NOW.
Start with eating real food. If you've
been eating sugars, chips, and caffeine while under
stress, almost anything can turn around those habits.
Any REAL FOOD
choices - ie: nothing from a package or fast food - can
help.
Contact me to start a program if this is too vague
for you.
Exercise:
You are too busy to exercise. Yes, I understand!
Sometimes I get too involved in even typing these
articles to think about my training! But you know that
you want to lose the stress-increased fatigue -- and,
honest -- exercise will REDUCE fatigue and start the
blood flowing again! Exercise is actually a
STRESS-REDUCER after you begin moving!
SOLUTION:
Do something - do anything! My first advice would
be to suggest that you do a weight-training
program which helps build lean muscle tissue, and lean
muscle tissue burns fat. However, you also need to do
some type of cardiovascular exercise, (even
walking!) which can
get oxygen to your brain -- and even "clears the
cobwebs" from your stressed brain. More information
about training is on the training-information page:
Muscle Up?
Relationship:
Is your relationship suffering because of stress outside
of the relationship, and therefore brings new stress
into the relationship? He or she is probably confused
and frustrated, hoping to help you yet feeling left out.
Maybe, although you don't realize it, you've changed -
the outside-stress has made you cranky, mean, and
irritable. This is common, and there is a good solution.
SOLUTION:
Be honest and open to your partner and your family.
Explain about your stress, and work with your partner,
spouse, or significant other to create solutions which
DON'T NEGLECT your partner! Maybe you can hold hands
quietly as you rest, or go to a movie. Maybe just
opening up about your worries and concerns will engage
your partner into your life. It's important to begin
a dialogue as soon as possible, and to remind your
partner of stressful days or moments. You'll be amazed
how much "latitude" you get just by sharing yourself,
and it's not complaining!
Family demands:
You can't escape family demands. The family has to eat,
live, and grow. But some families pile 3 sports and
several after-school projects (for each child), with the
children and the parent feeling flustered and
run-ragged. Is your family unit itself getting 'quality
time'? Is schoolwork getting precedence?
SOLUTION:
Focus! Sit down with your family and ask the children
their favorite projects, activities or sports.
Prioritize the favorites; perhaps put some others on the
"back burner" for now. Ask the
whole family's input -- if soccer practices & games take
5 days a week, that child might be overloaded
doing clarinet, and ballet also. Not to mention the
parents' schedules of work and running the household!
Besides, such a busy child may not be doing due
diligence on schoolwork --education should get
priority-- if soccer and ballet (for example)
takes up most waking hours.
No wonder kids eat so many
FAST FOOD meals, they are so much on the go from their
after-school events! Is this the type of child you want
to raise? A fast-food child whose obesity has increased,
has barely any family or study time, is
scattered-thinking from lack of nutrition, but who
carries a clarinet?
>> The upshot:
communication and prioritizing are initial
keys to reduce the detriment of stress.
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 Many people have found solutions to stress by
MEDITATION. before you get very concerned that I am trying to sway
you into changing your spiritual or faith beliefs, just know that
meditation CAN be a tool for the relaxation of the mind. Here is an easy
meditation -- it's not centered in any specific spiritual basis, so feel
free to engage this from whatever faith you have:
- Sit upright in a chair, back straightened by
holding your stomach in, OR... Sit upright on a pillow on the floor,
legs crossed, back straight as described above.
- Reduce distractions: dim the lights, light a
candle (this has a very calming effect, perhaps because the little
flame is so 'natural'; based in nature)
- Close your eyes, hold your head upright, gently
but not rigidly.
- Just breathe: in-out, in-out, in-out. Full
breaths. Think: "in-out", "in-out".
- If a thought floats into your head, just
label it "thinking", and try to think about your breath
again, and tell yourself "in-out", "in-out".
(Literally, you you will tell yourself, "I am thinking", and just
allow yourself to just feel your breath again instead of the
thoughts)
- If another thought floats into your head, just
label that one "thinking". (You are not trying to be mean to
yourself about thinking; You are simply trying to STOP your
thinking. But before you stop your thoughts, you have to be aware
that you are thinking at all. By labeling it "thinking", and then
going back to concentrating on the "in-out", you are guiding
yourself away from the distracting thoughts)
- The goal is to give your mind a REST, and to
learn how to take control of rampant, distracting thoughts.
- Do this session for about 20 minutes. (If you
can't do it for 20 minutes, do it for 5 minutes. Then, do it for 10
minutes . . . you may even be able to do this for mini-breaks during
the workday)
As I said, this is not 'official' meditation, but it
can be an interim method to calming and refreshing the mind from
all the stress it has encountered that day.
Real meditation is often used to start the calming
processes in this way, and then, while the mind is "still"
(non-frenetic), look calmly and deeply into itself to examine its
thoughts. Meditation is often used to reflect on personal actions
and attitudes in a calm state.
(Before you think that this is "bunk", there is an
entire "Stress
Reduction Clinic" at the University of Massachusetts Medical
Center, which uses meditation for its patients.
I wish you the best in your stress-reduction
techniques, and if you want to start examining your own stress, please
contact me.
For more ideas on fitness, health,
or "alternative" methods for your lifestyle,
contact Lauren for coaching solutions! |
This page is part of Physical Mind
articles:
ENJOY!
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