I am currently learning about the science of stress and how it impacts our bodies and lives. There is a ton of information here, and I am learning, not the expert, so bear with me. I am learning from Dr. Joe Dispenza, so if you know of his work, and I am missing something, please let me know. This is my interpretation of what I am learning, but it is not new to my thinking. The new part is that Dr. Joe backs up my intuition on this stuff with science. Know that every statement I say below is something he presents with scientific study and measurement. It is really cool that what I feel I have always known intuitively is backed up by the biological science of body functioning. If you want to know the details of the science, seek out Dr. Joe’s website at drjoedispenza.com.
#1: Living in a constant state of stress will adversely affect your health. I think we have heard this statement over and over again. Do we understand how and why though? It is physiological and scientifically proven, but how? Here are some of the basics.
#2: Your body does not know the difference between real danger or stressful environment (bear chasing you, someone threatening you) and one that is perceived in your mind (you think you are unsafe, you think about being overwhelmed, think of yourself as unworthy . . . ). Your body responds to real danger the same as perceived danger. If you think it, it is real as far as your body’s response.
#3: Real or not, under stress, attack, in danger, etc. our bodies respond with the sympathetic nervous system response, stress hormones, and accelerated rates of just about every system. This is good if you are in real danger. It is not useful if it is merely perceived danger.
#4: What is also important is that the parasympathetic nervous system has an opportunity to return the body to homeostasis. That is, return to normal states of functioning for your hormones, heart, brain, breathing etc.
#5: When we are constantly thinking about all of the things that are causing us to feel anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, in secure, unsafe, unworthy. . ., we are telling our bodies to stay alert!! Danger is just around the corner! We might need to run. That does not allow the parasympathetic nervous system to return the body to homeostasis. Homeostasis is absolutely necessary for healing when sick or harmed, and for overall healthy functioning of every cell in our bodies.
#6: That constant state of stress and perceived threat is causing our bodies to eventually flip on our genetic switches for disease. Prolonged states of having those hormones bath our bodies will tell our bodies to create immune responses that are out of the norm for a short-lived illness. Over responsive immune systems can create systemic inflammation, cancer, allergies, food and environmental sensitivities. Those things do not have to be there, but when your body keeps preparing for threat, it tends to over prepare sending the systems for protection into overdrive. That overdrive eventually will kill us in one way or another.
#7: Stress also causes our heart to beat out of rhythm. Our heart rates are variable based on emotions, by design. Stress related emotions are caused by stress related thoughts. Stress related emotions cause our hearts to beat in an irregular fashion. Brains create electrical energy. Our emotions and heart create magnetic energy. Together they create an electromagnetic field around our bodies. More about that at another time. Just know that the field is responsible for protection and connection to the world around us. Constantly beating irregularly will diminish the body’s electromagnetic field array, which eventually will decrease energy, ability to connect, ability to think and perform well. We need that energy to be coherent, beating rhythmically. Higher frequency emotions, such as love, peace, confidence, gratitude, compassion, encouragement, etc. create different rhythms, thus the variability, but those other rhythms are in time. They are regular rhythms. Those regular rhythms create a coherent beat of the heart, which when working with the coherent electricity of the brain, enhances and strengthens the electromagnetic field around the body creating greater protection and connection from the world, both inside and outside of us. More energy, higher levels of thinking and feeling and connection to our higher selves. Your body cannot survive a reduced field for long before it starts to decay. We all decay with age, but faster if we are stressed all of the time.
#8: The greatest predictor of long life is not food, exercise, or external environment. It is resiliency. A person who is resilient will live longer than a person who is in the same environment, eats the same things, moves the same amount of time etc. A person who is resilient who does not eat well, is in a dangerous and chaotic physical environment, and doesn’t move much will still live longer than someone who eats well and exercises, who is in a relatively danger free physical environment, but who is constantly under attack in their mind and internal environment. Inside our genetic structures are the keys to immortality. We simply spend more time turning on the genetics for disease and decay than we do turning on the ones for healing and long life.
#9: Resiliency is controlling our autonomic nervous system (ANS), the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems make up the ANS. Responding to danger and recovering from danger effectively. That is to say, responding to real danger when it is needed, and returning to homeostasis quickly and sustaining that homeostasis long-term. We tend to go into a state of crisis and then prolong the response of the sympathetic nervous system, delaying recovering, holding onto the emotions and stress of something preventing recovery and return to homeostasis, so that by the time the next real or perceived threat arrives, we are not yet recovered and ramp it right back up. Resiliency is responding to real danger and recovering from it quickly so your body spends most of its time in homeostasis, not in attack mode, or protection mode.
#10: Good news is we can control the ANS. It is our thoughts that produce our emotions, not our emotions that control our thoughts. If our emotions and thoughts are turning on the ANS system to prepare for a threat, then they can also turn it off to allow for healing and recovery. We get in a loop of thinking a thought, which produces an emotion, which leads to another thought, then another emotion, so that we forget that the thoughts are what produced the emotion in the first place. We start responding as though the emotion is in control of what we think and not the other way around. If thinking a negative thought produces a response equal to something that is a true physical threat, then thinking a positive thought will produce a response as though the environment is full of safe and really awesome things. It is both simple, and complex to change our thoughts; however, it is the only way to create homeostasis and turn on our genes for health and long life, and turn off our genes for disease and decay.
This is a very basic simplification and interpretation of Dr. Joe’s work. It is also something I have known for probably my whole life intuitively. It is us who creates our danger and unhealthy bodies. I know that the thought of us being responsible for our health or disease, as applicable, creates anger and guilt for some people. They do not want to feel responsible for their diseases and poor health. Guilt is just another stressful emotion. It isn’t necessary. Perceive this as not an attack on what you have not done or are not doing to heal, but as an opportunity to learn and grow into a new person, who does know how to heal and be resilient. Guilt and resistance are not serving you mentally or physically. Hope and determination to learn to be different will. It is as easy as thinking differently from our conditioning. The hard part is, it is not easy to resist our conditioning to think differently. Cut yourself some slack, and do it, then just keep doing it. You will change and improve if you just do and repeat. If you revert to old ways, notice, stop and do something different. Just keep up that pattern, notice, stop, and do something different. That is all it takes. That fake it until you make it statement actually works for real. Keep working on it.
Namaste