Managing Stress

September 18, 2005

May I send this to another list I am on.

Pat M

--- Narendra Kumar Jain <nkjain wrote:

> Clear DayStress: Managing Stress

> One youngster comes to me very depressed and asks

> this question " Why is God creating so many

> difficulties for us? How to handle stress? " I tell

> this youngster to reflect on this beautiful story:

> " A man goes to a shop, picks up a beautiful cup and

> says " My god this cup is so beautiful " and suddenly

> the cup starts talking to the man.

> The cup starts saying " O man, I am beautiful right

> now, but what was the state of my being before the

> pot-maker made me a beautiful cup? Before I was

> sheer mud and the pot-maker pulled me out of the mud

> from the mother earth and I felt why that pot-maker

> is so cruel, he has separated me from mother earth.

> I felt a tremendous pain. And the

> pot-maker said, " Just wait. "

> Then he put me and churned me, when I was churned I

> felt so giddy, so painful, so stressful, I asked

> the pot-maker " Why are you so cruel? " the pot-maker

> said, " Just wait. "

> Then he put me into a oven and heated me up, I felt

> completely burnt. There was tremendous pain and I

> asked the pot-maker " Why are you so cruel? " and the

> pot-maker said, " Just wait. "

> Then he poured hot paint on me and I felt the fume

> and the pain, I again asked the pot-maker " Why are

> you so cruel? " and the pot-maker said, " Just wait. "

>

> Then again he put me into an oven and heated it to

> make me more strong, I felt life is so painful

> hence pleaded the pot-maker and the pot-maker said,

> " Just wait. "

> And after that the pot-maker took me to the mirror

> and said, " Now look at yourself " . And surprisingly

> I found myself so beautiful. "

> When god gives us lot of trouble, it appears god is

> very cruel but we need patience and we have to

> wait. When bad things happen to good people, they

> become better and not bitter. So all difficulties

> are part of a cosmic design to make us really

> beautiful. We need patience, we need understanding,

> we need the commitment to go through in a very calm

> and wise way. So all difficulties are not to tumble

> us but to humble us. With this understanding, let

> us not be against difficulty. Understand difficulty

> is a part of a purifying process. A purifying

> process at present which we cannot understand and

> hence we need faith and we need trust. Let us

> understand how to handle stress with this

> background. You can be affected by stress from two

> angles. There is an internal stress and there is an

> external stress. Nobody can avoid stress; one has to

> only manage stress.

> Managing stress can be internal and also external.

> The internal stress is; your thoughts can create

> stress, your values can create stress, and your

> beliefs can create stress, meaning thereby your

> stress is coming from your mind more from the outer

> world. Many people suffer not from heart attack -

> they suffer from thought-attack. For example, when

> somebody says you are an idiot, we get so hurt, we

> get so victimised. My boss has called me an idiot

> and I am feeling tremendous pain. Now where does

> this stress come from? If my boss has called me an

> idiot, I have to ask myself " am I an idiot " ? If I am

> an idiot nothing to be upset about; and if I am not

> an idiot, then also nothing to be upset about! It

> is the perception of the boss. But why do we suffer

> from that stress? I suffer not because my boss has

> called me an idiot but because of the

> thought-attack.

> I may say the boss has called me an idiot;

> therefore I am suffering? It is true that the

> words are unpleasant. But what hurts is the

> interpretation of the unpleasant word. The thought

> in me interprets. That is pain and therefore it

> becomes pain. Much of our stress is our mind

> interpreting it as pain. So we suffer from

> thought-attack more than heart attack.

> Narendra

>

" Do not be afraid of enemies; the worst they can do is to kill you. Do

not be afraid of friends; the worst they can do is betray you. Be afraid of the

indifferent; they do not kill or betray. But only because of their silent

agreement, betrayal and murder exist on earth. "

- - -- Bruno Yasienski - " The Plot of the Indifferent " (1937)

Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005

September 19, 2005

Wow this is so beautiful and it makes perfect sense. I stress easily

over what people say and thanks for that - even though it makes sense

sometimes its hard to push it away )

> --- Narendra Kumar Jain <nkjain@k...> wrote:

>

> > Clear DayStress: Managing Stress

> > One youngster comes to me very depressed and asks

> > this question " Why is God creating so many

> > difficulties for us? How to handle stress? " I tell

> > this youngster to reflect on this beautiful story:

> > " A man goes to a shop, picks up a beautiful cup and

> > says " My god this cup is so beautiful " and suddenly

> > the cup starts talking to the man.

> > The cup starts saying " O man, I am beautiful right

> > now, but what was the state of my being before the

> > pot-maker made me a beautiful cup? Before I was

> > sheer mud and the pot-maker pulled me out of the mud

> > from the mother earth and I felt why that pot-maker

> > is so cruel, he has separated me from mother earth.

> > I felt a tremendous pain. And the

> > pot-maker said, " Just wait. "

> > Then he put me and churned me, when I was churned I

> > felt so giddy, so painful, so stressful, I asked

> > the pot-maker " Why are you so cruel? " the pot-maker

> > said, " Just wait. "

> > Then he put me into a oven and heated me up, I felt

> > completely burnt. There was tremendous pain and I

> > asked the pot-maker " Why are you so cruel? " and the

> > pot-maker said, " Just wait. "

> > Then he poured hot paint on me and I felt the fume

> > and the pain, I again asked the pot-maker " Why are

> > you so cruel? " and the pot-maker said, " Just wait. "

> >

> > Then again he put me into an oven and heated it to

> > make me more strong, I felt life is so painful

> > hence pleaded the pot-maker and the pot-maker said,

> > " Just wait. "

> > And after that the pot-maker took me to the mirror

> > and said, " Now look at yourself " . And surprisingly

> > I found myself so beautiful. "

> > When god gives us lot of trouble, it appears god is

> > very cruel but we need patience and we have to

> > wait. When bad things happen to good people, they

> > become better and not bitter. So all difficulties

> > are part of a cosmic design to make us really

> > beautiful. We need patience, we need understanding,

> > we need the commitment to go through in a very calm

> > and wise way. So all difficulties are not to tumble

> > us but to humble us. With this understanding, let

> > us not be against difficulty. Understand difficulty

> > is a part of a purifying process. A purifying

> > process at present which we cannot understand and

> > hence we need faith and we need trust. Let us

> > understand how to handle stress with this

> > background. You can be affected by stress from two

> > angles. There is an internal stress and there is an

> > external stress. Nobody can avoid stress; one has to

> > only manage stress.

> > Managing stress can be internal and also external.

> > The internal stress is; your thoughts can create

> > stress, your values can create stress, and your

> > beliefs can create stress, meaning thereby your

> > stress is coming from your mind more from the outer

> > world. Many people suffer not from heart attack -

> > they suffer from thought-attack. For example, when

> > somebody says you are an idiot, we get so hurt, we

> > get so victimised. My boss has called me an idiot

> > and I am feeling tremendous pain. Now where does

> > this stress come from? If my boss has called me an

> > idiot, I have to ask myself " am I an idiot " ? If I am

> > an idiot nothing to be upset about; and if I am not

> > an idiot, then also nothing to be upset about! It

> > is the perception of the boss. But why do we suffer

> > from that stress? I suffer not because my boss has

> > called me an idiot but because of the

> > thought-attack.

> > I may say the boss has called me an idiot;

> > therefore I am suffering? It is true that the

> > words are unpleasant. But what hurts is the

> > interpretation of the unpleasant word. The thought

> > in me interprets. That is pain and therefore it

> > becomes pain. Much of our stress is our mind

> > interpreting it as pain. So we suffer from

> > thought-attack more than heart attack.

> > Narendra

> >

>

> " Do not be afraid of enemies; the worst they can do is to kill you. Do

> not be afraid of friends; the worst they can do is betray you. Be

afraid of the indifferent; they do not kill or betray. But only

because of their silent agreement, betrayal and murder exist on earth. "

> - - -- Bruno Yasienski - " The Plot of the Indifferent " (1937)

>

> Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005

>

July 6, 2009

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/06/20/12-Compelling-Reasons-to-Ditch-Stress-from-Your-Life.aspx

12 Compelling Reasons to Ditch Stress from Your LifeVideo Link:

In this interview, Marc David, an expert in the psychology of eating, talks about the important role stress plays in digestion.

I'm

sure you received many valuable health tips from this small segment of

the expert interview. To hear the full version of this and other

interviews I do with world-renowned health experts is easy... Simply

sign up for the affordable Mercola Inner Circle and receive them monthly, with zero effort on your part. Take this small step -- and take control of your health – 2,250 other Mercola Inner Circle members can't be wrong!

This video clip of my Inner Circle

expert interview with Marc David exposes the tremendous impact stress

can have on your digestion, and in turn your weight and overall health.

Marc is the founder and director of the Institute for the Psychology

of Eating, and has written two excellent books on this topic: The Slow Down Diet: Eating for Pleasure, Energy, and Weight Loss, and Nourishing Wisdom: A Mind-Body Approach to Nutrition and Well-Being.

The fact is, you can't separate your wellness from your emotions.

Every feeling you have affects some part of your body. And stress can

wreak havoc even if you’re doing everything else “right.”

What is “Stress”?

The classic definition of stress is “any real or imagined threat,

and your body’s response to it.” Celebrations and tragedies alike can

cause a stress response in your body.

Some stress is unavoidable. Some mild forms of stress can even be

helpful in some situations. But a stressor becomes a problem when:

Your response to it is negative. Your feelings and emotions are inappropriate for the circumstances. Your response lasts an excessively long time. You’re feeling continuously overwhelmed, overpowered or overworked.

It’s important to realize that all your feelings create

physiological changes. Your skin, heart rate, digestion, joints, muscle

energy levels, the hair on your head, and countless cells and systems

you don't even know about change with every emotion.

Marc notes that Americans, in general, tend to eat under a state of stress and anxiety.

While under stress, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure

rises, and blood is shunted away from your midsection, going to your

arms, legs, and head for quick thinking, fighting, or fleeing.

All of these changes are referred to as the physiological stress response.

Under those circumstances, your digestion completely shuts down. So

a major problem with eating while your body is under the stress

response is that you could be eating the healthiest food in the world,

yet you won’t be able to fully digest and assimilate that food, and

your body will not be able to burn calories effectively.

How the Stress Response Affects Your Digestion and Health

The stress response causes a number of detrimental events in your body, including:

Decreased nutrient absorption Decreased oxygenation to your gut As much as four times less blood flow to your digestive system, which leads to decreased metabolism Decreased enzymatic output in your gut – as much as 20,000-fold!

Many nutrients are also excreted during stress, particularly:

Water-soluble vitamins Macrominerals Microminerals Calcium (calcium excretion can increase as much as 60 to 75 mg within an hour of a stressful event)

As if that’s not enough, your cholesterol and triglycerides also go

up, while gut flora populations decrease. You’re also more likely to

experience increased sensitivity to food and gastroesophageal reflux,

or heartburn.

But perhaps most importantly, when your body is under the stress response, your cortisol and insulin levels rise.

These two hormones tend to track each other, and when your cortisol

is consistently elevated under a chronic low-level stress response,

you’ll likely notice that you have difficulty losing weight or building

muscle.

Additionally, if your cortisol is chronically elevated, you’ll tend

to gain weight around your midsection. We’ve known for some time that

body fat, and especially visceral fat (the fat that gathers around your

internal organs, around your midsection) is a major contributing factor

to developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

The bottom line?

When you eat under stress, your body is in the opposite state of

where you need to be in order to digest, assimilate nutrients, and burn

calories.

Everyday Stress Relief

There’s no doubt that finding ways to relieve your everyday stress

is an important, if not essential, aspect of optimizing your health.

All the organics in the world can’t help you if your body can’t

assimilate the nutrients you put into it.

Stress is a serious factor in the illness of nearly all of the

patients seen at my clinic. Because in addition to everything mentioned

above, stress also plays a major role in your immune system, and can impact your:

Blood pressure Cholesterol

Brain chemistry Blood sugar levels

Hormonal balance

You cannot eliminate stress entirely, but you can work to provide

your body with tools to compensate for the bioelectrical

short-circuiting that can cause serious disruption in many of your

body's important systems. By using techniques such as meridian tapping, you can reprogram your body’s reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life.

But there are many other strategies you can employ to help you deal with stress and unwind each day, including:

Exercise.

Studies have shown that during exercise, tranquilizing chemicals

(endorphins) are released in your brain. Exercise is a natural way to

bring your body pleasurable relaxation and rejuvenation. Proper sleep Meditation (with or without the additional aid of brain wave synchronization technology)

I also highly recommend you read the book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die.

If you’re experiencing any type of physical or emotional challenge in

any aspect of your life, this book does a great job of explaining

feelings: what they are, how you experience them, how they are integral

to your physical health, and, most importantly, how to work with and

overcome those that are pulling you down.