Stress, stress, stress, and more stress

Jefferson Breland

(11/2021) The following is my next installation on the topic of unnecessary suffering.

As I have mentioned, generally speaking, unnecessary suffering is caused by a belief that something should be different than it is. This can be an expectation that isn’t met. It can be letting someone’s words get under our skin. It can be the weather. It can be your cat walking across your computer keyboard and deleting an article you have spent hours writing. Basically, it can be any experience that triggers an emotional response. The rub is that if we shifted our thinking, even a little bit, we could decrease the level of suffering and our lives might be more peaceful and happy.

Stress is everywhere. In our current culture the word "stress" is used in just about any context one can imagine. I did a Google search of the word "stress." Over 6,000,000,000 results suddenly became available to me via my computer screen. Six billion results!!! So much time and energy devoted to stress.

I did some looking into those six billion results and wow, there is tons of information about stress. There are multitudes of definitions, theories, treatments, approaches, understandings, centers, institutes, medicines, cures, exercises, and God knows what. The only common ideas I found are that stress is everywhere and it affects our health in mostly a negative way.

Use of the word stress is so pervasive in our society, it may be hard to believe that the medical use of the word stress is less than 100 years-old. In the 1920s, Canadian medical researcher Hans Selye observed that the rats he was conducting experiments on were not just effected by the injections he was using. The rats were experiencing the "stress" of the experiments he performed on a psycho-emotional level, so much so that he listed "stress" as the cause of death of some of the rats in a paper he published in 1936.

Quick side note: I find it very curious that much of our modern entertainment (theater, television and movies) is based on conflict/danger, i.e. stressful situations—- we seek escape or diversion from the stress of our lives by watching other people experience stress in their fictional lives.

As I said in August’s Complementary Corner, I don’t like the word stress as our culture uses it. Before the Selye, stress was purely a physics/engineering term used to describe the effect of compression, tension, temperature or the load put on material objects, such as wood, steel, concrete, etc.

Selye defined stress as "the non-specific response of the body to any demand placed upon it." That is a broad definition. Firstly, there is the word, "non-specific;" synonyms include: broad, general, and vague. Secondly, the use of the word "demand;" synonyms include: request, stipulation, ultimatum, dictate, urging, challenging, require(ment). From the very beginning of the medical use of the word, stress could be anything. In my opinion, the word is then too vague (see - non-specific) to be useful. I am surprised Selye didn’t call it "Stress Syndrome" to expand its nebulous definition.

Don’t get me wrong, the effects of stress are undeniable and have a major impact on our health. I think stress is the major epidemic of our modern times and one of the greatest sources of unnecessary suffering. Our culture's acceptance of stress as a necessary condition of modern living is very unfortunate. The cost of this acceptance is basically immeasurable as it effects almost everyone still breathing on some level.

So, if stress is real and really hurts people, why am I harping on about the origins and definition of the word? That is a valid question.

The point of this article is that we have the ability to decrease the stress in our lives.

When we can get specific about the sources of stress in our life, then be can design ways to reduce that stress. Stress as a medical word is interesting because it is used to describe the effects of life on both the body and mind. For over 2,000 years, Chinese Medicine has described the connection of body, mind, and spirit. In the classic Chinese medical text, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, the effect of emotions on the body are clearly stated as the internal causes of disease.

Based on this framework, we can look at how specific emotions can effect the body. Translated into modern medical language, excess fear can cause fatigue, headaches, heart issues, anxiety, digestive issues, decrease immunity, and much more. Excess anger can cause high blood pressure, headaches, heart issues, digestive issues, decrease immunity, brain fog, and much more. Excess sadness can cause heart issues, anxiety, depression, digestive issues, decreased immunity, fatigue, and much more. Excess worry and grief can cause heart issues… okay, okay, okay. Enough is enough.

We can see a clear and common correlation between our emotions and their effect on the body. Each of these five emotions can be called stress. If we want to decrease the effect of our emotions on our health, we first need to be aware of when the emotions begin and what are the situations that generate these emotions. The point here is not to eliminate emotions. The point is to let emotions flow through us in a healthy way and not allow the energy of the emotion to get stuck in us. When the energy of the emotion gets stuck, we feel the stress of that stuck-ness in our body. The earlier we feel the stuck-ness, the earlier we can release the unbalanced emotional energy in a healthy way. The earlier we release the unbalanced emotional energy, the more "balanced"energy we have for our body to heal itself.

How do we do this? How do you know you are fearful, angry, sad, worried, or grieving?

Here is where the wisdom of our body comes to the rescue. Pay attention to your body. It is your teacher. Most of us are not practiced at paying attention to our body’s messages before pain or other symptoms show up.

For the sake of simplicity, I will offer you a few simple examples to start us off. When does your body tighten up? When do you notice your breathing? When do you shoulders rise up? When do you feel heat on your face? When do you feel exhausted?

The next component of this process is to pay attention to the circumstances or situations you are in when you notice your body's messages. Once you begin to notice the earliest messages your body sends you, you are on your way to reducing your stress and feeling better.

Dear reader, I apologize. I have left you hanging here. I did not do so to create more "stress" in your life. I did it because each of us responds to life differently. There is no single way to reduce "stress." Paying attention to your body’s messages is the first step. If you would like to learn more specifically about how to help yourself, please send me an email or give me a call. Be well.

 Jefferson Breland is a board-certified acupuncturist, he can be reached at 410-336-5876. Their office in Gettysburg is located at 249B York Street.