You might feel that all your stress comes from your neighbour, but chances are this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Our bodies are designed to be well and if we have a sufficient amount of the things we need such as food, exercise, and positive thoughts, we stay well. On the other hand, when we have too many stressors such as toxic food, inactivity, or toxic thoughts, our body reacts with the ‘Stress Response’. We are compensating for the stressor and trying to become healthy again. This takes us away from full health and a state of dis-ease is realized until we eventually become sick. As soon as we start to Eat Well, Move Well, and Think Well again, we move back towards being healthy. It may take a long time, depending on how sick we were when we started to get well again.
So, how does our diet cause stress? Could it be that we hide the bag of cookies beside our chair and we worry that someone will find out? The bottom line is, to be healthy, we need a certain amount of specific nutrients, and as little as possible of toxic things like sugar, salt, preservatives, etc. If we have too much sugar for instance it causes high blood sugar which increases our ‘Stress Response’ by increasing the hormone cortisol in the blood which is essentially adrenalin. Everything then speeds up, tenses up, and stresses us out. If we quickly use up this sugar, we will tend towards health again. If we get a sufficient amount of exercise it actually helps our body de-stress by reducing cortisol as well as reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol, reducing our blood sugar levels, and blood pressure, and many other things. Inactivity or lack of exercise works just the opposite and causes stress.
Our thinking affects us much the same as food or exercise. Negative thoughts such as criticising, condemning, or complaining are often considered ‘Stinking Thinking’. This type of thinking actually increases our cortisol and stresses us out. On the other hand, positive thoughts of gratitude and appreciation will calm us and lower our stress and tension.
In short, its Eat Well, Move Well and Think Well. How we do each of these things is not that hard but often requires the willingness to change. My next three articles will focus on each of these ways to be healthy.