Posts Tagged ‘stress management’

Lifestyle is the answer to stress. Lifestyle is more than just the food you eat, though that is a big part of the picture. Most alternative physicians are aware that body, mind, and spirit are a package deal when it comes to overall health status.

Keys To Health

Optimal performance is the sum total of nutrition, activity, optimism, and mood.Everything listed for health effects one’s mood. From emotional eating to isolation are indicators of overall survival abilities. All these actions demonstrate immune-modulating capabilities.

 Lethal Dangers

Human studies validate the benefits of social contact. Studies have shown that socially isolated female rats develop a larger number of more aggressive tumors than rats living in a social group. This is according to researchers at Yale University and the University of Chicago.

The dramatic increase in mammary tumors among isolated Norway rats – which, like humans, are a highly social species-illustrates how loneliness can be deadly, the authors report in findings to be published the week of December 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“There is a growing interest in relationships between the environment, emotion and disease. This study offers insight into how the social world gets under the skin,” said Gretchen Hermes, first author of the paper and a resident in the Neurosciences Research Training Program in the Yale Department of Psychiatry.

 Stress

Isolation seems to bring with it a stress reaction. Stress is linked to the activation of cancer-promoting genes. Social isolation triggers fear and anxiety. What the study doesn’t do is tie stress to diet. A good diet with optimal nutrition mitigates dangerous stimulus that disrupt the body’s normal biological and psychological equilibrium.

The way the body handles stress is key to the effect it will have. Stress is a fact of life in these times. Not only is the pace of life frantic, but social isolation is more prevalent. The pressures are exacerbated when other factors such as poor health are part of the equation.

A Better Way

Stress can also cause heart rate and blood pressure to increase. There are a number of things that send people to the doctor’s office, which are stress related. You need good cellular energy to deal with something as energy draining as stress. Stress causes a deficit in mitochondrial energy.

Exercise is a stress modifier, but much less publicized is the fact that certain vitamins, minerals are stress busters and mood enhancers. Nutritional strategies are key, and also are other strategies. Overlooked and just as important is something called the biology of belief.

Health, by definition, is the sine qua non (condition) of everything else. It’s all in your head has meaning. Reality is from the Inside out, it’s all in your mind is the truth. It boils down to your interpretation of the world, and that becomes your view. How you experience something is the sum total of what you were taught, past experiences, and your health status.

Meditation, prayer, social interaction will all define your lifestyle, as well as nutrition and exercise. When using rats for models, these are the variables that can’t be part of the equation. However, it shows that isolated rats developed 84 times the amount of tumors as those living in groups. These were also faster spreading than the tumors of the social animals, and were of a larger size.

Environment, Emotion and Disease

To disregard the lifestyle components that affect every aspect of our lives is a formula for disaster. Our environment is more problematic. Emotional health is the ability to cope with the stresses of life. This is where the environment plays a key role. The internal environment must be healthy enough to protect one from the effects of stress from the outside.

Lifestyle is the sum total of nutritional status, activity level, belief system, and outlook. Rats are gregarious and social, and so are humans. So when it comes to health it is the whole package, which is the whole as in holistic. Turning to modern medicine will not get you the answer you need. We are not parts, and systems, we are a whole entity, that needs all parts operational.

The Stress Epidemic

Stress is part of the 21^st century world; relaxation is not build into our everyday life. The type of stress is different than previous generations experienced. This is for obvious reasons. We live in a society that is increasing its pace. By that I mean everything is getting faster and faster. It is difficult to learn patience when everything is expected to happen quickly. By expecting immediate results it increases the tempo of everyday life.

There is scientific proof that stress creates the biological responses in the body that triggers chemical changes. Stress is one of the health concerns in America that sends people to the physician’s office in droves. In the last few decades our life is suppose to have improved from the new technology. From cell phones, beepers, the Internet and twenty-four hour news on the television what do you think we should expect?

That topped with more insidious concerns that are beyond our control. It is not that the previous generations did not face perilous conditions it just that it was not of such global proportions. The news has been revolutionized in the way that it is reported from around the world. At one time newspaper or magazine had most of the information in the first few pages. There was a way to turn down the volume when you wanted to tune out.

Serenity

Who in this society is calm or serene most of the time?  People have to search for ways to unwind and relax. Stress reduction is now taught at the workplace. Children are stressed by having to grow up faster in a fast paced world. If childhood tranquility is gone than what is the chance for adults to describe their life as quite and relaxing?

Stress and Health are connected

A stressful world makes chronic health conditions worst. Primary care physicians are prescribing more tranquilizers, sleeping, and digestion aids. Researches from the Ohio State University and the University of Missouri evaluated 18.6 million doctor visits by children for sleep problems. What they found was that in 81% of the cases the children received a prescription for sleeping pills. The children that were under 17 were experiencing sleep problems such as insomnia. Most of the visits were by children ages six to pre-teen.

This health concerns comes from both the nutrient poor food, and the high level of stress. There are vitamins and minerals needed for the nervous system to operate well. The low quality of the food supply stresses the body, couple this with the ever increasing expectations placed on our children and grandchildren in this fast paced society and you have a problem.

 Relaxation

Relaxation is not a routine experience in this culture. Given its profound influence on our health it would be well worth it to learn how to relax. There is enough scientific evidence showing that using a relaxation method such as meditation, yoga, and exercise alone or combined have many benefits.

Research has documented the benefits of being in a relaxed state. It actually has proved to help memory, attention, learning, and positive emotions such as happiness. That translates into lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels, and better heart function. In a stressful world relaxation is something you have to practice. To relax your way to health means taking time from your busy day to unwind, and chill out.