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Re-Defining Stress to Prevent Disease
by Steve Jaffe
This book will analyze the causes of stress and how thoughts, perceptions
and learned experiences contribute to disease and illness.
Information discussed will explore how stress affects
the human body and the methods that can be used to reduce
stress by Re-Defining (re-framing) how the brain interprets
stress, which will allow the body to become balanced
and prevent disease.
Stress is everywhere. By definition it is the non-specific response
of the body to any demand made upon it. All humans,
both adults and children, experience stress. From dealing
with a cranky boss, demanding parents, bullies at school,
coping with the loss of a loved one or financial worries,
stress is impossible to avoid. Stress can be acute,
such as how the body reacts in the face of danger, or
it can be chronic when a person is dealing with long-term
stressful situations.
The body has a natural mechanism to cope with stress and when allowed
to return to homeostasis, a person can function relatively
disease free. However, stress is not easy to control.
Usually the body's breakdown is the first signal that
a person is suffering from severe stress. There are
limited studies of the incidence of stress (as opposed
to anxiety or depression), making it important for people
to understand the effects of stress on the body.
The cognitive long-term results of stress have been linked to the
development of many physical illnesses and diseases.
Chronic stress can weaken the immune system and, conversely,
the reduction of stress can help to strengthen the immune
system. Stress can be conceptualized as a four stage
cycle: thoughts, emotions, chemical reactions, and physical
symptoms. It is not the pressures in one's life that
cause stress. It is the way a person thinks about them.
Epictetus, in 120 AD, believed that man is not disturbed
by things, but by the views he takes of them. Thousands
of years later, man has gotten worse in dealing with
stress. Humans continue to remain caught up with unhealthy
thoughts, perceptions and learned reasoning, which has
led to an epidemic of stress in Western Society.
People have the ability to either create stress or reverse it. Like
a professional athlete who can either psyche himself/herself
up for a win or a loss, it is this same process that
a person can accomplish to control cognitive stress
and keep the body in a state of homeostasis. The body's
response to stress can produce the same arteriosclerosis
risk that results from smoking or high cholesterol levels.
This condition drastically increases the risk of heart
disease and stroke.
Stress has also been linked to the development and progression of
cancer, since it reduces the body's natural ability
to seek out and destroy malignant cells. Mental stress
also makes it more difficult to withstand the exhausting
treatments often required to treat cancer, such as chemotherapy
and radiation. Other diseases that are associated with
stress include type II diabetes, ulcers, respiratory
dysfunction, infections, and depression.
Stress is the body's natural mechanism to protect itself. With the
enormous amount of pressures life has to offer, it has
become a crutch that is driving millions of people unnecessarily
to their doctors with stress-related illnesses. The
brain is the origination point of stress and the main
organ in the body that dictates whether a person will
be healthy or ill.
When humans are experiencing a sense of "well-being" a
"normal" amount of endorphins is present in
the brain. However, when experiencing stress, the level
of endorphins drops significantly. Some researchers
estimate that the amount of stress in society doubles
every ten years. The bottom line is that if stress levels
do not seek their normal balance, the output of endorphins
cannot return to equilibrium. Eventually, while under
chronic stress, endorphin levels will keep lowering,
creating poor health.
Releasing the sense of over-urgency in a person's life often becomes
an ideal rather than a reality. People who create a
more serene life and discover more enriching ways to
live often have a better life (Carrington, 2001). Throughout
history stress has been recognized as a force that seriously
needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, teaching people
to control stress can be unprofitable for doctors and
pharmaceutical companies who make their living treating,
instead of curing. It is the purpose of this paper to
show people that there are remedies they can do on their
own to improve their health.
However, the problem of stress is not that simple. Constant exposure
to stressors in life has altered our brain, which in
turn has altered the body's ability to maintain a homeostasis
state. Human cells have a memory, and when chronic stress
is not given the time to recede, the body will not return
to equilibrium. The immune system reacts to any form
of stress. Over time, unrelieved stress will seriously
break down the immune system, eventually opening the
body up to illness and disease.
Nowadays, people are bombarded with what might be called the belief
system of stress, which suggests that psychological
and physiological well-being is constantly threatened
by degrees of stress unparalleled in history. However,
nothing could be further from the truth. Life has always
been historically stressful. What has changed is how
humans cope with stress. Stress changes the way a person
perceives the world: it affects one's senses, memory,
judgment, and behavior (Martin 1997). It is important
to understand the infectious nature of stress and how
it seduces a person to crave it.
Managing stress can be complicated and confusing. There are different
types of stress-acute, episodic, and chronic-each having
its own characteristics, symptoms, duration, and treatment
approaches. It is the myriad of stress that hinders
a person's ability to get a handle on its management.
It is hard to compare the stress humans faced thousands
of years ago with today's situations. What can be analyzed
today is the effects cognitive stress has on the body.
The difference now is that humans have lost the ability
to manage every day pressures, which has elevated their
perceptions to interpret that their hectic life-styles
are a signal for survival. Perceptions and learned experiences
are totally out of skew and need to be brought back
in line to allow the body to regain its ability to become
balanced and healthy. I will attempt to show that once
a person has an understanding of their unique stressors,
how their individual perceptions and learned experiences
control them, and the effects stress has on their body,
they can direct the mind to re-type stress and bring
the body back to an equilibrium state.
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