Stress can motivate us, help us to meet our deadlines and save our lives, but when stress is in our lives everyday our body forgets how to turn off the fight or flight responses, making us feel like we have stress all the time.
Back in the cave times stress worked to our advantage, picture yourself in the jungle looking for food; you walk around the corner and there is a Sabre Tooth Tiger. Straight away your brain takes in this information and a stress response begins, this is called your fight or flight response. Adrenalin & cortisol are produced by your adrenal glands that sit on top of your kidneys, when your body produces adrenalin & cortisol it will leave your mouth feeling dry with a slight metallic taste. Stress will trigger your adrenal glands to release adrenalin & cortisol throughout your entire body which stimulates a cascade of events:

1. Your heart begins to pump more blood around your body leading to an elevated blood pressure.
   
2. Then this blood gets directed away from your digestive system, and sent to your muscles so you can run or fight.
   
3. Your pancreas stimulates your body to release glucose into the blood stream so you have an active energy source to burn.
   
4. Your liver releases cholesterol as another source of energy.
   
5. Your brain switches off its logical though processes and memory storing to allow more blood and energy to your muscles.
   
   

Now that you have this response you can run or fight (I suggest running in response to a Sabre Tooth Tiger!). This fight or flight response probably just saved your life. When the stress is gone the body turns off the large amounts of adrenaline & cortisol being produced and your body functions return to normal. So what has happened in our world today? We are in a world with chronic stresses that plague our lives every day. Think of the horrors going on in the world that we watch on the news every night, the deadlines we need to reach, the mortgage that needs to be paid, the children that you don’t get to spend a lot of time with, the holiday that you never get to take, the marriage or relationship that is not as good as it could be, the parents that are sick, not to mention the in-laws! Suddenly we find our bodies have to work like there is a Sabre Tooth Tiger around every corner. Now think again of what happens when we are in a state of stress.

1. We get an elevated blood pressure: Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in our modern world! Are you suffering from high blood pressure or know someone who is?
   
2. Blood gets directed away from our digestive system: Irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, food intolerances, bloating, gas, reflux, hernias are all results of stress and the body being in a chronic state of stress
   
3. Elevated levels of blood glucose in our blood stream: Interestingly this is what happens in type 2 diabetes we have so much glucose in our blood that our insulin can’t keep up. Type 2 diabetes, hypoglycaemia, getting tired at 3 O’clock in the afternoon may all be related to stress.
   
4. Cholesterol levels get raised for an energy source: how many of you have high cholesterol? This is another major cause of heart disease in our modern world and a leading cause of death.
   
5. Your brain ceases memory function: Suffering from short or long term memory loss?
   
   

Long term stress also has other devastating effects on our bodies including: suppression of the immune system, insomnia, memory loss, decrease sexual drive, chronic fatigue syndrome, rapid heartbeat, anxiety, irritability, depression, lowered immune function, susceptibility to infections, exaggeration of allergies, greater muscle tension, back problems, cancer, poor digestion, poor absorption of nutrients leading to nutritional deficiencies, skin disorders, the formation of extra free-radicals that can damage body tissues making us age faster, and the composition of the blood changes to make it more prone to clotting.
So knowing all this, do you think that being in a chronic state of stress could be related to some major health complaints?
So what can we do to help our bodies turn off the fight or flight response?

1. Breathing: how many of you hold your breath or shallow breath? Place your hand on your abdomen and take 10 deep breaths making sure that you can see your hand move with each breath. Try to do this 3 times a day. Especially before you eat as the expansion of the diaphragm actual helps to turn off the fight or flight response and promote digestion. This is also an excellent exercise to do before you go to sleep, especially if you have an active brain at night.

2. Takes steps in your life to reduce your stressors, get counselling for that relationship, and hire a cleaning lady so you have more time to spend with your partner or kids. Take a holiday, leave work early one day a week.
3. Start achieving your life goals. How many of you feel like you sacrificed your dreams for ‘other thing?’ This is one of the biggest stressors I see in clinic. Write down the things you wish to achieve in your life, and start taking steps to achieve them, even if they are little ones. Quit making excuse that it is impossible or that it’s too hard, they are nothing less than excuses. There is nothing that the human can’t achieve if you put your heart and soul behind it, that is really why we are here, it’s not to be miserable in a job that you hate just so you can pay off that massive mortgage, there is more to life than that.

4. Exercise: exercising is a great way to release pent up stress and energy, improve your health, feel better and gain more energy. Something that almost everyone wants, there is no magic trick to this. You just have to make the effort and exercise, even if it’s just going for a walk with the dog 4 nights a week.

5. Listen to relaxing music. Music is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to help us feel relaxed. Songs can touch our souls; music should be part of our daily lives.

6. Meditation: Mediation is a great way to spend time with ourselves; it helps us to realize what our real priorities and what our dreams are. Meditating every day is a great way to release stress, even if your do it for just 5 minutes every day.

7. Take a holiday! I’m not just talking about packing your bags and leaving the state. Take a holiday from the job, the relationship, the kids (yes it is okay to want to take a holiday from your kids!), take a holiday from your stressors. This will help you to gain a better prospective on your life and what you can do to improve it. We often get so caught up in our lives it’s hard to see the bigger picture when you are ‘in’ your stress all the time.

1. And remember: “This too will pass.”