The first (and most important) thing to realise about stress is that it's a natural human response to a challenge. If you live in the modern world and don't feel stressed, there's something deeply wrong with you. Stress, unfortunately, is normal.
Stress has evolved to prepare you for physical threats. Until recently, in the evolution of human beings (and even now with constant traffic threats), our ability to respond quickly to physical danger has been critical for survival.
This preparation for physical threats involves engaging your body in various responses you may have heard of as "fight, flight, and freeze." I'll focus on fight and flight here, though freeze is very real for empathic humans in a difficult world.
Our default reaction to a threat is to avoid it (think oncoming trucks and sabre-toothed tigers). So, stress naturally creates avoidant reactions. In the modern world, this translates into procrastination and fear of public speaking.
The stress response is a full-body physical response and includes tensing the body, leaning forward to absorb the impact of the predator, moving your hands and arms up and in front of your vital organs, face and neck, squinting and frowning to shield your eyes, tightening your fists to protect your hands tightening your jaw for biting with our only natural weapon. This also manifests in the response we call "Distress".
The problem in our modern world is that threats are persistent. Unlike our ancestors facing lions or snakes (which they'd simply move away from - we were nomadic hunter-gatherers for a reason), our threats tend to remain with us for long periods.
Finance and career issues, family relationships, difficult coworkers or neighbours, the threat of aggression and the ever-present poly-crisis (the endless procession of global crises that replace each other or remain constantly in the background) create persistent stress that can't be easily avoided.
Persistent stress has a name: Chronic Stress. Chronic stress, unfortunately, switches off some non-critical body systems - including your immune system! So if you become ill or break out in spots or rashes when stressed, you now know why.
There is a clear, scientifically accepted link between stress and illness and between chronic stress and disease. This isn't a rosy picture, but understanding how things work, painful as it may be, helps us make better life choices.
The good news? This stress response can be worked with, diminished, reduced, and neutralised - this is a key part of what I teach at Bromley Mindfulness and in The Meditation Course. Check us out to learn more!
Bromley Mindfulness: Courses, classes, workshops and retreats in and around the Bromley area: https://bromleymindfulness.org.uk/
The Meditation Course is four live online meditation classes each week: https://meditationcourse.live
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