Our bodies are constantly providing feedback loops which perpetuate themselves. The catch; we actually need to make the choice and guide our own ship or it undoubtedly will be guided for us.

Albert Einstein said it doesn’t matter how fast you go as long as you are pointed in the right direction and our modern society has complicated the choice of direction. Our bodies move perfectly with nature and we have done an incredible job of extricating ourselves from this natural flow. This is why we are seeing the radical increase in various pathologies both physical and psychological. These categories of course are constantly dancing with each other and you will see a direct correlation between the two.

Originally I was going to explain the HPA-axis and various biological stress pathways and decided it would be too much and cut the whole thing out. You can check out my conversation on the Align Podcast coming up with Dr. Justin Marchegiani to learn more specifics.

Any who, our stress response is a very good thing and only becomes an issue when the response becomes stuck on overdrive due to the modern day, perpetual built in stressors of bills, felt sense of inadequacy, social pressures, unhealthy relationships and living under the illusion that a symbol of power in the form of paper will bring us happiness. This is brand new to our species and is more insidiously damaging than any gun ever could be. The results of this system not adequately relaxing is a resistance to our stress hormones which causes the signal to continue to be secreted until we eventually burn our adrenal glands out and we call this adrenal fatigue.

Our sympathetic nervous system is activated during this response and releases epinephrine and norepinephrine into our system which will tell the heart to hurry up and pump more blood. Our veins constrict to raise the acceleration of blood back to the heart by increasing blood pressure. Our arteries dilate to increase amount of potential blood flow and the blood is diverted into our muscular periphery, so our skeletal muscles are optimally ready to ‘fight or flight’. Our vital organ function, tissue repair, cognitive development and digestion go on hiatus until the storm is over. If a hurricane is coming, it’s no time to paint the house.

These responses if sustained end up crippling our immune system, blowing out our endocrine system, leading to diabetes, hypertension and leading a to a wide variety of psychopathologies. Essentially everything that can go wrong, will go wrong with prolonged stress. We need to recognize stress as being any stimulus that temporarily impacts our natural homeostasis. This includes positive stress (eustress) such as exercise or public speaking. Because stress starts off invisible, it is significantly more insidious than a gun.

How is all this fire and brimstone talk relative to becoming better today? I would like to see everyone simply step back and observe their lifestyle and determine whether we are treating our systems with the utmost respect. Stress will likely not kill you today but slowly impair your system like a parasite.

One Week Challenge

• My challenge to you is for one week, step back and sincerely observe how genuinely happy you are to be doing everything you are participating in. Even if you are working a job you don’t love, you have the ability to choose your perception of your experience. Studies have shown that people who perceive life stressors to be positive are significantly less likely to suffer a heart attack.
• Then take the next step and decide if there is any aspect of your day that is stressful and you could do without, start changing that immediately. We are creatures of habit and most of the things we ‘think’ we need to do are actually just products of our never trying any other way.
• The next part of the challenge is guard your sleep with your life. Be sure to get at least 7 hours of sleep as though your life depends on it (because it does).
• Next step, dive into your relationships and tell people how much you appreciate them. Make eye contact and be honest 100% of the time. Lies are stressful and will build up until there is chaos.
• Sincerely observe every relationship and determine if the individual makes you a better person or is a dead weight. Drop the weight immediately and feed the positive relationships the remaining energy you will gain from ditching the vampires.
• Ditch simple sugars and processed foods. Check out Evan Brand episode of the Align Podcast for greater details.
• Move that body of yours, a lot. Dance, sex, hiking, running, yoga, singing, laughing or whatever floats your boat is necessary. Not once a week but every single day. It allows our body to express out the stress chemicals stored in our tissues.
• Shut up! Have some quite time, meditate, go for a walk with intention on checking in with yourself.
• Be appreciative, this could be your last day.