Stress, the main cause of suffering for well over 90% of the human population on earth. It can cause many known\unknown issues and dysfunctions in the human body and most of the time we’re not even aware it’s there until something starts to break.
A basic internet search shows that everyone wants to help you to deal with your stress but the problem begins when they usually unaware of their own. They can offer you pills, diets, supplements, medical professionals and self-help methods. At the end of the day it might do you some good in helping you to relax and control the immediate symptoms but it won’t help you over the long run or to be able to understand why is it that you feel stressed all over again the next day.
“Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous. Stress is your body’s reaction to a challenge or demand. In short bursts, stress can be positive, such as when it helps you avoid danger or meet a deadline. But when stress lasts for a long time, it may harm your health.” – Source: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003211.htm
Additionally, it’s a known fact that after you condition the body with the same emotional state for 6 months or more it will become addicted to this emotion and produce more of it, even when it’s not really needed or wanted anymore. In other words, you become addicted to your stress after a while and the cycle of suffering continues.
Furthermore, human beings are connected to each other by emotions and mirroring on a very basic level, this means that even if you were not a stress addicted person when you were younger, after a few months or years of living with people that don’t know any better and are emotionally addicted to this stress, you will mirror their behavior. Unless you become aware.
How do you break out of it then?
I’d like to say that that’s an easy step and an easy task to achieve, but it’s not. If I need to sum it up to one word, I’d call it ‘peace’. Peace and quiet over time can condition your body and mind to stop producing and reacting with stress to any situation in life, even on the short-term basis, what we call the “good” stress. Please note, I’m not referring to world peace here, of course, but to an inner peace and quiet.
Peace and quiet seem to be illusive behaviors in our world today. We actually fight very hard to maintain them as unachievable concepts. We seem to confuse the role of emotions in our lives and we too often let them control us instead of the other way around. We think peace can only be obtained when we’re dead, older, on vacation and so on. I’m here to tell you it really isn’t the case and thinking otherwise because someone else told you so is The Art Of Misconception.
Taking responsibility over your emotional state and to be able to control it is not an easy task. It requires self-discipline and will which are, in today’s world, very difficult to maintain. Although many people out there are actively seeking it, for most it still is a very difficult task to achieve.
There’s hope.
If you’re willing to accept that what I’m about to suggest is not an instant remedy and you have to be patient with yourself and just keep on going no matter what, just like you gained this stress, you’ll be able to replace it with something else.
It begins with you realizing there’s a different option to what you’ve known so far. 1 minute here, 5 minutes there, scattered all over your day, week, month, is enough to get you started. Close your eyes and breath deeply through your nose (don’t over-stress your body while doing it), slowly, then release it, again, through your nose, even slower. Hear your heartbeat, notice your body, know that nothing is bad as you imagine it to be and nothing that will happen to you today is the end of the world, your world. Feel your body as you agree to release the control you’re trying to maintain over your reality. Let it go.
Treat yourself well and thanks for reading.
