Sleeping the Amygdala within...

Stress...

When we appreciate what we have, we feel happy and get more of it...

But there's also a side to life that causes hurt, suffering, and sometimes despair.

Look around you, How many people are upset and complaining about every aspect of their lives.

Look in the mirror, and realize that you are too is suffering and struggling with certain things that making you feel unhappy, disappointed, and dramatic.

Can You Actually Avoid Stress?

The Bad news is, Stress is unavoidable, Why?

Because it's inherited, Our ancestors have given us a legacy of stress, I know what you are thinking now, "we have inherited all the things that are exactly the opposite of what we want today", if this is what you thinking, just keep reading and you might change your mind, that you still.... Can be.. in charge of your life. 

As per Robert Sapolsky, (this Cartoon gentleman ) a professor at Stanford University, and he's a world-renowned expert in stress. He defined stress as anything that knocks us out of homeostatic balance. 

Homeostasis is essentially a state of being. a perfect state of everything, an ideal body temperature, ideal glucose level, an ideal bloodstream, In short... Fantastic...  

A stressor is anything that knocks your body or your system out of that homeostatic balance. 

How your Dog handles stress?

Imagine your dog or (Your favorite animal here) is in homeostasis and suddenly he is attacked by an outside trigger (The Stressor), he/she will be out of homeostasis, he/she will be in a fight or a flight situation, and he/she will be at heightened level of arousal until it successfully escapes the trigger (stressor) after waking up the entire neighborhood at the same time!

the amazing thing about animals is that once the trigger disappears, they will be back to a perfect homeostasis balance, unfortunately, we humans don't operate the same way... very sad...

We have this little area called the limbic system in the frontal area of our brains...

Within that, we have something called amygdala. This is kind of the emotional center of our brain. This is what communicates to the rest of the body when something actually is a stressor. when a stressor comes in, or something that's perceived as a stressor, the amygdala gets activated. And when it's highly activated, we start to become like a nonstop, lidless, water boiler...

And then our brains are no longer performing its duties. The frontal lobes are responsible for good decision-making, weighing consequences of actions, rational thought, all important mechanisms. So we start making crazy decisions that we might regret later on...

in addition, Your body starts to under-perform, Digestion slows down. Blood gets conserved to the major organs. Basically, you're in a position to either take an action (Fight) or take it easy and take yourself out of the situation ASAP (Flight)...

 The Good news, you are in charge, Press the brakes, please.

The other part of the autonomic nervous system is the parasympathetic response. And this is like the brake. This helps us restore. It helps us calm down. So the sympathetic and parasympathetic are almost a yin and yang. 

A stressor comes in = the sympathetic nervous system's activated =causes the fight, flight.

 Parasympathetic response = turns off the sympathetic or puts the brake on the sympathetic

The result, we can refuel, restore, and relax.

The challenge is, we humans are different, We are very developed and we can think at a much deeper level than other mammals. we can anticipate beautiful things and feel happy...

But also we can anticipate a potential stressor in the future, and we will engage in the stress response. sometimes we remember a stressor that has happened years ago, You're unable to let it go. Sometimes we create stressful events in our minds, And because you're anticipating or expecting it, you've triggered that stress response. So you're in a heightened level of stress, even though nothing's occurred.

You need SOME STRESS in your life.... the Yerkes-Dotson curve. 

So we've been talking about how stress can be bad, but I have something interesting about stress that might surprise you, There's a curve. It's called the Yerkes-Dotson curve. And the Yerkes-Dotson curve is an inverted U. It tells us about the relationship between stress and our performance.

On one end means you're under no stress. Actually, people don't perform and function well under no stress. He believes that It can create lack of motivation, I tend to agree with him on this, Because when I don't have a specific goal with a deadline to achieve, I will never take an action, because I have a lifetime to do it, so it just keeps dragging. 

Human performance and well-being optimized under moderate and manageable levels of stress. And that's where you get into the middle of the inverted. That's our performance.

Our performance peaks when it's actually moderate. S.MART Goals.

When we experience too much stress, we really have a meltdown. We lose our ability to think clearly and performing well cognitively.

A Voice from your Email-In-Box:

"Hey, in addition to the 16 tasks I've given you yesterday, let me give you another 10 just in case you have a plan to be productive today"...

Ultimately, we end up with problematic behaviors, or what we call, Chronic Stress...

Research indicates that 90% of people experience chronic stress. That means stress that sticks with you for a prolonged period of time and can have a negative impact on your minds, body, and behavior, Sleepless nights, lower back, neck, and body pain.  

the issue with managing chronic stress is that it makes us become like a Pop-up complaint box, we always have abundance of bad thoughts and less of the good ones, day by day and week after week, these bad thoughts tear us down, depletes our energy, and leaves us dry, yellow, and thirsty like a dead tree, who had the potential to thrive and live blissfully while being useful to the world. 

Chronic stress does really horrible damage to our health and body.

it's astonishing to know that most of the death is not because of accidents, viral infections, or other types of illnesses. They are actually stress related. 

Your mind?? foggy...

Your behavior is affected by your thoughts, if you feel stressed and full of negative thinking, you will behave the same way you feel and bring more stress into your life. 

You can optimize your well being and life satisfaction and performance in life if you are willing to develop the skills, routines, and habits to minimize and lessen the impact of stress in your life. 

But that doesn't mean you're going to live a stress-free life, you need to learn how to become Resilient and never lose control of your life and wellbeing. 

in the future, I'll be sharing specific methods on how to be Resilient, and have a healthy and fulfilling life.

Thank you for reading so far, Please let me know what you think in the comments below, and see you in the next one,

Afrah Hamdy