Anxiety & Stress

Stress: (Extract from Why Your Body Speaks and How to Listen) Stress in small doses is not, in and of itself, bad. The trouble begins when something becomes stressful, and that happens when the demand on the mind or body is not matched by the capacity of the person upon whom the demand is being placed. All stress, regardless of degree, imposes a demand on the body. The system that enables you to make breakfast is also the system that mobilises you to run from a stampede of elephants. The system that allows resting and the digestion of your food, is also the system that is suppressed in times of acute traumatic distress. I am not saying that chronic stress is inherently traumatic, but living in a chronically stressed state can lead to an overwhelm of the nervous system and the associated physical and mental issues already mentioned. Over time, the body may begin to perceive ongoing stress as a threat. What results is a self-perpetuating cycle. As the body perceives a threat, it mobilises resources to meet the demand—adding to the overwhelm. If this mobilisation is prolonged or repeated, the body may begin to interpret even everyday challenges as threats, keeping the stress response chronically active.

Anxiety: (Extract from Why Your Body Speaks and How to Listen) Just like stress, anxiety is not inherently bad. Your body is designed to warn against things that may be of a threatening nature. You wouldn’t want to be without it because your sympathetic nervous system, active at the time of anxiety, is also the mechanism through which danger is averted. However, when the system is exposed to sustained strain or becomes over-sensitised, it struggles to tell the difference between a real threat and one that is imagined or anticipated in our thoughts. This can lead us to believe that anxiety is simply a matter of flawed thinking that can be fixed with logic or more willpower.