How to help your brain and body
The root cause of stress in the modern world doesn’t come down to one solitary thing. But a good deal of our stress can be attributed to the interaction between two things.
One of these things is physical - a tiny area in your brain called the amygdala. The other thing is environmental - the constant low level ‘threats’ of our modern world.
When we understand how these two things interact, everything about our stress-related health problems begin to make a little more sense.
While I’m not suggesting that this knowledge can cure you of anything, I am saying that this knowledge gives you a little more power.Once you understand how chronic stress begins, then you can focus on making small changes for your benefit.
It’s a brain thing
As humans evolved over the last 5 million years or so, early man lived in a world surrounded by danger. To deal with this constant threat, our brains developed an ‘alert system’. This is where the Amygdala comes in.
The Amygdala is tiny in relation to the rest of your brain. This almond-shaped region sits within your limbic system, which is associated with flight and fight, and all the emotions that go with it.
The Amygdala is on constant lookout, scanning everything in the environment for signs of danger. When any sign of danger is detected, your internal warning system kicks in.
Every time you perceive a threat, you will feel the physiological impact of this warning system. Your pulse may race, your blood pressure may rise, and you may be anxious too.
Perhaps you are thinking; “But wait, this happens to me all the time!”
Well, this is the problem. Our modern world is so full of stressors that we do end up on high alert constantly.
Chronic stress
When stress is constant and coming from everywhere, it becomes chronic. Those physical symptoms you feel, like your racing pulse, are caused by a chemical release into your body, triggered by your brain.
Your brain sends signals to your endocrine system, which governs your body’s hormones. You release adrenaline and cortisol into your circulation, giving you that rattled feeling of anxiety.
Of course, when we were cave dwellers, our Amygdala and the associated release of adrenaline and cortisol was the alert system for an emergency, such as a tiger near your cave.
The primary purpose of the adrenaline was to boost your blood flow to your muscles, so that you could run to safety (flight) or do battle (fight). And the cortisol keeps you alert and thinking clearly by maximising your brain’s use of blood glucose.
This is an old system that was designed for escaping predators. As the world evolved, we didn’t evolve this system to respond to the daily grind. This is the root of our problem.
And there are so many things that trigger us each day:
· Traffic jams and road rage
· Overcrowded public transport
· The constant ringing of the office phone, or difficult customers in your place of work
· Text and email notifications constantly vying for your attention
· An upcoming meeting with your boss
Any every-day stressor you can think of can trigger your Amygdala. If it perceives any kind of threat to your wellbeing, the chemical cascade begins again.
The body keeps the score
You have probably heard the saying, the body keeps the score, or perhaps you read the book of the same name by Bessel van der Kolk.
It is true that any stress or trauma will find a way to be expressed in your body. Think about the tension that so many people carry in their shoulders, or the extra weight so many of us gain around our waist.
Certainly, this has a lot to do with diet. But did you know that excess cortisol affects our metabolism too? As mentioned above, it alters how we metabolise glucose.
While it is hard to avoid the physical effects of stress, there are a few things you can do to help yourself.
How to help yourself
Meditation can be a great tool to return your Amygdala, and the rest of your body in turn, to a state of calm. If you are not keen on meditating, then you might consider trying something more movement based, like Qi Gong, dance or any kind of exercise.
In his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, primatologist Robert M. Sapolsky talks about how stress is handled in the animal kingdom.
When a zebra survives an attempt on its life from a lion, it has a session of kicking and racing around to burn off the excess stress hormones in its circulation.
When you consider how us humans spend a lot of our time being stressed while we are being sedentary at a desk, you can see how we might be missing a trick.
Moving our bodies in a distressing way is a world away from the ‘exercise’ you get rushing to work in the morning. Instead of increasing your stress hormones, it will help you to return to your normal state buy increasing your circulation, so your system can flush those excess hormones out.
Rebalance your approach
The Amygdala is doing a great job, but its time to understand that having an alert system turned up to this degree can be so dangerous for our health.
There is still so much good and positive news in our world – yet we tend to notice 10 times as much bad news. If only we could turn down the strong effect of the Amygdala and allow the other parts of our amazing brain a chance to show us all the positivity and guide us to our creative potential for a better and healthier future.
So to some degree, what we consume in the media can help us or hinder us. We can also think about stressors in the workplace, or on our journey to and from work. Perhaps there are some subtle changes you can make to your days.
If not, there is at least a huge variety of ways for you to distress after a busy day – whether you choose to meditate, dance, or to run around like a zebra.
What matters is that you find something that works for you and make it a daily habit, as the stress will still show up everyday, so we need to show up for ourselves too.