| RESTORING BALANCE DURING UNCERTAIN TIMES
For most of the population, what has happened to our country’s economy comes as a shock. For many, the changes in our access to money translates to stress. Prolonged stress is part of the triad of disease causing agents along with toxicity and nutrient deficiency. Chronic stress can be reversed so you can maintain health and prosper.
- Evaluate How You Handle Stress
- Learn About Ways to Mitigate Stress
- Invest In Yourself - CALL FOR AN APPOINTMENT TODAY!
Consultation Fee $195
Phone: 212-792-6010 / Email: drkokayi@kokayihealth.com
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Living Without Stress - GMR December 3, 2008
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Kokayi Health Center for Holistic Medicine
448 West 57th Street (Between 9th and 10th Avenues)
New York, NY 10019
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Living Without Stress - GMR December 3, 2008
For most of the country and the population, what has happened to the economy and our access to money comes as a shock. The shock of losing hard worked for retirement money, of losing jobs, access to money, credit cards frozen, and just knowing people who are losing their jobs and money. Its called stress and its part of the triad of disease causing agents, the other two being toxicity and nutrient deficiency. Of course all of us handle stress in different ways and we thought that it would be useful for us to take a moment and look at ways to mitigate stress as we move deeper into the holiday season and the recession which we are just being told that we have been in since last December.
The first thing to do is to take stock of how you handle your own stress. And all I would ask you to do at this point is ask yourself do you have a healthy way of dealing with it or do you engage in destructive behavior.
Let me give you an example of unhealthy behaviors: cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, overeating and poor food choices, substance abuse, insomnia, spending money you don’t have….all kind of obvious, but the not so obvious ones that you may not pick up on may include irritability and being short with others, being a difficult person to be around because of moodiness, becoming a couch potato or totally ineffective, falling back into old bad habits, low back aching, doing things in general that just feel good but that are bad for you like calling an old lover that you really don’t need to have in your life.
Or how about overworking or oversleeping just to escape from reality. And for many of us there is a break down in the immune system with the appearance of unwanted colds and ailments that won’t go away or keep coming back. So what is behind all of these symptoms?
When your body perceives a stressful event, its like an alarm going off. Your nervous system and endocrine system are activated and various chemicals are released and others suppressed. Your emotional brain or limbic system activates your sympathetic nervous system into fight or flight mode while your hypothalamus stimulates your pituitary gland to release ACTH, adrenal cortical stimulating hormone, which as the name implies stimulates your adrenal cortex to release cortisol.
All of these changes prepare you for battle with circulation being rerouted from you skin, reproductive organs and digestive tract, to your muscles and brain, with your senses becoming more acute, blood pressure rising, and decreased sensitivity to pain. Once the stressor has been dealt with or the event passed the body releases chemicals to neutralize what has happened. And of course here is where the problem develops when the body does not restore its balance and we are left with an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system.
In this case, the sympathetic dominates over the parasympathetic and there is less relaxation, diminished blood flow to certain parts of your body including your reproductive organs, increased blood pressure, and damage to your nervous system, brain cells, and immune cells from the increased levels of cortisol that are still floating around. Other problems that result can include anxiety, agitation , irritability, depression, elevated cholesterol levels, elevated triglyceride levels, fatigue, loss of muscle tone and protein wasting, central obesity, bone mineral loss and impaired injury recovery, insulin resistance, and impaired memory.
Too much cortisol can prevent the brain from laying down new memories and accessing old ones. This overproduction is similar to what the pancreas does when it’s trying to compensate for elevated blood sugar levels due to insulin resistance. It produces more insulin. But just like the pancreas the adrenal glands can burn out leading to an increased risk of autoimmune diseases, an increased risk of inflammatory conditions, apathy, malaise/fatigue, weakness, reduced libido, weight loss, restless sleep, chronic pain, asthma, allergies, and difficulty carrying out routine tasks.
It’s a question of balance; of maintaining balance within the autonomic nervous system. The emotional balance that results and the behaviors this can give rise to are in themselves a significant problem. So it’s important to know your own Achilles heel.
All of us have been stressed enough to know what gives out and what we do to ourselves. This knowing will assist you in figuring out what you need to do to prevent yourself from becoming your own worst enemy. The truth is when you are in the middle of dealing with stress or an emotional shock its really difficult to keep your equilibrium. So don’t be too hard on yourself.
The emotional explosion or one stiff drink that you had hopefully has not done you in. It’s the effects of chronic stress that kills people. And from what we have been told about the economy we are in for a long haul. So as in other areas of your life you need to have an action plan with regards to handling stress and your health in general.
While we hear statements like pressure makes diamonds and no pain no gain clearly we all have our breaking points at which point we feel overwhelmed and we have to do something to compensate for the discomfort. Now most of what characterizes the general stress that we are experiencing in this country at this time is fear and despair. Fear and despair can dig in deep if you give them a foothold or if they find an old foot hold that you had not completely cleared up previously.
You can get your body back into balance by identifying with certain states of being. These states of being restore balance and are more powerful than the chemicals the body can produce. States of Being are just that; who you are in the moment. It’s not about a checklist of dos and don’ts. It’s about infusing yourself with light primarily and then there are supporting behaviors to do whether you feel like doing them or not. Perpetrating the act will allow you to become that which you are emulating.
The Key components are the breath, love, and gratefulness. So it’s about being Breath, being Love, and being eternally Gratefulness. This is not a passive state because to keep your vibration at this level required acts of love, affirmations or acts of prayer, acts of gratefulness which manifest in how you treat yourself and others.
I want to start with the concept of Love…this is the greatest power this side of heaven, the great beyond or whatever you want to call the seemingly hidden side of life. I’m not speaking about the love you share with your significant other but the love that is really closer to what you feel for a child and if you have had children you know how powerful that love can be and how for many of us that love is something that is naturally felt for all children. We don’t want them to suffer or be in distress.
The love I’m speaking about is not about being in love it’s an active state that has to be generated through acts of love. Being love and being stressed are not going to happen in the same individual. And this is where you have to get busy. There are any number of situations that occur in your life day to day that are in need of loving. And this is where we counsel people in our stress program.
When our vibration is so caught up in being stressed we can’t see how we can lift ourselves out of it. We need counseling. We need vibrational healing; energy medicine that will allow us to be who we really are. There are sounds that we can make and listen to that will help to keep us resonating at a certain vibrational level. So this is one of the pillars of living stress free.
The second pillar is the breath. Our breathing is what modulates our vibrational state. It can throw us into panic or allow us to be exalted in the magnificence of life. I guarantee you that if you are constantly feeling stressed you are breathing incorrectly. Even science has demonstrated that shallow breathing can lead to asthmatic and allergy states. The key to correct breathing is to know what this correct breathing is, to practice it, and then to implement it in those times when you are feeling stressed.
There are many techniques that can facilitate it but again when people fall out of equilibrium very often they need counseling, encouragement, and even breathing tapes. I have always liked to tie breathing into internal exercises like qi qong, tai qi and yoga, but there are many ways to do this.
The third pillar is being grateful for what it is that you do have. Whatever it is that you are grateful for, you have to add to this list, life itself; the opportunity to experience life and respect that which you have been given. Again this is an active state in which you treat your body and others with the level of care and concern that is a consequence of your gratefulness. Here is where the other two pillars help you to address habits and imbalances in your body that make it difficult to maintain your autonomic nervous system.
Testing for nutrients, brain neurotransmitters, blood levels of various chemicals
and tissue factors are things that can be done with insurance. Counseling around diet is something that everyone should have done at least once in your life.
Ultimately your health is compromised by what you don’t know that you don’t know.
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