Chances are, they’ll be events such as moving house; changing jobs or dealing with difficult relationships.
However, as stressful as these things can be, these psychological stressors, what most people think of as stress, are actually just one type of stressor.
Stress is anything that affects the body, and not all stress is bad as we need a level of stress to get us going and keep us in flight. However, whilst some is good, more is not necessarily better, as the bell curve below shows.
From The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, by Esther Sternberg
The situation is summarised nicely in the Brain Pickings Weekly newsletter as follows:
‘As the nervou
s system secrets more and more stress hormones, performance increases, but up to a point; after that tipping point, performance begins to suffer as the hormones continue to flow. What makes stress ‘bad’ – that is what makes it render us more pervious to disease – is the disparity between the nervous system and immune system’s respective pace.’
But psychological stress isn’t the only type of stressor to negatively impact the body. There are others, and if you can minimise these, your body will be more resilient and able to cope with the psychological stress of change and the uncertainty it brings which is a common part of modern business and modern life.
Other types of stress that impact the body, include:
1. Chemical stress from the increased number of chemicals in our food system and in our environment. Eating processed foods and drinking fizzy drinks contain many chemicals which wouldn’t have been part of our food system 50 years ago. You can protect yourself by choosing to buy organic foods; drinking filtered water and using more natural cleaning products. A good guide is the Transcend food pyramid below.
From ‘Fantastic Voyage’ by Ray & Terry
2. There’s also electromagnetic stress which has increased dramatically due to the rising number of devices and their required infrastructure.
‘We’ve got Wireless Internet, Mobile Communications Towers (Mobile Phone Masts), Satellite GPS Systems, PC, Laptop and Tablet Computers, Mobile/Smart Phones and Digital Cordless DECT Phones, Televisions, Electronic Games, GPS, Household Appliances, and more in our Environment! It’s a part of everyone’s daily life to use the modern convenient gadgets, and we benefit hugely from the connectivity and efficiency that these devices bring.’
You can protect yourself, by keeping devices off when you don’t need them; avoiding holding lap-tops and tablet devices too close to your body and buying a Body Harmonizer, that according to the manufacturer, ‘contains an energized chip that builds up and enhances the body’s own energy field, thus creating a protective zone against electromagnetic radiation. The Body Harmonizer is worn directly on the skin near the solar plexus.’
If you want the ‘science’ then there are videos ‘testing’ on their website. I wear one have a chip in my phone and tablet. Do they help? I don’t know, but psychologically they certainly help me. Here’s a link to their website for further reference: www.bioprotectivesystems.com.
Overall it’s important that you look after yourself, and part of that means taking time out to recover, but it also means understanding the bigger picture as what you do today will have an impact on you tomorrow.
If you’re like to find out more about how you can protect yourself from the harmful effects of Chronic Stress, then my book: Success without Stress: How to Prevent Burnout and Build Resilience for Optimal Health and Peformance is for you.
This book includes more than 50 techniques to help people support themselves better and channel negative stress into positive energy, higher performance and productivity.
You can download a free chapter here or buy the book on Amazon.Com or Amazon.co.uk
