| |
Stress Originates From The Mind
But Devastates The Body
Terje Ellingsen
The doctor's waiting rooms are full of anxiety. The hospitals
contain lots of nervousness, tension and worry. Millions of
people are staying home from work every day because of affliction,
apprehensiveness, nervous tension and restlessness. Another
word for this common though unfortunate, traumatic disease
is stress. Stress management seems to be a more actual issue
today than ever. Although stress-related diseases is categorized
as mental, it manifests itself physiologically as
- increased heart rate
- increased blood pressure
- imbalance of certain chemicals in the brain (like serotonine,
adrenaline, nor-adrenaline and endorphines)
- anxiety
- sweating
- trembling
- headache
- breathing problems
- dizziness
and many other stressful and nervous symptoms. If we passively
let this nervousness and tension develop, nervous breakdown
and even death can be the results.
Fortunately, we have methods for managing these stressful
diseases. A close friend of mine has asked me to tell about
his anxiety, nervousness and stressful life so that other
people with the same stressful experiences can see that there
is hope. My friend - let's call him Mark - was outside jogging
one Saturday morning. He had been very stressed at work the
last months with loads of problems to handle. But this Saturday
morning was not stressful at all, and he looked forward to
go to the wedding reception of one of his best friends that
evening.
Mark says: "The sun was shining this beautiful Saturday morning.
Full of great expectations for the evening I felt calm and
without stressful feelings, when I started my training hour
in the beautiful and scenic little valley I always use. I
was jogging moderately and enjoyed the sun playing with the
trees, the sound of leaves in the slight breeze and the sound
of birds singing - could life be better? Suddenly, like a
bolt of lightning, I felt like I was shot. My heart started
to beat at a pace that seemed to qualify for emergency heart
surgery, the environment started spinning around and around.
Breathing became difficult and with each breath it seemed
that less oxygen was entering into my lungs. I felt sure I
was going to die and I had almost accepted it. I had no idea
what was actually happening to me. I had never experienced
such a stressful situation before."
The story has a good ending but from that day Mark - fortunately
without knowing it then - started a period of almost 10 years
of stressful, fearful and alarming panic attacks before he
got help.
Mark went from doctor to doctor for his traumatic and stressful
condition. They said that his stressful attacks were psychological
and came from tension in his mind. He couldn't believe what
the doctors said, because the manifestations took place in
his body only. He started taking 5mg Valium three times a
day, which managed his anxiety for a couple of hours only
and soon he had to increase the dosage. He became addicted
and even more stressed.
At one of his doctor visits several years later, he met a
neurologist who had been through the same stressful nervousness
and alarming panic attacks as Mark. He told him that he was
so stressed with panic attacks that he considered quitting
his job but instead he signed up for a course in Meditation.
This became his way to manage his stressful disease. Mark
thought to himself, "If he can manage his stressful level
of tension with this method, I can manage mine!".
Though skeptical in the beginning, after meditating a few
months, his fearfulness and stressful panic attacks were gone,
and he has not experienced a panic attack brought on by a
stressful situation in five years. So, there's hope even for
severely stressed people.
Terje Brooks Ellingsen is a writer and Sociologist
who runs http://www.1st-self-improvement.net/.
He writes about self help issues like self improvement, see
http://www.1st-self-improvement.net/index.htm
and self confidence development, see http://www.1st-self-improvement.net/self_esteem_improvement.htm
Article Source:
www.iSnare.com
|
|
