This is the first in a series examining the true nature of the stress response and what you can do about it.
The motivation for this series is that stress is the number one cause of illness in the United States and that little is being done to address it.
This claim that stress is public enemy number one is supported most clearly by an NIH sponsored meta-study by Segerstrom and Miller showing that 85% of illness results from chronic stress.
The truth is that there’s much that we can do to greatly reduce the negative impact that stress has on our mental, emotional, and physical health.
To better appreciate what we can do about stress it’s really necessary to understand the nature of stress and that requires re-evaluating our current medical model.
You Are Not a Victim
The prevailing, conventional medical model tends to paint us as victims … because of bad genes and chemical imbalances. There are two significant reasons for this that are both based on outdated science.
You’re viewed as a biochemical machine … and that’s all.
The prevailing medical model says illness is defined by biochemical changes that require new chemistry (drugs) as remedial agents. There’s no mainstream conceptual framework for understanding ourselves as energy systems that can be treated by energy balancing techniques. That’s why processes like acupuncture, yoga, and meditation have taken so long to make inroads into conventional care settings despite their proven effectiveness. From the energy medicine perspective you can learn to balance your own energy … and thereby influence your own biochemistry … and assume much more responsibility for your own health and well-being. Energy healing is at odds with both our current mainstream scientific and economic models.
Your health is determined by your genes … your genes control your fate.
The mainstream model says that genes are responsible for your health. On the other hand, the failure of the Human Genome Project was helpful in demonstrating that your genes don’t operate in a vacuum. About 90% of your genes can be turned on or off by environmental signals. Yes … you control your genes. This means that what you think, believe and feel … as well as what you eat and other lifestyle factors … have a huge impact on the expression of your genes and on your ultimate health and well-being. The new science of epigenetics is helping to put our health back in our own hands … rather than being a victim of genes.
Stress Isn’t a Thing that Happens
The problem with ‘stress’ is that the word suggests that stress is a thing that needs to be minimized or avoided … when the stress response is actually a very helpful process when it’s balanced. When we’re not present to our own experience the body’s self-regulating mechanisms misbehave resulting in a stress response that doesn’t turn off … it becomes chronic.
Have you noticed that when you’ve done your best to minimize the stressors in your life … the job you despise, toxic relationships, money problems, etc. … you can still find more than enough to be stressed about?
What if stress is more a result of our habits of perception than the ‘things’ that happen.
This isn’t to trivialize the impact of emotionally traumatizing events in our lives at all. Actually the perspective that I’m offering has proven to be very helpful in reducing or eliminating the impact of emotional trauma or PTSD.
In my experience ‘stress’ isn’t what happens (the argument, the accident, running late for an appointment) but is rather how we use our awareness to experience what happens. ‘Stress’ is what happens when we avoid, judge, ignore or resist the felt experience of the flow of life through us … in the moment.
Stress is the Result of Disconnecting from Your Body’s Wisdom
Stress is about the blocking of life experience. It’s the blocking of what we perceive as negative emotional experience that’s usually accomplished by breathing less and thinking more.
When we live in our heads … thinking … versus being mindfully embodied and connected to our bodily felt experience we disrupt the self-regulating capacity of the body. This lack of regulation is what produces the illness and lack of well-being that we commonly attribute to ‘stress’.
Unfortunately this attempt to protect ourselves from threatening feelings blocks the emotional energy that helps to regulate our minds and bodies. Feeling our feelings … while not holding our breath … is a crucial element that’s required for balancing the autonomic nervous system. That’s the system that’s responsible for our health and healing … or when imbalanced is responsible for the symptoms of illness.
From this point of view stress can be thought of as blocked energy that has the potential to disrupt the normal functioning of the mind and body.
In acupuncture or Energy Medicine terms we’d say that the Chi or energy is blocked … which leads to blocked information flow. The lack of energy and information flow results in the disturbed functioning of the mind and body … and results in the symptoms of illness.
If the stress response and it’s harmful effects can be understood as an energy and information flow disturbance then we can address it using Energy Medicine tools and strategies. The beauty of Energy Medicine tools … like EFT which is the most popular self help version … is that they’re highly effective, rapid, researched, and once learned they’re free for you to use on yourself whenever you choose.
My favorite Energy Medicine tools for reducing stress and its effects are:
Acupuncture or Acupressure
Aside from the acupuncture treatments that I offer, EFT point tapping is what I teach to most patients for home support to address limiting beliefs, painful emotions, and pain. Some of the most impressive research on EFT is focused on its benefit in treating combat veterans with PTSD.
HeartMath Techniques
These are simple breathing and awareness techniques that enliven heart intelligence while balancing the autonomic nervous system. There’s 20 years of research supporting the mental, emotional, and physiological benefits of this process.
Mindfulness
My favorite mindfulness technique to share with patients is ‘Focusing’. It’s a powerful way to inhibit the stress response and to support healing. Research with functional MRI’s is validating the significant changes that happen in our brains when we become mindful.
Recapping The main points:
You are an energy system (and yes a biochemical system too) and you can learn to balance your energy system for improvements in health and well-being that are not achievable otherwise.
You are not a victim of your genes. By becoming conscious of your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings … as well as making healthy lifestyle choices … you can have a profound influence on the expression of your genes and on your ultimate health and well-being.
This post is followed by an article on how to measure the stress response objectively.
Dr. Templin offers a comprehensive mind-body program for addressing the underlying inflammation, toxicities, and stress-induced causes of most pain and illness. He places special emphasis on repairing adrenal and thyroid gland function naturally.
He translates emerging research in the fields of Epigenetics, Energy Psychology, and Functional Nutrition into effective practices that you can perform at home.
You can work with Dr. Templin online, or in his Lakeland, Florida office at the Natural Medicine Center. He can be reached at 863-838-2779. You can visit his website at www.stevetemplin.com and contact him via email at drtemplin@gmail.com.
Steve is a retired Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Acupuncture Physician, and HeartMath Trauma-Sensitive Certified Practitioner with over 35 years of clinical experience in Energy Medicine, Energy Psychology, and Biofeedback.