thoughts on stress

[counsellor]

hi everyone

I going to suggest something about my thoughts about stress and its effects on the human mind and body

Please feel free to add to disagree as you like

My starting point is that, the human body is very good at looking after its own immediate needs and will do so regardless of the long term effects.
Also that the mind will cause the body to react in certain circumstances

I particularly want to consider stress, which I believe can create the fight or flight response.

Now bearing in mind my first statement, when stress occurs it will set up a number of conditions within both the body and mind all based around its immediate needs.

Firstly the Physical condition of the body is raised to allow immediate action (run or fight etc)
So there will be an increased heart rate and the blood pressure and blood vessel capacity, additionally the creation of adrenalin and increase awareness (senses) and reflexes.

However the body will also turn off, all non immediate bodily process such as libido, complicated digestion processes, long term memory, higher level cognitive thought processing, complex immune systems etc and probably many more I am not aware of

And in addition switch on short term drivers such as need for sugar rich foods stuffs, reduce the need for deep restful sleep for shallow disturbed sleep patterns in order to maintain the high alert status

Now the status can and was only ever intended to be held for short periods of time, (just to get you out of the sh1t) but the down side is that a prolong stress situation will result in great fatigue on both body and mind.

At which point the body will go into a different mode of self protection, by going into an enforce shut down state, where total in-action will prevail.

This is a point of conflict between the need to able to respond to the high alert stress situation and the need to rest, the resulting condition is the inability to deal with the situation effectively whilst your body is going though all sorts of contortions and disturbance try to match its differing needs.

I believe this state is probably one of the most unhelpful and therefore should be avoided if poss.

Therefore I am suggesting that as part of your prepping plans you might wish to include, the creation of a place and time where you will be able to be calm and relaxed by retreating from any high stress circumstances / situations.
In this way you may be more able to overcome and be more successful in dealing with what ever follows.
happy prepping

[Red Doe]

I've just been put on betablockers due to an abnormal heart rhythm exacerbated by stress. Doc told me, learn to unwind, relax and destress, without telling me how.
Meditation doesn't work (too busy, too much 'thinking' no off switch), exercise may destress the body but not the mind in my experience, and due to real life issues, I tend to spend a great deal of time in that fight or flight response, which isn't healthy.
Thing is, if we deal, as preppers, with a SHTF scenario and it's an immediate crisis, I think most of us simply get on and cope.
What seems to do the damage is the a long drawn out, unhealthy, no end in sight, type of situation, such as, for example, the current economic crisis.
Not sure what the answer is. I think too, we do a lot of talking about prepping for when things happen, without realising a lot of stuff already is.

[CardiffGuy]

Stress whilst on the surface can appear something small to most people, it can have severe consequences if left to, shall we say manifest.

I suffered stress a few years ago at the grand young age of 21, as a result of different factors - work, death of my father, I didnt learn how to deal with things and bottled everything instead. I felt worse and worse as time went on, until I done something foolish and attempted suicide.

Not something I was proud of then and nor am I now, but after that experience, I vowed never to go down the same path again. I started to enjoy and do things in life that I had wanted to do or things I had done in my childhood with father - fishing in some parts of brecon that are without doubt some of the most peaceful places to be.

Moral of the story, try not to let stress get the best of you, if anything is stressing you out talk to someone - whether that be your SO, your children if they are of an age where a conversation about it could be discussed,with friends over a beer.

CardiffGuy

[diamond lil]

Sorry RD, just saw this. My OH isnt on betablockers but has had 3 heart attacks all caused by stress. he's a stressy kind of person and I can't get him to change. I dont get stressed so I can't offer any help though.. I think a lot of it is down to how you are as a person .

[jansman]

My Doctor reckons half the folk he sees are suffering from stress. He is a big one for dealing with any mental illness-which is what stress is a form of.
BTW I was there for stress!

[notrab99]

I've been full circle with stress. And the only way I got to understand it well was to experience the extreme and then change my life and attitudes completely. I got caught up in the rat-race so to speak believing I must have everything and now. Money, cars, toys etc. There was a time when I drank Redbull for breakfast and even coffee at midnight (somehow it helped me sleep!). My health suffered. Now I work for myself from home for a few hours a day, drink green tea all day long, eat a simple mainly organic diet and listen to music and read books. I don't try to do much while the kids are around and I don't feel the need to impress the neighbours with new cars. I don't have any expensive hobbies. I've even started a book based around the effects of the physical stress we put our bodies through and not just concentrating on the mind side of things. I've learned to say 'no' when I was always a yes man. I've also learnt it's better to back out or avoid many situations that may be confrontational, often there is nothing to be gained. Prepping should reduce anxiety about future situations. Remember just reading this forum makes you much more aware than the average people out there, don't get stressed because other preppers tell you they have 100 kilos of rice and you only have 1 - for all you know they don't have any.

[ticklemonkey]

Stress is the survival reaction of the body, the fight or flight response. The clinically supported best remedy is exercise. It uses all the nasties that cause the hypertension etc that are produced during the stress. It has been shown that monkeys when stressed to the extreme, actually suffered brain damage. Exercise assists the results of stress but the cause needs to be dealt with by the person! The monkeys suffered as they could not escape the stress.
We are not fantastically designed for the modern workplace, imho.
Everyone has varying levels of coping and differing coping mechanisms and don't forgot hormonal impacts as well.
I studied this at uni and have been interested ever since.
Not forgetting experiencing it and dealing with some pretty horrendous stuff as well, grrr.

[notrab99]

Fight or flight is when it comes to a head. Behaving to what society expects causes us to supress these reactions most of the time where they can develop into dis-ease. The level of hormones released into the body can depend on blood type, star sign etc. when faced with perceived life threatening situations. Although in todays societies we are expected to keep these feelings under control, occasioanally they spill out as road rage or panic attacks. So we go visit a doctor and say my body has just functioned as millions of years of evolution has programmed it to do can you give me pill to rectify it? And the NHS treats the symptoms not the cause - as usual. Most of the time doc should say 'run around the surgery 10 times' but they don't in case you trip and file a claim, plus they don't get paid for 'runners' only prescriptions.

[bulldogeagle]

i dont normally get stressed, its other people that cause me stress so i dont have much to do with other people-apart from the wife of course.

[Alleycat]

I do think it depends on the person, some people need to unwind/meditate to de - stress, some need to exercise - I definitely need to excercise - or just do something strenuous - whether its getting on my bike and cycling like mad for half an hour or scrubbing a kitchen floor the old way with a handheld brush. If I dont do this I have a tendency to suffer from insomnia and skin flare ups. It takes a bit of self awareness to recognise your own stress triggers and reactions and how to deal with them. To switch my brain off I use television