Blog 5. Physical health review.
Life is beautiful. You do have time.
To live small and unauthentically would be a disservice the miracle of what life is. We can no longer shrink ourselves to fit the mold of others expectations, stay afraid or even paralyzed at the thought of doing something new, or keep in negative routine when we know better. Change and growth is inevitable, and “stress,” is most often perceived to be a byproduct of this change; It’s the feeling of discomfort, it’s the frustration of things not going to plan, it’s the fear of the unknown.
When we see all of the ways we perceive stress, it becomes the paradigm shift necessary in order to align with our most authentic self. As we listen in conversation with our coworkers, our family and even our friends, pay attention to how “stress” is utilized or how quickly it’s thrown around in a surface level conversation oh, “I am so stressed.” “This is stressing me out.” We do ourselves a disservice when we generalize how we’re feeling without actually expanding into a hypothesis of what or why our stories matter when we are quick to say we’re “stressed”. There is time, sit with this feeling longer, around quality people, or in a place of peace, and get to the reason you feel “stressed.” Your resolution will surface, and being stuck is stress will no longer be your “norm.”
Feelings can be interpreted, and/or misinterpreted two ways. One, is the physical feeling within our bodies we sense when something within our scope changes. We could be closed in our ability to sense more than we’re knowlegable in, missing other cues for the sensation. The other feeling is the label we put on that sensation. We might feel jittery and our heart might be beating fast, but place afraid, instead of excited onto it. If we’re noticing we’re afraid of a lot, it could be that we’ve mislabeled the feeling. This “stress response cycle,” needs an adult update.
Physically, we experience this in our bodies (mostly) within these two systems. The Nervous and the Endocrine.
A quick review from the Cleveland Clinic:
Nervous system. Sends messages and electrical signals to all other parts of the body. It keeps track of what has happened, what is happening, and helps predict what can happen, in and outside of us.
Brain (central nervous system): Thoughts, memory, learning, sensory processing center.
Spinal cord (also CNS): Movement, digestion, heartbeats
Nerves: communicating body. (Neurons) Electrical signals
Motor Neurons: take signals from our brain and spinal cord to our muscles. They help us move, breathe, swallow, speak..
Sensory Neurons: bring signals from our senses up to our brain to process.
Interneurons: Regulate movement to respond and remember. These interneurons communicate between sensory and Motor neutrons.
Endocrine: Utilizes glands to releases signals derived from the nervous system to activate body functions through hormones, the chemicals that carry signal messages.
Glands: creates and releases hormones
Thyroids, pancreas & others organs: also creates and releases hormones
Hypothalamus, the connection between the endocrine and nervous system
Pancreas- connection to digestive system
Ovaries/testes
Hormones
Oxytocin, dopamine, somatostatin (hypothalamus)
Insulin, glucagon (pancreas)
Melatonin (pineal)
Testosterone, estrogen (sex glands)
Gastrin, ghrelin (digestive tract)
Renin (kidneys)
A-type and B-type natriurestic peptides (heart)”
Science says we subconsciously participate in this stress response cycle around 10 times a day. Physiologically, when we sense change in our environments, our brain tells our adrenal glands to release cortisol, epinephrine and adrenaline, hormones that we can use as energy to act. When this happens, adrenaline and other compounds are released from our adrenals near the kidneys, and this fatty substance is used as energy for the heart and brain to “go!” We’ve heard of this as “fight or flight,” along with other variations of actions such as “fawn,” or “freeze.” Habitually, these reactions are something we’ve deemed as “I am who I am.” This is one of our more “caveman” responses we have been able to grow from. Now, we name it is “nervous,” “overwhelmed,” or just straight up “sick.” If we weren’t alerted at the sound of predators in the bushes, we would not be one of the survivalists kind, so it served it’s purpose. And now with more knowledge and research, we now know that learning, doing new things, and working towards goals and a dream life is something we are all capable of. This feeling of “stress,” we feel is actually energy within us, believing in our ability to act towards our goals.
To assist with the “override,” moving deeper into our knowledge of the central nervous system, is our sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. They each take turns controlling our organs and the rate in which they function, also the purpose of their function. The sympathetic system is the stress response system. It helps us focus on the task at hand, increasing our heart rate, breath rate, and dismisses functions like reproduction and digestion. shitting your pants because you’ve been scared comes from this system, no time for digestion, there is a threat in my environment. On the contrary, we have the parasympathetic nervous system in control when we feel safe, and taken care of. Breath-rate slows, we don’t even sense our heart rate, and we can think creatively and kindly.
Something that is truly remarkable, that blew my mind open to the concpet we call life is our respiratory system. This is one of our two energy systems (the other being the digestive with food) within our body that takes the air around us AND within us, and exchanges it to provide efficient working order for the cells that make up our organs. The magic within this is that usually, our breath rate is controlled by our parasympathetic or the sympathetic nervous systems, but it can ALSO be controlled by our conscious Self. We can choose to take a breath at a rate of our choosing, one that is deeper, longer, and one that provides more energy for our brain to use to process what is in front of us, and how to execute the path forward.
Take sitting at the top of the mountain with your skiis on, realizing the downward slope you have to maneuver to get back down. Or standing on the edge of a platform holding onto the rope of the zipline through the jungle, or even in line at the cafe where the cashier is really cute and you dont want to stumble your words… We recognize our heart pulsing in our arms, butterflies in our stomach, it might even be blurry in our peripherals and our breath rate is shallow. THIS is when we take the long inhale through the nose, and use an audible exhale through the mouth. Repeat until you feel ready for the challenge you’ve found yourself in.
Control of our body, thus our actions, happens when we acknowledge the state in which we have found ourselves it. It take honesty and slowing down. This can happen through mindfulness practices like focusing on our breath, and our different senses within our body (breath being within our interoception). In a “frightful” situation, our subconscious mind might think stress and fear, but our conscious mind knows “I am okay,” so we can begin to work towards allowing our parasympathetic system to regain control of bodies cellular rate. It can then begin to counter the stress response within our body that the sympathetic NS “deployed.” Either use the energy to stay alert headed down the mountain, release any stored trauma by screaming through the jungle, or to bring self-esteem to the conversation of “yeah, I’m worth it,”
Once we get into and stay in the parasympathetic nervous system, we can connect with others. Our heart rate is at a pace that is calm and empathetic, our body in a state of digest and process, things are in building “order.”
Our evolution is one that is awake, we are within our self-control, and in connection with others. The stories that we have grown and developed through have become the backbone of our path forward. Sure there are problems that happen in life, but the more we lean in to each other and support each other, and listen to each other, the easier, and more enjoyable life is.
If we know and understand there are bumps in the road (problems in our life), we should drive lower and maneuver around them if we can. We shouldn’t fly so fast up the road that we carelessly hit the holes and create bigger problems that we don’t have the skills for. We also shouldn’t choose to stay at the beginning of the road, waiting in a stalled car. It’s no fun, and eventually you’ll run through all of the resources. Similarly, if we are in perpetual fear and sadness, we are in an inescapable loop of mindlessness, survival and “doom.” These cycles can be broken, even shattered with mindset shifts that have to be consistently chosen, built, and maintained; but it is possible.
Practice: “What is the inner monologue I have about processing uncomfortable feelings?”
Our culture as a world, is actually flowing with love, peace, and yes enlightenment. I’ve seen this within the schools I’ve taught in. When we choose to set these systems into our habits of peace and slowing down, we live longer and happier lives. An example of this is the “blue zones,” founded by Dan Beuttner and National Geographic. Within these blue zones we find cities in which there are many of the oldest humans on the planet living happy and healthy lives. There are many factors like food and physical activity that influence this longevity measurement, and mindset happens to be a great one as well. People who thrive in these areas of the world perceive stress as a way of accepting the change that happens within life. On the other hand, people who suffer from chronic illnesses often perceive that their life is filled with stress, and they have no control. At the root of this, it is what we perceive about what is happening to us that changes the trajectory of what is deemed to happen to us.
Practice: shift our focus from “I can’t do this,” to understanding this feeling of energy within me to conquer this task in front of me, and saying “I can’t do this yet.” A growth mindset applied is one that understands the work necessary for the task ahead, and brings confidence to the process that learning something new is. It brings energy to the multiple more attempts we’ll have to give it before it becomes great.
You’ve got a better brain than you think.
Our futures need us to be self-regulated, because if that’s the goal, the product is trust between communities.
The world can be as kind as our kids need it to be.
Emotional regulation goes beyond identifying stress and taking deep breaths, it’s the ability to recognize as many emotions as possible, as quickly and honestly as possible. It also includes knowing how to efficiently move through that emotion with loving kindness for all. It is possible, and most kids in school are actively learning the skills for this. As we age, or rather “mature,” the collective intelligence grows at an increasing rate. At this point, it’s not just about being better than our parents, it’s about rising to the occasion because we have the resources. Maturity is about allowing the pleasure of slowing down and choosing our responses to the elements of time/space-AKA, daily challenges. By observing things simply to the point of what they are, without an emotional charge, they seem (and are) less impactful to our next actions. People in communities around the world we see who are peaceful, filled with joy, and wisdom, are not without hardship in their day’s, they are with a mindset that brings them to a more educated response to reflect a perspective shift that brought them to an action-oriented step-forward.
Practice: “can I help change this in a reasonable time, or how can I seek to accept this?” With change comes power, and with acceptance comes gratitude; both positive trajectories for a problem you once deemed as scary.
New truth: Stress is enhancing.
