“Stress: The Silent Killer or Just a Reaction?”

“It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.” (Hans Selye)

This post might one of the longest and most complicated written till today. So, bear with me to the end as I explore the different layers of this mental state. Some words aren’t really layman’s terms, as the approach to the topic is rather scientific.

Stress has always been and always will be a part of lives for every living being on this earth, because it’s part of our survival instinct.

The complexity in defining the term ‘stress’ as it’s currently used, is coined by Hans Selye, a pioneering Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist, who has defined it as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change”.

Many scientists have completed ground-breaking research on this topic and in this article has integrated some of their findings.

In pure terminology stress describes a person’s physical and/or emotional response to stressors. This may be interpreted in human terms as your body biochemically increasing your degree of tension on your brain’s unconscious instinctive impulses, to react to triggers.

This article explores the different kinds of stress, their potential stressors and the distinct reactions.

• Acute stress
• Episodic acute stress
• Chronic stress
• Stressors
• Instinctive responses
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Stress regulation
• Unwind strategies
• Daily routines and habits
  • Healthy meals on regular times
  • Sleep hygiene
  • The importance of exercise
• Common strategies
• Mindfulness
• Holidays
• PTSD
• Summary

First, acute stress is a moment in the day, where our mind and body react to a situation that requires us to focus.

For example, you’re walking on the street, and you cross over. You’re daydreaming and a car approaches quickly. The split-second you notice it, your body immediately will inject adrenaline into your bloodstream, elevating your heartbeat, increasing your muscle tension, your mind and senses to focus immediately to avoid a potential danger.

You look at the car and evaluate which action is needed: fight, flee or freeze. In this case everyone would flee to safety, probable saving your life.

This state of stress triggers our primal instinctive reactions, which have evolved over the millennia, increasing our chances for survival.

In most cases, acute stress has a positive effect on your stress resilience since it happens once. The importance to wind down after an intense moment of elevated stress will be negligible, although it doesn’t do any harm to evaluate its impact after the event.

With episodic acute stress, we’re talking about the stress that you experience during the day over a longer period of time. For instance: You are at work: deadlines require you to focus over a longer period or a situation at home: your kids need to be picked up from school and there is a lot of traffic on the way.

It will stress you out, and your body is in aggravated state of mind over a longer time.

As in acute stress, your body will respond in the same manner, the elevated state will allow you to focus over that period to get the job(s) done.

At the end of the event(s), your body might need more time to wind down again to balance out that level of stress. You might experience slight discomforts, like a headache or some muscle tension but normally nothing serious.

In a broader sense, this state of stress has a positive influence on you as long you respect a status-quo on your body and mind.

Chronic stress is very different from the other two form, we speak about a stress level that is continuously present over a longer period of time.

Examples:

You work in a stress-impaled environment, where your responsibilities require you to be alert all day and you need to manage your time in such a way that you are home in time, taking care of your children as a single parent. Basically, you wake up, live all day and go to sleep in that constant state of alertness, resulting in chronic stress levels.

Your partner is suffering from a chronical disease. The need to combine your professional workload with the care for your partner: going to hospital appointments, doing daily chores such as washing, cooking, shopping, and coordinating with supportive medical assistance… resulting in an accumulative chronic stress pattern.

This continuous stress level introduces several bio-chemical agents will have an accumulating impact on your body and your neurological systems.

Without a balanced lifestyle and sufficient time to recuperate, this state could result in a negative accumulating effect on your body and mind, which will have a degenerative reaction on your mind, lowering your psychological resilience and triggering deteriorating effects on your body. Too many people ignore these alarm signs and suffer breakdowns, burnouts or worse.

The introduction of a conscious balanced lifestyle could help with stress relieve in such a way that the cumulative effect is less or returns to an acute stress state.

Our instinctive responses are deeply embedded in our subconscious, which rules our lives for about 90% of the time.

Partially, they also determine the expressions on our faces, our posture and language usage during conversations or in our social interactions. Some call it our little twerks and we all exhibit them, making us unique.

Moreover, part of them are reactions to stressors resulting in an unconscious stress determination that defines the instinctive response. Most of us are familiar with our three instinctive responses, fight, flee or freeze which we use them in challenging situations, sometimes without realising it.

Two others, less known reactions are pleasing, creating an atmosphere that mitigates a potentially challenging situation, which is mostly employed by empaths.

The last one is flipping, a potential irrational reaction to something dangerous by being inexperienced to deal with or an overemotional reaction triggered by the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)* from an experience in the past.

More often than not, people assume that PTSD is linked to people who have experiences extreme conditions such as soldiers in a war, disastrous events like earthquakes, floods, fires… and so on. Yet, it’s more common than one might think. Post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD in short is a mental health condition that’s caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event — either by being part of it or by witnessing it.

Most people who go through traumatic events may have a hard time adjusting and coping for a short time. But with time and by taking good care of themselves, they usually get better. If the symptoms get worse, last for months or years, and affect their ability to function daily, they may have evolved into PTSD.

The effects may include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety and uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

Getting treatment after PTSD symptoms arise is very important to ease the symptoms and help people function better. It remains a disorder that requires professional guidance that can’t be offered in coaching, although coaching guidance could assist in developing coping mechanisms, if properly combined with professional therapy.

Especially empaths are prone to develop PTSD due to their highly sensitive nature. The importance of developing healthy strategies to deal with stress in general is fundamental for them. Needless to say, that coaching, and therapy strategies should take their personality into account.

For some people, who have built their lives around their romantic partner could be free of symptoms for years. But by losing that partner, however the cause, could reintroduce the irrational behaviour from before amplifying their bereavement.

In every case of PTSD, therapy as a primary guidance is a requirement, but combined with coaching it could shorten the recovery time.

Be calm, pacify your agitated mind and let go of the stress (Dalai Lama)

There are different strategies to deal with stress. where the emphasis lies on to slowing down each time enough to assume an more objective angle on challenging situations.

Speaking out of experience, it could be challenging for everyone, but HSP’s and empaths require a different more intense approach.

Stress management basically starts with daily routines. It could be that, without realising it, we are already starting our day with a habit that introduces an unwanted stressor, making us already irritable by just beginning the day. A cup of coffee that contains too much caffeine for example… and that why looking into them and changing small things could already make it easier.

Not everyone needs a completely planned out day in order to benefit from routines in terms of health, although its help to make more conscious decisions that optimises your time helping you to remain focussed.

There is also an interaction between healthy daily routines and our biological clock. These help us to feel alert during the day, hungry at mealtimes, and sleepy at night. Keeping body’s daily cycles, or circadian rhythms, in sync is important for your health.

These routines should include:

Healthy meals on regular times

• It could be difficult to meet our energy and nutritional needs when we don’t eat enough during the day (for example, only one or two meals).
• Timing meals correctly also encourages normal digestive processes. Whether or not you’re hungry, I suggest eating something within two hours of waking up. Although some people might argue with this point of view, it remains important to remain aware of this fact.

Sleep hygiene

Everyone benefits from getting a good night’s sleep and that starts with a sound sleeping strategy. Five things are important:

• Make sure your bedroom is comfortable:
  • cool (16 to 21 degrees Celsius) if possible
  • dark and quiet
  • Only use your bedroom for sleeping and sex.
• Try to maintain a rather fixed hour to go to bed and to wake up, especially during a work week.
• Strive to sleep a fixed number of hours each night.
• Don’t watch TV and put your mobile phone away or leave it in another room.
• Try not to take your worries to bed, however, although that could prove challenging sometimes.

People who are not getting enough sleep are not going to be as focused and productive in live, so allow me to stress out the importance of it. For some sleep might not come easily, but that could be improved with exercise.

The importance of exercise

A lot of people underestimate the importance of a decent work-out. The general benefits are:

• combats health conditions and diseases.
• improves mood.
• Boosts energy.
• Improves you sleep quality

(More information on the following link)

A weekly schedule could assist you to create set moments to exercise. The way one exercises depends on their interests. Some might consider a long walk, yoga, or an intense work-out in the gym.

In the future we will explore strategies that will assist you in finding your way.

These were the routines we should apply on a daily basis, but stress management also needs more common strategies to get us through the day, without losing sight of the bigger picture.

Originally mindfulness is based on Eastern philosophies where relaxation techniques combine breathing and slow stretching exercises as Yoga or Tai Chi.

Personally, I believe that every activity that focuses on disassociation and decompression could be defined as mindfulness. Allow me to provide some inspiration:

• Once I read somewhere: One drop of tenderness swallows an ocean of emotions. A gentle word of support or recognition, putting your hand on someone’s shoulder, a long warm hug, creates a safe environment in which allow one to reduce their vigilance and let go of emotions.
• Laughing about a joke or a comical situation could put a stressful moment in a whole different perspective and open up complete new creative solutions.
• A shared moment at the table with your family, while enjoying a warm cooked meal with some exquisite beverages could bring you together in a relaxing moment, potentially avoiding or resolving conflictful issues..
• An evening out in your favourite restaurant with friends, tasting new flavours, will create a diversion from your daily routine and strengthen ties at the same time.
• Smelling coffee and fresh baked bread rolls when you wake up after a long difficult night, allows most of us to remember warm moments.
• Listening a beautiful song in the car, on the way home, could release the stress you experienced whilst working and had to meet deadline(s).
• Watching a movie in the sofa after cleaning up the dishes of dinner allows one to wind down of every day’s concerns.
• Reading a book before going to sleep, will introduce tranquillity in your mind, preparing your consciousness for a deeper relaxation while your body releasing the needed serotonin to close your eyes.
• A long walk in nature, alone or with your family or friends will stimulate your senses, to smell, listen and feel its energy in order to become tranquil while doing some physical exercise at the same time.
• Mediation helps your mind and body to truly slow down through breathing and brings your consciousness into tune with the present moment.
• Practicing sports, alone or in group, will slow down your mind, giving your body a way to decompensate of the build-up bodily tensions, while improving your stress resilience at the same time. Furthermore, competitive sports with friends or family could strengthen the ties while focussing on the action.
• Making a long drive in your car or long walk in a rural environment, with soft music in the background could help you to gather your thoughts.
• Going fishing for hours, sitting next to a river or a quiet pond, focussed on the interaction between the water, the equipment and anticipation of potentially catching a fish.
• Sitting on a quiet spot with a photo camera, hoping that a bird or an animal might appear or framing a sunset helps you to focus on the moment and remain in the present. Moreover, the breathing technique one uses to keep your camera fixed, can slow you down at the same time..

These are just options. Finding your own way needs experimentation and that takes time. I hope this article provided you with some inspiration.

Although the importance of daily routines and unwind strategies are undeniable, breaking the chronical stress routines requires a longer time off and then we are talking about holidays.

Scientific research emphasises the importance of taking vacation time to unwind and recharge. The four most important physical and psychological benefits of a break are:

• Stress reduction: According to research published by the American Psychological Association last year, taking a vacation helps people decompress by removing them from situations and activities they typically associate with stress and anxiety.
• Taking a vacation also lowers the risk to a Heart Attack. The chance of having a heart attack will be reduced by taking advantage of the possibility to unwind and spend time with loved ones where possible.
• Holidays improves our quality of sleep: Common concerns include restless nights and disturbed sleep, which are sometimes caused by the fact that we just have too much on our minds. Vacations, according to researchers, can help break up sleep-disturbing routines like working late into the night or using a backlit device right before bed.
• Vacations also improve your productivity as one has time to offload the accumulated stress levels and to recharge one batteries at the same time.

How someone spends their holidays, whether it’s one another location or a staycation, isn’t the main topic of this article, although the significance of taking that time off is. This topic will be addressed in another blogpost where I provide more suggestions how one can spend prepare and spend their holiday.

This article covers the different types of stress where acute stress is a state of being that arises when our body and mind are called upon to concentrate on something.

We’re talking about the stressful moments that you endure over an extended period of time when we refer to episodic acute stress. Compared to the other two types of stress, chronic stress is significantly different since it is a constant state of tension.

These types of stress are triggered by stressors, with a very different cause.

Stressors invoke an instinctive reaction in our brain, triggering a chemo-biological response in our body in order to survive. These reactions can be fight, freeze, flee, pleasing or flipping.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is very different from the three earlier mentioned stress types and require professional guidance.

Stress regulation is influenced by our daily routines and unwind strategies which are crucial in providing a balance between effort and relaxation This just remains fundamental for HSPs and empaths whilst taking all different aspects of their daily lives into account that can trigger an instinctive and emotional responses that potentially drain them in social interactions, professional work situations, … Furthermore, the emotional strain of mourning or technology usage can also create a stressful underlayer that makes someone more sensitive to other potential stressors.

This blog article already contains quite a lot of information and finding your unique approach to stress and emotion regulation can be challenging, especially as an HSP and empath. That is the kind of guidance that the Sweetharmony Happiness Coaching practice offers. Finding your practical approach to deal with your stress levels. It supports your unique way in life by becoming more observative and react more appropriately to stressors under different circumstances.

Leave a message in the comments if you would like me to contact you for a chat or contact me over the different social channels.