Skip to main content

What is Stress?

 Hello Natural Health Family. I imagine everyone had some fun during the weekend and getting ready for more of the holiday season. As we head closer to winter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the other holidays we may feel more stress. However, when we can be aware of what is going on and are able to reframe this so-called stress then we can allow ourselves to enjoy the experience more fully.

What is stress? Stress comes from the Latin word “strictia” which means tight, compressed, and drawn together. This helps us to comprehend that stress is a feeling of being contracted and tightened. This may come from many different factors. However, if we can look at it clearly we can see that everyone is affected by certain stress differently. So if it was the environment entirely that causes us stress then it would be the same for everyone. We can now acknowledge that it is actually the way we perceive our environment and our relationship with stress that can make an important difference.


Let’s think about an athlete. The athlete must undergo many hours of training to get better at the skill needed to excel in whatever his or her sport is. If the athlete started his or her career not liking the sport then it would obviously be more difficult to perform the training needed. However, if he or she embraced it and knew that the training was just a stepping stone to accomplishing what they wanted then it would be a much smoother process. The training may be stressful, but the stress is what actually is strengthening and preparing the athlete for greater achievements ahead. 


What about trying new things? Do you remember being a kid and wanting to try a new activity? As a kid, you might have been fearless and did whatever it took to master the skill or whatever you wanted to do at the time. Then as we grow older we may confuse the feeling of excitement with anxiety or nervousness. Then this causes us to be fearful to do different things. The fear may bring on thoughts about why bother, what would others think, etc. As adults, we obviously have more responsibilities. However, this shouldn’t stop us altogether to go about trying new things or embracing new adventures.


Sometimes we may feel that life is overwhelming, future events are going to be stressful, that it is just the way it is, and that change can’t happen. Somewhat like the athlete in the example above, if they have a preconceived notion that they won’t like it then it will be a struggle and feel difficult. However, when we practice seeing things differently we are able to allow life to unfold in new ways. Thanks for reading and have a great week!


Thanks for reading and have a great week!


Dr. Chip


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Most People Don't Reach Micronutrient Requirements Through Food Alone

  STORY AT-A-GLANCE Most adolescents are not getting adequate nutrient intake from diet alone — a finding confirmed from other studies in developed countries such as Spain, France, Portugal and Germany Three-quarters of adolescents consumed less than 54% of the recommended amounts of healthy foods like fruits, vegetables and dairy products Nearly three-quarters of the youth exceeded the recommended limit for sweet and salty snacks — by 453% When nutrient intake was considered from diet alone, adolescents often consumed less than recommended amounts of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E along with the water-soluble vitamins folate, biotin and pantothenic acid The use of dietary supplements helped to increase the adolescents’ intake of vitamins and minerals, particularly magnesium and vitamin C, but this isn’t a replacement for a healthy, nutrient-rich diet While it’s possible to get all the vitamins and minerals your body needs by eating a healthy diet, most people fall short. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Breast Health

  Hello Everyone in Natural Health Nation-             Aren’t the trees beautiful? Fall is such a beautiful time of year and the weather has been outstanding. I hope you were able to get outside and increase your vitamin D stores for the winter. Remember that vitamin D is activated by sunlight so it’s important to get some. Vitamin D is also an oil soluble vitamin so you must be consuming good fats in order to have a good vitamin D source. If you get into the science of vitamin D, you’ll find it comes from cholesterol so the mainstream medicines war on cholesterol causes vitamin D levels to be low and this causes lots of immune system problems and other issues. We help our patients be able to digest and absorb fats and watch that their vitamin D levels are optimum.             The article I’m sending along this week looks at screenings and mammograms and how they can be...
5 comments
Read more

Communication

  Natural Health Family, how is everyone doing? I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful weekend and got some sunshine. Today let’s talk about communication and why it is important in our lives and for our own health.  Last weekend I explored Colorado. I went snowboarding and hiked a good amount also. I learned a lot just by getting out in nature and noticing different aspects of the forest and parks. One characteristic of the forest that I found interesting was the aspen trees. It appeared that they would appear sporadically in the forest and in groups. I was curious and wanted to learn more about them. I found out that the different aspen trees or tree trunks are not separate but they actually function as one tree. The roots of the tree are well connected so that they are able to communicate and act as one organism. I found this interesting because we tend to think that the whole tree is only about what is on the surface of the ground rather than all the roots and connections...
1 comment
Read more