The Waterfall of Stress and High Blood Pressure
The holidays are behind us and now it is back to work, back to regular life. And for a lot of people that means diving back into stress (of course the holidays are not necessarily free from busy schedules or lots of unusual demands, either!). Stress is, however, a natural part of life, and there are aspects of our stress response that are very healthy, even life-saving in an emergency. At the same time continued chronic stress can make us really sick. There is a kind of “waterfall” effect that relates acute stress and physical illness. Here is one perspective that has proven to be helpful in talking to many different people about stress.
Does our body influence how we think? Getting unstuck, Part 3
There is another aspect to getting unstuck, which relates directly to the connection between our physical/physiologic life and our emotional/spiritual life. It is actually a connection that goes both ways, meaning that our emotional and spiritual life impact how our body feels and how our body works, and vice versa. We all experience this. When we are stressed it affects our sleep, our energy, even our digestion, whereas when we are relaxed and contented many of the little aches and pains fall away. Going the other way (the functioning of our body up to emotional and spiritual well-being), imbalances in the body's physiology (like electrolyte levels, blood sugar and organ function) influence the way we feel and even lend an “imprint” into our thought life. Bodily function lends a continuous coloring to our experiences and perceptions, though this is usually fleeting and remains mostly unconscious. A bigger injury or imbalance—like falling and breaking your arm exaggerates that influence. The acute pain of that injury clearly distracts and disrupts our emotional and cognitive functioning. But this pathway is there all the time and it functions in both directions.