Living with uncertainty is incredibly stressful. Environmental, cultural, medical, political and economic destabilization has profound effects on our homeo-dynamic organism.
Truth of the matter is, humans have always lived with or, more accurately, within uncertainty while operating under the assumption that there was predictability and a plan for life. Call me guilty!
But there’s no need to panic. The Fight/Flight response is our life-saving answer to sudden uncertainty. When you instinctively swerve in traffic, sprint up the stairs when an alarmed child cries or pull your hand from a hot stove your Fight/Flight response is activated. It spurs us into action, saving ourselves and others. The body moves faster than thought. And thank goodness.
The Fight/Flight response can also be very subtle, so subtle that we are entirely unaware of our idling metabolic engine. The same hormones that are released suddenly in the examples above are also secreted in response to psychological stress. As bodies we can’t help but react to our environment. It is vital to our survival.
Where we work, what we think, what we read, watch or listen to has a metabolic impact. And for many of us in today’s environment, previously subtle signals have turned the volume way up in response to all we are being bombarded with.
Please don’t panic. There is good news.
Although we can’t eliminate all the external stressors in life we can reduce them. We can also choose to activate the Rest/Digest response more often. Toning our Rest/Digest response happens much the same way as toning a muscle. The more we use it, the more responsive it becomes. Remember, it’s Rest/Digest (parasympathetic) that regulates the mitosis and apoptosis that make a brand new you!
Here’s A 5 Minute “I Can’t Meditate” Meditation I
to help activate the Rest/Digest response.
“The relationship of chronic environmental and emotional stress to cellular inflammation has been repeatedly documented by scientific community. Microscopic inflammation has system-wide consequences; insulin resistance, obesity, a host of chronic inflammatory diseases, pain syndromes, Alzheimer’s disease, type II diabetes, atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis and cancer.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879478/