Stress is part of everyday life, we all have it to some degree and all handle it differently. Our bodies hold stress on all levels- emotional, mental, physical and spiritual, even electromagnetic stress through all of today’s technologies. Although every person’s body can present differently when it comes down to stress every single body functions the same way. The design model ensures fight or flight automatically kicks in as we enter a survival mode. The process is simple. Body encounters stress and will immediately shut down the emotional body which is soon followed by the cortex. Next our body shifts into defence mode where our muscular system and fascia tightens and locks up. Our body then activates adrenalin as we prepare to run or fight. 

Other systems in our body that aren’t needed during a fight begin to shut down such as the reproductive system, digestive and immune systems. The body is brilliantly designed and this is how it reacts every time it enters a stressful stage until it identifies the threat is no longer. Ever wondered why when we get stressed we can’t think clearly anymore? It’s because our body is working so hard to defend itself that we no longer have the rational thought pattern we had 5 minutes ago.

Besides homeostasis which is optimal health for balancing stress there are three clear stages of stress. The first stage is alarm phase. It’s when our adrenalin is spiked as our intuition kicks in to tell us something’s not right. The second stage is an adaption phase. It means we’ve already identified there’s a problem however we’ve become quite comfortable and simply adapted to living and behaving this way. We can live on second stage stress for 20-30 years. 

At this stage disease begins to creep in as the central nervous system has been working offline for this duration and hormones are running wild. The body has lost order and the pathways that used to share information have all closed down. The stress hormone cortisol is nearing depletion and with information pathways closed the immune system has no clue what its job description is anymore. With immune defence down disease creeps in and we enter stage three which is complete exhaustion. We then lose all form of energy as the cortisol tank has reached empty. 

Now that you understand the physical connection to stress we can work on programs to help assist you with stress in your day to day life. When you know exactly how the body works resolutions become easier. Part of the success is to identify stress periodically before it becomes overwhelming and begins to shut down organs and communication pathways.