Easy Does It: Email-Interview (Part II) with Dr. Joan Vernikos

Dr. Joan Vernikos

 

Welcome to part two of my email-interview with Culpeper’s own Dr. Joan Vernikos.  This month’s Wellness and Wellbeing segment began last week as she shared her research, both from earth and space to encourage us to move.  This week, it’s all about what she calls “the juice of life”.  Stress.

As Joan explained it, stress is as much a part of us as breathing. It is a stimulus we need to energize us. But when there’s too much, it is the most pernicious cause of illness and pain, making every health condition worse, ultimately leading to early death.  Yet stress is also our defense mechanism and our source of Energy.

The key, as Joan explained, is to learn how to use stress, but not be abused by it.  Build a relationship with stress.  Dance with it.

Despite what we may think, stress is not the distress, or the anxiety, or the worry.  Instead, stress is what causes you to feel what you feel.

Everyone’s stress is different:

Getting out of bed in the morning

Illness

Standing up from a chair

Frequent interruptions throughout your workday

Life events

Difficulty losing weight

Menopause

A child or relative needing your care

Financial problems

Juggling competing demands

As Joan explained, these stressors are no different than the stress our caveman ancestors experienced running away from a tiger, escaping up a tree, defending the cave, hunting for food, or finding shelter. We have the same genes, the same physiological systems and the same responses.  But rarely these days, except in the battlefield or in environmental disasters, is our stress a matter of survival. Nevertheless, whatever today’s stress might be, it is still perceived as a threat to survival.

That is when we might notice the effects of our stress:

Difficulty remembering names with faces

Irritability or increased feelings of anger

waking up in the middle of the night with worry

Feeling lonely even when surrounded by friends and family

Less interest in sex

‘brain fog’

Joan suggested that no matter the nature of the stress, our response will be the same.  Magnitude is the only difference, based on our perception of the stress. Our perception, as she put it, is often driven by “our database of past experiences – how effectively we dealt with them in the past”. This determines how big our response will be.

Joan explained that the stress response is for the sake of survival.  The pouring out of the hormones Cortisol and Adrenaline are in support of the body and brain at a time of crisis.  Well-managed stress allows the body to shut off the stress response, knowing that the threat is over.  But excessive stress is unmanaged and dangerous due to the uncontrolled outpouring of these hormones.  Joan referred to this as ‘burnout’, as it leads to the breakdown of any tissue it can find – muscle, bone, skin, joint, heart, immune cells, brain connections, and memory cells.

An intelligent relationship with stress, as Joan described, is informed by the knowledge that most stress is self-made.  Approximately 80% of stress is related to what might happen in the future, past events that cannot be changed, or, irritations in the moment over which you have no control.   Joan suggested these as opportunities to hit DELETE, or at least PAUSE the stress.  Simply put, take a few breaths, analyze, relax, meditate.

Stepping back, even for a moment can allow the body to recover.  Then you may have the time and space to manage your stressful situation.  In Joan’s words, “stress is about challenge and change”.

Stress is a dance.  “Learn to sway”.

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