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May 12, 2005
Stress is good for you?
A recent proclamation in a number of the daily papers tells me that stress is good for me! Yup, stress will make me live longer, according to the scientists. Even the Scientific American has said so. Now I hate to be a party-pooper, but my stress levels have been that high for the last few years I think I am in danger of living well past my century! Maybe that's a good thing, maybe not. My kids will, by then, be ready, I suspect, to take me outside and drop me down some convenient well! I know I will be!
Stress is, of course, a fact of living; we all experience it at various times throughout the day in small doses; what is probably not good is constant and ongoing stress. This is when you run into all sorts of side effects like back pain, muscle tension, and even degenerative problems in the bones. Coping with stress is important, because our bodies are, rather like a cat's, geared to the constant tension between "fight or flight". Basically our psyche is made of the three questions; "Can I eat it?" "Can it eat me?" and "Can I outrun it?"
This is why stress sends a chemical mix into the nervous system and bloodstream that can give us the acceleration necessary to get high up a tree before the lion/cave bear/carnivore of your choice can get off the starting block. It's about survival.
What is not good is ongoing and persistent stress from which there is little relief. This is when all sorts of toxins start to build in the body and the bloodstream and can cause damage - including, I suspect, some cancers. When I outrun a tiger I have some releief when the tiger pushes off. I can't outrun dimwitted and cretinous managers who make decisions in a vacuum which make my job hell. This is when the stress knows little relief.
In many ways, this is also where my faith helps. It does give me an inner core of peace on which I can fall back. It gives me a place I can go to within myself that says the world does not matter, that the latest stupid decision is not going to make things any worse than they were and that I can trust in someone much more understanding and knowledgeable to get me through the swamp.
Thank you, Lord, for faith and for the grace of knowing you!
Posted by The Gray Monk at May 12, 2005 06:02 AM