JEDDAH, 11 August 2004 — Rima, an 80-year-old reasonably healthy matriarch of a 42-member family, leads a very active life, mentally. She personally conducts the household management with expenses, cooking, and entertainment for the whole clan. She is an exceptionally capable, intelligent, sensitive, and also smart mentally and physically. Her work includes organizing, managing, cooking, and catering for private lunches and dinners, as well as for business events.
She is the manager, caterer, organizer, and financial controller of her domain. This widespread work happens to be extremely stressful at times when her responsibilities become too demanding for her physically and mentally. When her sleep is reduced to 3 to 4 hours at night she becomes irritable and short-tempered with her people. Her nagging and anxiety increase; her good humor and understanding fall to rock bottom lows as she applies too much pressure on herself.
When I urge her to catch up on sleep during the day and try to assuage her anxiety and negative feelings, she resists me. But when she finally succumbs to my appeals, her body and mind respond immediately and she regains her usual composure and becomes more evened-tempered. She refuses to relinquish any of her responsibilities even at her advanced age. This keeps her going and alive. She is totally devoted to her entire family. Strains of daily pressures present themselves in various ways. Under extreme duress, different people respond to them differently. Modern society has become afflicted with the weight of responsibilities and is faced with insurmountable challenges of family, work, financial, and environmental demands. Our minds and bodies are negatively affected by overstress. We have witnessed some of the symptomatic effects of extreme pressure on Rima. Such psychological and physiological incapacitation sometimes results in pathological disorders, requiring clinical treatments.
Daily stressors drain your vitality and stamina, dull emotional pleasure, dampen creativity and ability, and promote anger and irritability, while suppressing immune functions. Such aberrant and hostile behaviors would cause chronic organ diseases and mental disorders that would result in estrangement from colleagues, friends, and family. Because physical and mental pressures influence both your body and mind, they can lead to long-term ailments, depressive disorders, and familial and social isolation, as well as the possibility of losing job and lifetime career.
What are the physiological responses caused by a stressful situation? Stress signals your sympathetic nervous system to unleash adrenaline and cortisol to rally energy from the cardiovascular system. Your heart pumps harder to circulate blood to your muscles and other organs to prepare for the immediate threat. For short periods, such fight-or-flight responses are harmless to your body. For prolonged periods of stress, hormone circulation in the system can have such adverse effects as blood clotting, faster heart rate, artery constriction (blood pressure), and suppressed immune defenses against invasive microorganisms.
As soon as you become aware of what is happening to your mind and body chemically, you must deter the continuous damage of overstress. You should first start by applying positive thinking to alter your perception of the threat at hand and overcome negative thoughts with effective solutions. Another tension reliever is regular moderate activity. Daily physical training promotes fitness, stimulates immunity, and lowers stress-induced hypertension and heartbeat.
But I have to caution you against rigorous exhausting workouts or sports, like over-training with weights or marathon running, as they tend to be immunosuppressive resulting in body exhaustion and poor performance. Meditation and massage manage stress as well. So consider any of the above techniques to overcome stress.
Emotional stress resulting from the loss of a loved one, divorce, conflict, trauma, or others can affect the chemical levels of certain hormones in your brain, such as serotonin. This neurotransmitter, associated with mood, produces the sensation of tranquility and well-being and enhances quality night sleep, while improving brain responses during daytime. Destructive emotional pressure depletes serotonin resulting in mood swings, insomnia, and some mental disorders.
To avoid such negative chemical imbalances, I urge you to activate your hormonal production through a positive attitude, moderate regular activity, good sleep, balanced nutrition, and meditation as advocated by Dr. Benson, a pioneer and author of “The Relaxation Response”.
— Mariam Alireza is a holistic science specialist. Send comments to [email protected]
