by Karen Ball
If you ever questioned the effects of stress on your day-to-day life, read on.
If ignored, the chronic thoughts, situation and/or behavior patterns may lead to the following sequence of events, resulting in “running on empty”.
(And I’m not referring to that great Jackson Browne song!)
Follow the succession of events:
1. You think about something stressful: work, money, relationships, family, whatever’s occupying a lot of your mental real estate.
2. Your amygdala (in your mid-brain) senses danger.
3. Your amygdala helps to initiate your body’s “fight-or-flight” response to stress.
4. In “fight or flight”, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol (the stress hormone) diverts blood away from your digestive tract, leaving you less able to digest food and absorb nutrients AND more likely to gain weight.
5. In this physiological “crisis mode,” you’re more vulnerable to pain from headaches, chronic illness, arthritis, fibromyalgia, migraines, stomach upset, and more.
6. Because of this heightened physiological alert, your brain’s creative center is deemed “non-essential” and shuts down. Down go your problem solving and creative skills, as well as your intuition.
7. You feel increasingly irritable, isolated and impatient. Your relationships suffer.
8. Stress affects your sleep. Your metabolism slows.
9. Your body secretes even more cortisol, wreaking more havoc on your digestion (and waist line), increasing your blood pressure, lowering your immune response.
10. After releasing too much cortisol for too long, your body goes into “adrenal fatigue”. You feel depleted, exhausted, and depressed. More headaches.
11. You no longer have the energy to adhere to your exercise routine, your healthy eating, meditation and/or yoga. Migraines, insomnia, stress-related hair loss, chronic pain, headaches and any number of other issues become regular parts of your life.
12. Now battling low energy, you can hardly focus at work or elsewhere, for that matter. Your relationships suffer; your safety diminishes in areas requiring focus (like driving).
13. Your depression deepens. You (and your body) are STRESSED OUT. You are now “running on empty.”
Please remember that a headache is one of your body’s primary ways of speaking to you; of shouting out that something is not right. Pay attention!
If you or people in your life suffer with chronic headaches, I hope that you will join me at FSM on Saturday, June 20th for the one-day class, Say Goodbye to Headaches. We will look at dozens of causes and how to address the roots of the problem with hands-on work and client coaching.
