Picture: Lise Gagne, iStockphoto.com "When we find ourselves in highly stressful situations, we need to try to make the right choices consciously and positively: don’t leave it up to your subconscious. This will assist your body to respond in the most beneficial manner. Look for the positive aspects lurking behind the event of change: there may be none in the immediate situation, but start to look towards the future to see the enjoyable and rewarding potential. Sometimes we will need to reflect deeply to see our own experiences from the bigger picture."

17th August, 2004

Dr NICK HODGSON

When you look at the list of the most stressful events that can happen to each of us during our lives, you will see things like; death of a loved one, change of job, moving house. Stress can be the worst thing for your health. Now what is it about the most stressful events that creates problems and starts to erode your wellbeing?

First there is the immediate "distress" that comes along with a major life event: to lose a loved one is the most emotionally crippling thing that can happen to us and it is actually vital that we experience the grief. To attempt to ignore the effects of this type of stress and just get on with your life would be a dangerous long term decision.

A change of job whether self or employer imposed, carries a lot of mixed emotions - so much of our identity in our culture comes from our work. Some will fall into a pit of depression, while others will rejoice at being forced to seek new career options.

Moving house is one that creeps up on you - seems benign enough, but usually is an enormous process, physically and emotionally. People about to move house often ask me whether they should have a chiropractic check-up before the onslaught of activity, or postpone their tune-up till it is all over. My standard reply is that based on the way moving house affects most people, I recommend an adjustment before, during and after the relocation!

A sudden shock, fright or life changing experience will trigger off fairly predictable and expected changes in the function and physiology of the human body.

The initial bodily stress of these events comes from the "fight/flight" response occurring in our nervous and hormonal systems - and it’s amazing how different bodies respond differently to stress hormones!

But, what I want to talk about now is another aspect of stress - the stress of change. The bigger the change, the bigger the stress! Now, can an outsider predict how much stress is going to come from a certain amount of change in your life? The obvious answer is no.

So what does determine how much of a stress reaction will occur? Most of us have heard of Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov was an early psychologist who discovered an interesting party trick by teaching dogs to associate the ringing of a bell with the approaching joy of food. By repeatedly synchronising the delivery of food with the ringing bell, Pavlov could train the dogs to eventually salivate and have all the metabolic processes of digestion by ringing a bell without delivering the promise of food. This discovery directed early thought on the way that humans respond to what are called "stimuli". It was assumed that we too are trained to respond to stimuli in predictable and measurable ways - stimulus leads to response.

This should mean that each of us responds in predictable and measurable ways to a stressful stimulus. But we intuitively know that this is not true. One person will sweat, another will faint; one will withdraw, another will lash out; someone will puff up, while another shrinks away; one will get diarrhoea, the next constipation, and so on.

So what happens in between the stimulus and the response that changes the individual’s response?

The answer is choice! Some are conscious and some are subconscious, but when we are confronted with a stressful event a choice occurs somewhere within us that determines whether that event starts to poison us with negative stress, or it becomes woven into the rich tapestry that forms our positive life journey.

So, what to do? When we find ourselves in highly stressful situations, we need to try to make the right choices consciously and positively: don’t leave it up to your subconscious. This will assist your body to respond in the most beneficial manner. Look for the positive aspects lurking behind the event of change: there may be none in the immediate situation, but start to look towards the future to see the enjoyable and rewarding potential. Sometimes we will need to reflect deeply to see our own experiences from the bigger picture.

The Old Testament is riddled with the stories of characters, each with different personalities and physiologies, who often initially responded to major life challenging events in less than dignified manners.
But the ones that inspire us and teach us better ways of living demonstrate the ability to see their predicament from another perspective. They each chose to respond to their circumstances with a different point of view. In each case God provided them with some form of inspiration providing them with a revelation of opportunity. Start looking for yours today.

(Now I just hope I've heard myself!)

Dr Nick Hodgson is a chiropractor.

You can read more of Dr Nick Hodgson’s work at www.healthetalk.com.au