No Fault De-Stressing

85% of major illness is now attributed to stress. The figure is alarming because it implies that the responsibility for our well-being lies directly in our own hands, as in a way it does.

People who already have a major illness feel dismayed, and even angry, about the new emphasis on “positive psychology,” and the idea that our beliefs and moods can affect our physical health dramatically. They feel “blamed.”

Here’s a different look: we have inherited a nervous system that defaults to a stress response readily, because our primitive ancestors survived by recognizing threat readily and taking action quickly. Those ancestors were dealing with physical danger, such as the proverbial saber tooth tiger. Today our threats are mostly social, so the response is not appropriate. But we’re hard-wired for it. That’s not our fault.

It’s not our fault, either, that we were not trained to deal with the powerful and dramatic stress response from birth. Even when stress started to be recognized as an important factor in wellness and in disease, training was not readily available to us, particularly as children. How can you feel blamed for something you, and others around you, didn’t even recognize? Or responsible because, even when you recognized the threat, you didn’t have the skills with which to combat it?

The good news is this: just as stress can contribute to disease, and even to shortening your life span, so can de-stressing slow down, stop, or in some cases, reverse disease and aging.

So what’s stopping you from taking advantage of the resources available to you now? Books, recordings, classes, coaching – all sorts of things exist to help you, if you let them.

If you’re saying, “but I don’t have time,” or “I can’t afford it,” what you’re really saying is, “It’s not on my priority list.” It can be amazing how rapidly your priority list can change when a major illness strikes.

Take a look at your priority list again. At each item, ask yourself, “Is this worth dying over?” or even “getting sick over?” You’ll be surprised at the amount of time or money you can find when you really need it in order to make your life better.

There is a Chinese saying: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”