Read Online Superhealing: Engaging Your Mind, Body, and Spirit to Create Optimal Health and Well-Being (ARC) by Elaine R. Ferguson - Free Book Online
Authors: Elaine R. Ferguson
Ads: Link
daily, if not hourly, basis. As I’ve already pointed out, more heart attacks happen on
Monday morning, between 8:00 am and noon, than at any other
time of the week. This clustering of heart attacks is uniquely human.
Scientists therefore theorize that it is not linked to biorhythms, but due to the psychological meaning of Monday morning.5 Monday
CHAPTER ONE: Your Superhealing Mind-Body Connection 35
morning is the most stressful morning of the week because it’s when people return to jobs of minimal, if any, satisfaction and resume other pressures typical of working.
According to the American Psychological Association, workplace
stress costs U.S. businesses an estimated $300 billion each year in healthcare costs and absenteeism. Studies have shown that stress
causes 19 percent of employee absenteeism and 40 percent of em-
ployee turnover.6
Since 2000, annual surveys have reported increasing levels of
stress in the general population because of the state of the economy, fears related to terrorist attacks, concerns about the environment, and other issues. Unfortunately, even people who are aware of feeling stressed don’t necessarily know how to effectively manage it. Because there are so many concurrent sources of stress in their lives, they are finding it much harder to recover and return their bodies to a normal state of balance.
Whenever you’re experiencing anxiety, fear, distress, depression,
and frustration (as well as other challenging emotions, to a lesser degree), your thoughts trigger the release of the same stress hormones from your brain that would be triggered if your life were in immediate danger. This alters the physiology of every cell in your body. Any continued pattern of negative emotional responses to
stress will contribute to prolonged physiological stress, which can turn into chronic adrenal stress and affect your health in devastating and measurable ways. It’s linked to an elevation of inflammation markers in the blood and an increased thickening of the arteries, an indication of the progression of the hardening of the arteries known as atherosclerosis, which leads to heart attack and stroke. Prolonged stress can also elevate your risk of developing certain types of cancer and even dementia.
36
PART ONE: Your Superhealing Mind
When we face long-term stress with an attitude of helplessness
and pessimism, our constant negative thinking and emotions in-
terfere with our bodies’ natural restorative capacities. In the presence of these feelings of helplessness and despair, we actual y create a helpless, hopeless body that is much more susceptible to disease.
The release of excessive levels of stress hormones affects the immune system by depressing the production of antibodies and interfering
with other physical functions. But if we face stress with a positive attitude, we enhance our natural restorative capacities.
Most interesting, , is that there is such a thing as good stress. Stress is a response that helps the body to maintain its homeostatic balance in the face of perceived danger. On a short-term basis, this is helpful to us. Selye documented that stress differs from other physical responses by producing the same systemic changes whether we receive
good news or bad news, whether the impulse is positive or negative.
However, in an effort to distinguish the two, he called negative stress distress and positive stress eustress .
When we are stressed, we can move from an alarm state to a re-
sistance state and to an exhaustion state, depending on our reser-
voirs of energy to cope with stress. Despite the frightening statistics, the truth remains that chronic stress has no power over you . The only power it has is the power you give it. If you respond in your own
mind to the stressors in your life, approaching them with a positive perspective instead of a fearful, helpless, or guilty perspective, your physiology will dramatical y improve.
Superhealing involves
Monday morning, between 8:00 am and noon, than at any other
time of the week. This clustering of heart attacks is uniquely human.
Scientists therefore theorize that it is not linked to biorhythms, but due to the psychological meaning of Monday morning.5 Monday
CHAPTER ONE: Your Superhealing Mind-Body Connection 35
morning is the most stressful morning of the week because it’s when people return to jobs of minimal, if any, satisfaction and resume other pressures typical of working.
According to the American Psychological Association, workplace
stress costs U.S. businesses an estimated $300 billion each year in healthcare costs and absenteeism. Studies have shown that stress
causes 19 percent of employee absenteeism and 40 percent of em-
ployee turnover.6
Since 2000, annual surveys have reported increasing levels of
stress in the general population because of the state of the economy, fears related to terrorist attacks, concerns about the environment, and other issues. Unfortunately, even people who are aware of feeling stressed don’t necessarily know how to effectively manage it. Because there are so many concurrent sources of stress in their lives, they are finding it much harder to recover and return their bodies to a normal state of balance.
Whenever you’re experiencing anxiety, fear, distress, depression,
and frustration (as well as other challenging emotions, to a lesser degree), your thoughts trigger the release of the same stress hormones from your brain that would be triggered if your life were in immediate danger. This alters the physiology of every cell in your body. Any continued pattern of negative emotional responses to
stress will contribute to prolonged physiological stress, which can turn into chronic adrenal stress and affect your health in devastating and measurable ways. It’s linked to an elevation of inflammation markers in the blood and an increased thickening of the arteries, an indication of the progression of the hardening of the arteries known as atherosclerosis, which leads to heart attack and stroke. Prolonged stress can also elevate your risk of developing certain types of cancer and even dementia.
36
PART ONE: Your Superhealing Mind
When we face long-term stress with an attitude of helplessness
and pessimism, our constant negative thinking and emotions in-
terfere with our bodies’ natural restorative capacities. In the presence of these feelings of helplessness and despair, we actual y create a helpless, hopeless body that is much more susceptible to disease.
The release of excessive levels of stress hormones affects the immune system by depressing the production of antibodies and interfering
with other physical functions. But if we face stress with a positive attitude, we enhance our natural restorative capacities.
Most interesting, , is that there is such a thing as good stress. Stress is a response that helps the body to maintain its homeostatic balance in the face of perceived danger. On a short-term basis, this is helpful to us. Selye documented that stress differs from other physical responses by producing the same systemic changes whether we receive
good news or bad news, whether the impulse is positive or negative.
However, in an effort to distinguish the two, he called negative stress distress and positive stress eustress .
When we are stressed, we can move from an alarm state to a re-
sistance state and to an exhaustion state, depending on our reser-
voirs of energy to cope with stress. Despite the frightening statistics, the truth remains that chronic stress has no power over you . The only power it has is the power you give it. If you respond in your own
mind to the stressors in your life, approaching them with a positive perspective instead of a fearful, helpless, or guilty perspective, your physiology will dramatical y improve.
Superhealing involves
Similar Books
