Stress: Fuel for Growth
When I ask new patients about stress in their life I generally get one of two responses: either, “Yes, I’m so stressed out!” (Which comes with a story to support this) or, “No, I have it handled.” In other words they’re often in overwhelm or denial. (I’m not sure how accurate either perspective is.)
When we think about stress we are generally thinking in terms of overwhelm: a relationship, work situation or circumstance that is often more than we can handle. We think we’ve either got it controlled and we’re coping, or we’re overwhelmed and we’re not. But the stress response and its effects are much more of a spectrum. Stress starts insidiously and then gets locked into a habitual response. We become much more aware of the effects of this response, such as pain, loss of function and illness than we are of our initial response to stress.
How we do stress is how we do life.
Hans Selye first described the “general adaptation syndrome” as he studied the physiological effects of the stress response. This generalized response is mediated through the nervous system, which is constantly adapting and responding to input and fortunately, most of the time does a pretty good job. But our over-full, frenetic lifestyles force us to be in constant adaptation and the response that was originally designed to process specific situations and then be finished becomes a generalized condition. In other words, the ‘on’ switch never has a chance to turn off. So a new baseline is constantly being reset that ramps up the physiology and never goes back to a healthy baseline, let alone one of optimal wellness.
Here’s the irony: All growth comes when our system is challenged (stressed) and then given the time to change, rest, recharge and reflect. Then the stress can be a mechanism for growth to occur. A simple example where this occurs is during exercise. Physical stress that doesn’t strain or damage the body, with sufficient rest and nutrition afterwards, will stimulate growth in the body.
The stress in our lives is not going anywhere. The only guarantee in life is that we will move from one challenge to the next. It’s all about developing an adaptable response to “stress”. This is what you and your nervous system learn via Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) chiropractic care. Because of its intimate connection with the nervous system the spine is your modulator for the stress response—the more adaptable and tuned it is, the more adaptable and tuned you can be in response to stress. And this is where it really gets interesting. The more flexible and adaptable your spine and nervous system become, the more you can take on and challenge yourself and actually use stress as fuel to fire new growth in your life.
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Dr. Carson is offering a Clear Day! Sunday October 27th at 8:30am at Carson Chiropractic in New Westminster. Coast Chiropractic patients are welcome to sign up!
Clear Day is an intensive, full-day event for developing and deepening network strategies for healing, wellness and personal transformation. Clear Day is open to individuals who have already made significant progress in their NSA and SRI care.
Clear Day consists of 3 special NSA entrainments, 3 facilitated group SRI sessions, along with integrated healing activities and discussion to make progress during the day sustainable and applicable to daily life. Healthy lunch and snacks are provided. Cost $139.