Baby, Don’t Worry About A Thing!
Written by Kathryn Savage
There are good times to be stressed.
We all know it, hearts flutter, palms get sweaty, and there are times when we want these changes - like while driving home late at night on an icy road. The bodies autonomic nervous system provides the rapid response to stress commonly known as the fight-or-flight response. And at times, yes, we want to be hyper alert. But when it comes to stress, when is enough... enough?
Understandably, feelings of stress and focus will come out when you are striving to be in control, to accomplish a great or difficult task. But feeling chronically stressed out i.e. engaging the fight-or-flight response when someone intercepts your place in line at Whole Foods, when you are trying to expertly dive through the yellow-about to turn red light, when you are trying to make it to the bank before they close on a Friday, leads to bodily inflammation which may weaken our immune systems overtime and contribute to age-related diseases.
Bottom line, unless you’re in freezing rain with a two year old strapped into the backseat on an icy road, try to avoid stress altogether. Take a hint from they lyrics of Bob Marley, “Don’t worry...every little thing will be alright.”
What makes a healthy stress-free personality?
According to a recent article published on the news site Science Daily, (www.sciencedaily.com) scientists have been asking themselves this question for a long time. Their answers? What scientists refer to as “emotional stability and conscientiousness” seem to be key contributors to a healthy, stress free frame of mind. But the answers don’t necessarily lie in what you’ve got, it’s more about what you don’t. People who are emotionally stable are not neurotic. And being neurotic, may lead to chronic inflammation and stress.
Neuroticism is best described as the character George on the popular TV show Seinfeld. “Neuroticism is the tendency toward hand wringing and negative thinking.” People who are neurotic don’t handle stress well on the job, in relationships or in traffic. This negative tendency “has been linked to increased mortality in a number of studies” - so what to do if you are neurotic? Personally, I fall easy prey to this tendency and the question crossed my mind, ok, now what? How can I change?
A research scientist at Prudue University asked himself this very question. Daniel Mroczek of Purdue University, studied this idea in a controlled experiment. He followed 1600 men over the course of 12 years recording “how neurotic they were at the start but also whether they got more or less neurotic over time.” He looked at mortality risk and reported “in the May issue of Psychological Science, those who increased over time in neuroticism was a ticket to an early grave.” If these men became more stressed and worried overtime, their risk of "dying, mostly from cancer and heart disease" went up. But - and this is a big but - if these men in the study found ways to calm down, they "had survival rates similar to those of emotionally stable men." Calming down, appears to have a direct affect on longevity.
How to mellow?
Techniques like deep breathing, meditation or yoga, or sitting quietly for fifteen minutes everyday, taking a walk, these are all great ways to calm down and lower the fight-or-flight response. Next time you feel yourself getting all wound up, take a deep breath, pour yourself a glass of wine and chill out. Your heat with thank you!
For the full article follow this link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070404162211.htm
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