Deadlines, family issues, financial burdens, environmental catastrophes, fears, worries, to-do lists, bad diets, inadequate exercise, the endless onslaught of mental chatter (“I should have done that, I shouldn’t have done that, why did he do this, why didn’t he do that”)…. Aarrghhh! Does this sound familiar? If so, you are not alone. We definitely live in stressful times. The pressures on each of us individually and as a whole are unlike any other time in history. You feel this stress as tension throbbing between your temples, aching in your shoulders, or gnawing at your stomach. It robs your energy, steals your vitality, irritates your emotions, clutters your mind, and according to the American Medical Association, in the long term is the cause of up to 80% of all disease and illness! The effects of stress are serious, life diminishing and just downright a pain in the backside.
Stress…robs your energy, steals your vitality,
irritates your emotions, clutters your mind and
is the cause of up to 80% of all disease and illness!
is the cause of up to 80% of all disease and illness!
Before we start talking about solutions (I am going to suggest a couple that will radically help you better handle your stress loads) let’s take some time and get clear about what stress is exactly. Stress can easily be defined as any life experience that is greater than your ability to handle it. When you are open, connected, and relaxed you are able to accurately sense, integrate and respond to what life is offering you. “Ahh, no problem, I can handle this”. But as stresses mount and there is more than you are able to handle,”Aarrgghhh, this is too much,” and we go into stress physiology. You go into a fight or flight response and your body and brain go into a cascade of chemical reactions. Your creativity diminishes, you start imagining the worst, emotions flair, you snap at your partner or kids more frequently than you would like, you close yourself off from your friends, and crave junk food instead of real food, furthering the damage and creating a spiral of ill health. Your posture will also transition to more rounded shoulders in defense, also constricting and protecting your heart, reducing the capacity of your lungs.
A metaphor to illustrate stress overload is that of an electrical system in a home. Imagine all the Hydro (source energy) that is coming to the home, through the breaker box and into the wiring that runs between the appliances. When things are within normal limits, no problem, the circuits stay open and the energy keeps flowing. But the moment the system has one too many toasters, hairdryers, coffee machines, and tvs plugged into it - more “stress” than it can handle – kabloomey!... the breaker goes. This is a safety mechanism that is built into the breaker box to protect the system from short circuiting and causing major damage.
In your body, you also have wires. This is your nerve system. This electrical system runs throughout your body to and from all of your organs, muscles and your mind (brain). Your nerve system is also how you sense, integrate and respond to all that life is offering you. Your spine is your breaker box and your source energy is the life force energy that is flowing through your spine, giving you life. Your nerve system transports this life force and when it is free and functioning fully it keeps you well. When you are open and handling all of your life, with ease, your body is functioning optimally and your energy is freely flowing. But when life gets to be too much, when your boss gives you one more task, or your partner dumps on you one more time, or you hear one more depressing story about the environment, Kabloomey, your system is over stressed beyond your ability to handle it all. Your breaker box, your spine, shifts out of alignment and the energy no longer freely flows through your body but gets stored in your muscles, your stomach, and even your mind. Sound familiar?
Is the only solution to start saying “No” to life?
Avoiding certain people, working less, sacrificing your dreams?
What if you got better at handling your stress?
What if you got better at handling your stress?
Would freeing up 30% more of your own energy mean living more of the life you really want?
For many people the only solution is to start saying “No” to life, to take on less, avoid being around some people, work only part time, forget about their dreams, play small, and settle for less. But wait! Before you start diminishing your quantity and quality of life, there are other solutions. What if there was a way to help you handle your stress better? What if the better you got at handling your stress, the better you started feeling? What if your energy returned and it actually gave you the opportunity to handle all of what is in front of you, and maybe even more, in healthy ways, in ways that you even started to enjoy? Does this sound refreshing?
Over the past 6 years I have helped hundreds of people do just that and here is how. The first step is something that you can learn to do yourself, and that is to breathe. The simple act of breathing, is like a reboot of your system. Ever notice when you are stressed that you are holding your breath? You are doing this because you are holding all that stress energy inside. By consciously learning to breathe, consistently and abundantly, you will give yourself a mini vacation, an opportunity to release all that stress, relax your mind and your body, and be better able to handle what comes up in your day.
Getting adjusted allows you to find your own balance, to feel open
and heart-centered in your relationships, to nurture and find ease
in your core healing, and to uncover and free your natural, inner vitality.
and heart-centered in your relationships, to nurture and find ease
in your core healing, and to uncover and free your natural, inner vitality.
The second way, and the most effective way to create the changes inside of people, one that allows for balance, centeredness, core healing and inner vitality, is to get adjusted. In my office, we practice in a holistic manner, using a style of chiropractic called Network Spinal Analysis. You can visit Network Spinal Analysis, to read more about this amazing technique. The specific adjustment acts to help your body connect with the old tensions, release them, and most importantly through time, your own body develops strategies so that the next time it will know how to do it itself. Not only are we rebooting your system, but we are upgrading your system so you will in fact get better at handling your stress. I share this all the time with my new clients in our office, some of them are excited to hear this and some look at me in disbelief, and nearly all of them after just a short period of time under care report back to me how they are dealing better with their stresses, are generally happier and are feeling healthier than ever before.
What would change in your life if stress
became a small part of your life, something you easily handle,
and having consistent health and vitality became fun and amazing?
and having consistent health and vitality became fun and amazing?
I have heard on more than one occasion “Dr. Norm I just had a weekend from heck, and I feel great!” How cool is that? If you are up for a system upgrade, releasing the old stresses, and helping yourself better handle the new stresses, give us a call at The Lifehouse (Your beacon of health, healing and wellbeing) at 250 740 0333.
I would absolutely love to work with you in helping you say “Yes” to more of your life, in healthy and happy ways.
Until then open up, breathe and know you are worth it!
Yours in health,
Dr. Norm and The Lifehouse Team
