Stress

Stress is anything that tends to disturb your state of balance, and requires some action for you to regain balance.  We all develop by facing stresses and challenges, and overcoming them. By doing so we strengthen our belief in ourselves, and our ability to cope.  However, if we do not fully overcome the stress or fully meet the challenge, perhaps because it is particularly disturbing or traumatic, that experience may produce imbalance in any part of our system: physiologically, emotionally, and at a profound energy level.

Bucket of Stress

Think of a bucket with a label on the side saying “STRESS”. From even before you were born, all the challenging events of life have been pouring into the top of that bucket. As you deal with them, the stress drains away through holes in the bottom of the bucket, so the level remains low. If you encounter something very challenging the level will go up for a while, but drop again as you deal with it. However, if you encounter some really sticky stuff, which you don’t deal with, it clogs up the holes in the bucket. It can’t drain away, and the normal stresses can’t be completely dealt with either, so the level in the bucket starts to rise.

Imagine that up the side of the bucket are marks. For each individual the marks will have different labels, like allergies, eczema, asthma, digestive problems, anxiety, panic attacks, immune system depletion.  As the stress level reaches each mark there may be a tendency for you to experience that problem. If the bucket fills up, you can take no more! This is where people shut off into deep depression, or take to alcohol or drug abuse or extreme behaviour, It is also up here that the most serious symptom labels are: maybe heart trouble or cancer. Notice that although it is the current day-to-day stress that causes the level to rise, the real problem lies in the murky bottom of the bucket.

The level in the bucket can be kept down by minimising the stress in your life; by maintaining a good life balance of work, rest and play; by eating healthily and so on. It may be lowered by relaxation techniques and therapies that help to bail out the bucket. The long-term solution is to clean out the sticky stuff in the bottom of the bucket. This is my aim as a kinesiology practitioner.