Stress Is a Decision
Photo by Brittney Bush, Flickr
Stress. The perfect precursor to a relapse. If you are living with MS, then you have likely had the experience of a stressful situation leading to the onset of symptoms, or at worst, a full-on flare-up. Any neurologist will tell you that stress lands patients in his exam room every day.
But the fact is we live in the world, not on a mountaintop, and it’s a modern, chaotic, fast-paced, unpredictable, ever-changing world at that. So how do you manage your stress so that you can stay healthy and symptom-free?
Well let’s start by defining stress. Stress is simply a force of the external world affecting the individual. However, how an individual responds to stress is a decision, and one with far-reaching consequences at that. Let me repeat that, because it’s really, really important:
Stress is a decision.
In fact, stress is a primary force of evolutionary change, and the species that adapted best to their environmental stressors have survived and evolved into the plants and animals we know today. Which is to say, learning how to respond to stress in a healthy manner is a matter of survival.
When the word “stress” is mentioned, it triggers for most people an overwhelming feeling in their body. Their muscles tighten and contract and they are gripped – both in body and psyche – by this monster under the bed we call stress. However, just before that happens – in one instantaneous moment – there’s a decision that’s being made to access stress, to decide, OK I’m going to do stress now. And guess who’s making that decision? Yes, that’s right, it’s you. For most people, that decision is made automatically. In fact, that decision was made once – twenty, thirty, maybe forty years ago, and has been on automatic ever since. But knowing that it’s you making the decision to run stress is amazingly liberating, because it means that it’s in your power to NOT run it. The trick is to slow down enough to realize that you CAN make a different decision. You can choose to be or not to be stressed.
Why is stress bad for us? It’s not…in the appropriate contexts. Let’s look at our flight-or-flight response. This response – in reaction to, for example, a hungry-looking bear you might encounter while hiking through the woods – includes the release of powerful neurotransmitters like adrenaline and cortisol, whose effects can be seen as a rapid heart rate, increased alertness, etc. But here’s the catch – these processes are awesome for getting away from the bear, because once you reach safety, the stress is over, and you can recover. But these days, the stresses we encounter are much more steady and constant and often we don’t know how to relieve them. This results in excessive, prolonged overstress, which can cause severe damage to our bodies.
If you have MS, or any chronic illness, you’re playing with much higher stakes than the average person. Choosing to run stress through your system often means choosing to be sick. Like I said earlier, stress is simply something that is happening that’s affecting you. It’s information. The emotional, physiological, and somatic (bodily) response you choose to have in response to it is up to you. When something comes up in my life that I find stressful, I make a picture of it on an imaginary scale in front of me, and then on the other side I put a picture of me suffering and symptomatic. When I weigh it like this, the information is never worth stressing about. NEVER. I can still take whatever action I need to take to address it, but I don’t have to run those chemicals through my system and make myself sick.
This is not easy. It goes against the way most of us have been interacting with stress our entire lives. But it can be done. What it requires is a fierce loyalty and commitment to our own well-being and health. It’s taken me a really long time to get this, and still there are a couple people in my life who provoke a stress response so intense from me that I need to slow down and choose, each and every time I interact with them, to NOT do stress. But the rewards of that choice are priceless.
When you consider choosing NOT stress, what are the contexts that you think will be the most challenging to make this shift? If you chose to stop running stress, how do you think your life would be different? What would change?
White light meditation is a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. If you want your free copy of my 21-minute white light meditation audio, just fill out your name and email in the box at the top right of this page and it’ll be in your inbox in moments, no strings attached. For more info on white light meditation, go here.
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I have MS and have severe stressors in my day to day life. I appreciate any help that you can give me.
Peace and Blessings to you!
Hi Lisa. Thanks for your comment. Without knowing the specifics of your situation, I can only speak generally, but my first instinct here is that if you have severe stressors in your day to day life, you need to make some changes! There are two major things you can do about stress: 1. Learn how to not run stress in your body, meaning learn to relax or meditate, or slow down enough that you can make the decision to not do it. 2. Begin cutting out the stressors that are in your life and redesigning your life so that those things are no longer present, or at least no longer effecting you in the same manner. There’s a big “how” attached to this second point, but again without knowing the specifics it would be difficult for me to address that.
Above all else though, the best thing you can do for yourself is to make the commitment to put your health before ANYTHING else in your life. Begin to cultivate a fierce loyalty to your own well-being, because only from that will you find the resolve to break the habit and not run stress through your system any longer. That said, if you’d like to chat on the phone for a bit I’m happy to make myself available for a few minutes to discuss what’s going on for you. Just send me an email to karen@theselfhealingcoach.com. And if you want to meditate you can try the free white light meditation available on the top right of the site. Hope this was useful.
Hi Karen. I’ve read several of your popular posts tonight & I have to say, this one on stress is the one I relate to the most! Diagnosed with MS in 2005, but symptomatic for years prior(hindsight being 20/20). I’ve been blessed with the support of family. I’ve had advice thrown at me & been in the medical “system” long enough now to see that pills are not always the solution. I do ramble.
I’m a middle-aged mom of two girls (one teen & one tween)…stressor #1, very different from eachother, but I’m grouping them together. I’m also still working full-time. It’s January & I’m an Accountant…that’d be #2. My Psychologist doesn’t really think I have OCD, at least not severe enough to label me or put it in my records, so far as I know. He does try to make me aware that I control what I allow to stress me. Rambling on…my spouse is a wonderfully supportive man. I still have injection anxiety, but he can’t even watch & insists that he won’t until he absolutely has to do this for me. I do hope that day never comes. He’s a family therapist & has practiced meditation himself for many years. My personal meditation has been very calming & helpful to me. I think knowing meditation techniques before my diagnosis & practicing (not as often as I should have) was also helpful to managing symptoms. The out-of-control feelings that come with MS & my natural knee-jerk reaction to some stress-situations is still a progression I’ve not overcome. I have people close to me & situations I cannot avoid that inevitably get under my skin. It’s not an easy thing to unlearn. It’s like being in a 12-step program. Every day I have to get up & affirm that I will (deep cleansing breath) make the most of this day. I have a picture on the back of my bedroom door. The first thing I see when I leave the peace of my room behind me…it reads: Practice divine compassion every day. Hug someone every day. I was never taught this skill…compassion. I’ve always been a bit cold and stoic. It is my choice to change my behavior & I am healthier for it. Oh, and my mother is a Registered Dietitian, which has both advantages & disadvantages. She’s always worked in the medical field since first working as a Candy Striper. Now she always reviews my blood work & I run ideas past her. No real reason for this comment, just wanted to let you know I like your posts & I’ll be back to read more. Thank you.
hi rachel. thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. i think most people were never taught compassion. i think our school systems got it all wrong and this should be one of the key lessons. it sounds like you understand the value of meditation for managing symptoms and that’s wonderful. i look forward to more of your comments in the future. thanks again.
I would love a copy of the meditation, but was told my email address is not valid????!!!!!!??????