STRESS
Reprinted from: MidValley Life 1(1):21-27, 1984.
by . Stephen I. Sideroff, Ph. D.
What is your reaction when you hear the word "stress?"
Most people that I speak to try and avoid it. You know it's
there and is probably affecting you, but if you can ignore it,
then maybe it doesn't exist. There are many misconceptions about
stress. With all the publicity on the subject, one can easily
get the message that stress is bad and should be eliminated.
At the same time, we seem to look for, and even desire, stress.
How is it possible to reconcile these two positions? It is almost
impossible to achieve success without encountering and engendering
a certain amount of stress. It is a necessary part of life.
The problem occurs when we lose control of our stress and when
we place too much stress on ourselves.
What is stress? To begin with, let me give a brief definition
of stress so you can see why it has become such a prevalent
word in our language. Stress results from any demand on us to
adapt ... to change either physically or emotionally. Stress
is our body's reaction to these demands. Stress can be your
reaction to an automobile cutting in front of you, a deadline
at work, conflict in a relationship, or a death in the family.
Stress is also caused by getting a promotion, taking on a challenging
or exciting project, getting married and having a baby, Stress
is not only caused by something happening to you directly.
If you believe you are in danger, even if the threat is not
real, this causes stress. When under stress, our body gears
up for an emergency. Our heart rate, blood pressure and breathing
increase. Hormones and sugar are released into the blood, muscles
tense and pupils dilate. We go on alert.
Is stress good or bad? The answer is yes. Stress is good and
stress is bad. The question really should be: "What is
good stress and what is bad stress?" All people who are
successful experience stress, since success always involves
taking risks. To live life to the fullest you cannot avoid all
stressful situations. In fact, studies have found that people
achieve peak performance when they are under a certain amount
of stress. So, you can see that we need stress in our lives
and that stress actually enhances our lives.
The problem occurs when we lose sight of our optimal level of
stress. While stress is good, too much stress is definitely
bad. Again, studies have found that beyond a moderate level,
stress begins to impair performance. It makes us less capable
of thinking creatively, of problem solving. Our thinking becomes
more stereotyped, making it difficult to explore new directions.
Too much stress, furthermore, makes one more susceptible to
disease. Hans Selye, the father of stress, has defined stress
as the 'wear and tear on the body'. He has also described aging
as the sum total of all the stress we place on our bodies. Some
medical experts estimate that between 50 percent and 90 percent
of medical problems have a stress component. How can this be?
Every time you undergo stress your body goes through changes
and reaches into its reserves to go all out, just as a car engine
will rev when you step on the gas to pass another vehicle. In
fact, our bodies are designed to be able to react in this way
to handle emergencies. The problem occurs when we make this
kind of demand on a regular, non-stop basis, and when we don't
take the time to relax our own 'personal' engine. When we make
too many situations 'emergencies', we wear out the resources
of our body. The resources needed to fight off disease, for
example. It is like taking a rubber band and stretching it.
And then, without letting it go back to its normal state, stretching
it again. You know what will happen... it breaks' This is also
true of your body . Placing too many demands on it without allowing
it to relax, results, after a while, in your inability to continue
responding.
Think about your typical day. In my workshops, I ask participants
to imagine sitting and watching a movie of their day, played
before them. Notice how much of the day you spend under pressure.
This can be time pressure, decision pressure, or personal interaction
discomfort. It can be financial pressure and it can be concern
over personal health. Many of the people that I work with notice
that they are jumping from one stressful situation to another
in the course of the day. They also discover that they rarely
give themselves time to unwind or relax. It is hard for them
to take a five minute break.
Resistance to getting stress under control. For many of us,
we believe we can go on at our fast pace forever, Or at least,
we say, until we become more financially stable. Or we have
some other way of fooling ourselves. The truth is that we are
afraid to slow down. We feel that we will be shirking our responsibilities
or considered lazy. As part of each person's program to reduce
stress is the exploration of what keeps the individual going
at a fast pace.
This is important because your reason for staying on a treadmill
acts as a strong resistance to any stress management program.
To facilitate one's awareness of this resistance. I like to
use a gestalt therapeutic technique in which the person has
a dialogue with their own "resister".
That is, playing both sides of the issue: The side that wants
to get stress under control and the side that feel's threatened
by what it perceives as any lowering of drive.
Why is stress control so important? I have already alluded to
the negative consequences of too much stress: Decreased creativity
and increased probability of illness. Let's explore this in
a little more detail so you, the reader, can check for your
own signs and symptoms of stress. Stress basically shifts our
body functions out of balance, leaving us less capable of responding
to situations, physically, emotionally and mentally. A major
source of stress is also what I call "unfinished business".
where we walk around with much on our mind. And even go to sleep
at night trying to solve or juggle a half dozen things.
The following is a partial list of signs and symptoms of stress
that is out of control: Stomach aches. ulcers. colitis, headaches,
high blood pressure. asthma and other respiratory problems.
stiffness in the neck, shoulders and back. trouble falling asleep
or staying asleep, muscle twitches and aches, arthritis, proneness
to anger and yelling, forgetfulness, depression, impatience,
inflexibility, quick temper, fatigue, compulsive eating or smoking,
overuse of drugs and alcohol (don't fool yourself here), teeth
grinding, working harder but accomplishing less, difficulty
concentrating, wanting to run away from your responsibilities.
As you can see, it is difficult to avoid the influence of stress
in our lives. As I tell my workshop participants, getting stress
under your control will make the difference in your quality
of life. It can also help to make you more successful. Think
of any of the above symptoms you may be experiencing. How much
better could you perform if they were reduced, or if you didn't
need to control them with drugs?
How to handle stress. Keeping your body in good condition is
a first step in managing stress. When you take care of yourself
through good nutrition and the proper exercise you are making
yourself more tolerant to the negative effects of stress. But
this not enough. Recently I was referred a patient who had a
severe heart attack. This occurred in spite of the fact that
this person ran two miles each day, was conscientious about
diet and nutrition and was at an ideal weight. The missing piece
was a very stressful life.
I am finding more and more people these days are turning to
drugs and alcohol to counter the effects of stress. How many
people whom you know routinely use some form of drug in the
evening to bring them down ... or up, and to help them fall
asleep or get their work done ... is this true for you? The
use of drugs in this context is very dangerous since it simply
masks the imbalance in your body. Your body, through aches,
pains and other symptoms, is giving you a message and it is
ignored. This is like driving down the freeway in your automobile
and seeing the red oil light go on. In this situation, do you
think you would take a hammer and smash the red light? Certainly
not - you would immediately have it taken care of. Yet we regularly
ignore the red signals our body sends out.
One of the main reasons we turn to the use of drugs and alcohol
to feel better is that many of us don't know the alternatives
or other ways of getting control of our lives. The goal of my
program, whether it is for an individual, group or corporation,
is to learn new ways of getting control of stress. In future
articles, I will discuss cognitive techniques that will help
you avoid unnecessary stress in the first place. This has to
do with situations in which your interpretation of another person's
motives or feelings (she must not like me, etc.) creates stress;
situations in which your lack of assertiveness results in more
stress.
I will also look at time management and other techniques as
ways to avoid unnecessary stress. For the remainder of this
article I shall focus on a relatively new procedure called biofeedback.
Bioleedback: the natural way to relax and control stress. Just
as our body has a mechanism to deal with emergency situations.
as described earlier, we also have an opposite system that allows
us to recuperate and build up new body resources- The problem
is that most of us lost the ability to use this system after
becoming adults. Even when we have the time to relax. we manage
to find something to do to keep busy. For many of us it just
does not seem right to take time off and do nothing. How many
of you wake up in the morning feeling like a truck just ran
over you? For many of us, sleep itself is not totally relaxing
since we have difficulty shutting off our minds from all of
our unfinished business and we fall asleep with our muscles
remaining tense.
Biofeedback is a technique I have been using to help people
relearn how to relax and to help people turn on their own recuperative
powers and be able to relax and regenerate. Biofeedback uses
a sensitive machine to monitor some biological system, such
as muscle tension, heart rate or skin temperature. This information
is then fed back to the person in the form of a signal that
can be seen or heard. For example, you know that when you feel
tense or nervous your palms begin to sweat and get clammy, The
technical term for this is galvanic skin response or GSR. The
more relaxed you get, the less moisture is present on your skin.
GSR biofeedback monitors this moisture and feeds back a signal
which lets you know whether you are getting more tense or more
relaxed. During the biofeedback portion of my program, I give
participants strategies or suggestions on relaxation. The feedback
from the machine lets them know of minute changes in their body
- such as a successful lowering of tension - that they would
not otherwise be aware of. This immediate reinforcement, a change
in tone or other signal, makes it more likely that the participant
will repeat the relaxing behavior.
Through continued practice, one is soon able to reduce the tension
without the machine. The ultimate goal is to be able to independently
detect when tension begins out in the real world, and to use
the learned techniques to lower the tension and thus keep stress
under control.
In addition to helping people to relax, biofeedback has been
important tool in my treatment of headaches, high blood pressure,
colitis, insomnia and anxiety. Perhaps most important about
biofeedback is the new level of awareness my clients acquire
from the training. One of our defenses against stress as mentioned
above, is to numb ourselves to the fact that we are feeling
tense or feeling any other symptom. Biofeedback gives us a new
window into ourselves. My clients develop an exquisite sense
of when their body starts to get out of balance and then they
have the ability to correct the imbalance before problems are
created.
It is possible for you to experience a simple form of biofeedback
without any special equipment. When we are tense and under stress,
peripheral blood vessels constrict, causing blood to flow away
from hands and feet and toward our vital organs. When this happens,
the temperature of our hands goes down. Skin temperature feedback
can be
accomplished by using a thermometer taped to a finger. The goal
is to increase the temperature reading of the thermometer -
indicating more blood flow to the hands, resulting from successful
relaxation.
If you try this, I suggest making yourself comfortable and eliminating
any distractions. After you tape the thermometer to your finger
and note the temperature, take some deep breaths. Make a 'sighing'
sound as you exhale. For about 15 minutes imagine your hands
getting warmer. You might think of the sun shining brightly,
or placing your hands around a warm cup or candle. After 15
minutes, note the temperature again and notice how you feel.
Do you feel more relaxed? An increase in temperature indicates
that your body is in a greater state of relaxation.
For my training, I use home - training biofeedback units called
GSR2 . They allow me to monitor GSR and also have attachments
for skin temperature and muscle tension feedback.
Comments.
There are two general ways in which we can handle stress:
1) Encountering fewer stressful situations during the day -
in other words, spacing stressful events further apart, and
2) Learning to relax when we are not under stress. Most of us
have developed habits that result in constant stress with no
time to relax.
Stress management involves setting goals and organizing your
life in the best possible manner. This article describes one
method -biofeedback, that can help you keep your stress under
control and thus be more successful.
Dr. Sideroff is a clinical psychologist and is on the faculty
of the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, UCLA, and
at the VA Medical Center, Brentwood, as well as in private practice.
He has published numerous articles in the area of psychology,
behavioral medicine and cardiovascular control. He has taught
and served as a consultant for professionals and corporations
in the United States, Canada and Europe. Dr. Sideroff is an
expert in the area of stress management and psychosomatic medicine.
His clinical practice is oriented toward helping people achieve
their full potential.
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