“Is my pain due to stress?” “My headaches seem to be brought on by stress.” “I am under so much stress.” “This has been a stressful year.” “I’m so stressed out.” I get asked about stress all the time yet I have never written an article about it. It’s just too stressful to write about a topic as stress-inducing as stressJ You see what I did there? The reasons I have never written about it is that it is too broad a subject, there is little humor in it, everybody has a slightly different definition of it, and everybody handles it their own way and in their own time. Stress does not fit in the single page format I have developed. But there is one effect of stress that needs to be discussed, that fits in this format, that relates to everybody’s health, and that affects your chiropractic care. This effect of stress is what I call AMPLIFICATION.
Aunt Bea is prone to migraines. Sarah has stomach cramps. Gregory’s eye twitches. Sam gets heart palpitations. Connie suffers from asthma. John’s lower back gets tied up in knots. Allison has a contemptuous gall bladder. Tammy’s sciatic nerve radiates electric shocks down her leg. Rick has ringing in his ears. Barry drinks. Bart smokes. And on and on it goes. Our bodies are fragile. We are born with genetic coding polluted by thousands of generations of mutations. Our lives are subject to what I constantly refer to as time, life and gravity (TLG). Bad diet, oxidative chemicals, polluted air, toxic water. We all have a physical, mental, social, or spiritual weakness or two, or three, or …
Look at your own weaknesses. They are CAUSED by genetic coding being subject to years of TLG. You had fewer weaknesses when you were born, perhaps none. As an adult you can list them out. Some people do list them out. They carry a list of medications for them in their purse or wallet. And then some are completely preoccupied with their weaknesses. They talk to complete strangers in the grocery line about them. Your weaknesses are typically EXPRESSED more as you get older, as your body becomes less able to adapt around them. But your weaknesses are AMPLIFIED by stress. When your stress level gets higher you will find that whatever it is that you have as a weakness, it will be expressed at a higher level, more severely, more often, amplified.
While stress AMPLIFIES your weaknesses, stress does not CAUSE your weaknesses. The reason why I make this distinction is important. If you are seeking to CURE the CAUSE of your weakness, getting rid of stress (an entirely impossible act anyway) will not cure the cause, only reduce the amplification. While I am all for reducing the amplification of my personal weaknesses, I know that to rid myself of that weakness, to cure the cause of that weakness, I will have to look long and hard at things other than my stressors to do that. As an example, if I had heart disease, I will not cure it by reducing stress at work. It is great and perhaps necessary to reduce the stress, but to cure my heart disease I will have to eat better, exercise and take better care of myself. I will have to change my life.
As a conclusion consider this; if you blame your weaknesses on stress you are resigning yourself to a life dominated by that weakness, unwilling to face the real change necessary to fix or cure that weakness, because the truth is that you will never get rid of the stresses in life until your body is done with this life. Confront stress. Sometimes embrace stress. Deal with stress. For cures, however, look for real CAUSE.
Aunt Bea is prone to migraines. Sarah has stomach cramps. Gregory’s eye twitches. Sam gets heart palpitations. Connie suffers from asthma. John’s lower back gets tied up in knots. Allison has a contemptuous gall bladder. Tammy’s sciatic nerve radiates electric shocks down her leg. Rick has ringing in his ears. Barry drinks. Bart smokes. And on and on it goes. Our bodies are fragile. We are born with genetic coding polluted by thousands of generations of mutations. Our lives are subject to what I constantly refer to as time, life and gravity (TLG). Bad diet, oxidative chemicals, polluted air, toxic water. We all have a physical, mental, social, or spiritual weakness or two, or three, or …
Look at your own weaknesses. They are CAUSED by genetic coding being subject to years of TLG. You had fewer weaknesses when you were born, perhaps none. As an adult you can list them out. Some people do list them out. They carry a list of medications for them in their purse or wallet. And then some are completely preoccupied with their weaknesses. They talk to complete strangers in the grocery line about them. Your weaknesses are typically EXPRESSED more as you get older, as your body becomes less able to adapt around them. But your weaknesses are AMPLIFIED by stress. When your stress level gets higher you will find that whatever it is that you have as a weakness, it will be expressed at a higher level, more severely, more often, amplified.
While stress AMPLIFIES your weaknesses, stress does not CAUSE your weaknesses. The reason why I make this distinction is important. If you are seeking to CURE the CAUSE of your weakness, getting rid of stress (an entirely impossible act anyway) will not cure the cause, only reduce the amplification. While I am all for reducing the amplification of my personal weaknesses, I know that to rid myself of that weakness, to cure the cause of that weakness, I will have to look long and hard at things other than my stressors to do that. As an example, if I had heart disease, I will not cure it by reducing stress at work. It is great and perhaps necessary to reduce the stress, but to cure my heart disease I will have to eat better, exercise and take better care of myself. I will have to change my life.
As a conclusion consider this; if you blame your weaknesses on stress you are resigning yourself to a life dominated by that weakness, unwilling to face the real change necessary to fix or cure that weakness, because the truth is that you will never get rid of the stresses in life until your body is done with this life. Confront stress. Sometimes embrace stress. Deal with stress. For cures, however, look for real CAUSE.