Recently, I’ve been taking up some workshops around trauma treatment. The professor made a wild claim at the beginning of the session. He said, “I will teach you something today that would mean you will not have stress for the rest of your life.”

Really?

It seemed incredulous to me as well. But as you will see: from theory and then practice… the claim is not as far fetched as it seems.

Let’s make a list of the things that are stressing us out today. Likely, nothing on the list at this moment is putting me in danger. They COULD put me in danger, but I am safe right now

When there is a perceived threat, your body swings into a chemical reaction. We call this sympathetic dominance. In other words, you’re in flight or fight mode. Put in another word, you’re experiencing the symptoms of stress.

Take this list for example, and see if it matches your stress reactions:

Aggressive; Reactive; Hostile; Poor Focus; Fidgety

Or

Freezing; Emotional numbing; Sad; Withdrawn

These are the proper behaviours related to a body in sympathetic dominance.

One of the hallmarks of whether you are in fight for flight mode is a tensed body. Put in other words:

The moment you relax all the muscles in your body. You switch off sympathetic dominance and go into para-sympathetic mode. Which means that as long as you are in a relaxed muscle body, you cannot experience the symptoms of stress.

Try it. Completely relax all the muscles in your body and hold it for 10 seconds.

Do you feel stress? No.

It’s impossible. How does this mean I won’t have stress for the rest of my life?

The answer is simple but not easy. From now on… do a constant quick check within your body. Is it tense? Relax… and move forward. The relaxation doesn’t have to be long. But for a moment, you will bring yourself out of stress. This allows you to respond properly to your stressful situations.

Reach out to any of our associates, and we can help you learn better relaxation techniques to deal with stress. Click HERE.