Why Do We Need To Relax?

Stress and relaxation are opposite sides of the same coin, and both are necessary for a healthy life. When they are in balance all is well, but if stress predominates, illness often develops – the possible consequences can range from headaches, anxiety and lethargy through to heart attacks, ulcers or cancer. But while experts agree that stress plays a part in the onset and course of many disorders, it should be emphasised that not all stress is a bad thing. Even the best of times, like getting married, receiving a job promotion, going on holiday, or having a baby, are stressful, but good for you. All stress comes from two basic sources: physical activity and mental or emotional activity.

Emotional frustration is more likely to cause stress – related disease, such as ulcers, than any type of physical work, through overwork accompanied by failure or lack of purpose can lead to exhaustion and even breakdown. However, the absence of work is no cure, and being excessively relaxed and indifferent to stress would mean missing out on all the wonderful feelings that add spice to life: euphoria. Examples are: excitement, heightened awareness of sounds, colour, and smells; exhilaration, a sense of triumphing over the odds; and the heady scent of success. A well adjusted approach to life’s inherent pressures implies the juggling of all kinds of stress, both positive and negative, in order to achieve the balance we strive for.

The physical response to the stress of real or imagined threat is as old as human existence, and it is this very instinctive response that creates the problem. The ‘fight or flight’ response, as it is known, was well suited to our ancestors; unfortunately, nowadays many of the things that trigger our stress reactions do not require this response. We cannot run out of a meeting that we feel is going badly, or punch the chairman in the nose if, that is, we wish to keep our jobs. We cannot run from a traffic jam or a supermarket queue, unless we are willing to lose the car and the groceries.

The word ‘stress’ is taken from engineering jargon. In essence it means the deformation or change caused on a body by the internal forces that work on it. The maximum stress a body can with stand and still return to it’s normal state is known as its ‘ elastic limit’. This applies to people, too, an individual has his or her own elastic limit, both in terms of degree and type of stress. It is when the body is put under long- term stress that it can reach its snapping point; if it does the damage can be irreparable.

The stress response – ‘fight or flight’ – breaks down, in physiological terms, into three stages:-

1. Ready – the treat is appreciated and the brain evaluates all the information’ the initial information is amplified through an instantaneous heightening of the senses. The whole process takes fractions of a second.

2. Steady – the body prepares for action, and chemical messages, called hormones, are released by the brain to flood through the body, carried by the bloodstream. At the same time electrical impulses are fired through the system directly to the appropriate parts of the body. There are two types of nervous systems:-

• The voluntary, conscious system that is under our mental control – when, for example, we put a hand to pick something up.
• The voluntary, or autonomic system. This system controls the body without the need for conscious thought (though on occasion it can be influenced by conscious thought) 24 hours a day. It controls the body’s vital organs and maintains a balance between their various functions. The autonomic system consists of two parts:-

The sympathetic system which mainly controls the stress response and has a similar effect to the hormone system described below.

The parasympathetic system which deals mainly with the digestion, fights off infection, controls the immune response and tries to conserve energy. For example, during starvation (or excessive dieting) the parasympathetic system lessens the body’s requirement for food, so that it can survive longer. This also means that at the end of a diet the body’s requirement for food is lowered and the parasympathetic system will greedily grasp all the food products that are available and store them as fat.

• The hormones, released in steady, trigger the production of further hormones by two areas of the mid – brain (a primitive part of the brain) called the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. These messengers, in their turn, stimulate the release of further hormones in other glands, such as the adrenal glands above the kidneys.
• Adrenalin - produced by the adrenal glands, increases the rate of breathing and increases the sugar in the blood – this energy source is diverted to the muscles.
• Endorphins, the body’s own pain – relieving chemicals, which are produced in the brain, inhibit the appreciation of pain and give a feeling of euphoria.
• Cortisol, also from the adrenal glands, increases the rate at which blood clots, and supplies energy to the vital organs by releasing stored fat in the form of glucose.

3. Go – both the actions of the sympathetic nervous system and the release of hormones have the effect of immediately increasing the level of oxygen in the lungs and the speed and efficiency with which this is transferred to the muscles. In addition, glucose stored in the body (in the form of glycogen) is released to give extra energy – power to the muscles.

• The parasympathetic system reduces its activity and diverts some of the supply of blood and nutrients from the internal organs, to augment the supply to the heart, lungs and muscles.
• The brain switches to a ‘super – charged’ state, with all the senses acute and alert to every nuance of vision, smell, hearing and atmosphere.

What we have described is the body’s response to a ‘full alert’. Generally, though, we do not go past ‘ready’ and rarely in modern life do we need to reach ‘go’, except when taking exercise. This is why we suffer from so many symptoms of stress. The body is continually being prepared for ‘fight or flight’, but then has no where to go. Modern, civilised modes of behaviour do not allow us to go on the next stage. The body can dissipate a certain amount of the response, but when the stimulus is prolonged or excessive, and when there is no response, the ability to dissipate it fails, and the mechanism of the response, the ability to dissipate it fails, and the mechanism of the response ends up by attacking the body that is trying to protect. The attack results in tension, stress, a lack of relaxation and a variety of signs and symptoms, some of which can have serious effects in the long term.

For our purposes, it does not matter whether the threat to which the body is responding is real or imaginary, since a threat that is purely in the mind is just as real, as far as the body is concerned, as one that is tangible, physical and close. Equally, people who kid themselves that there is no threat, or at least, that they can cope with any threat that does exist, when in reality they cannot, will still suffer from stress symptoms as well. These two aspects of the problem often tend to set up a vicious circle, in which minor stresses create worry and uncertainty, which then become major threats, which in turn cause major stress, and so on.