The Body of the Mind-Body Interaction
“Between 60 to 90 percent of visits to health care professionals are for stress-related problems.” writes Stacy Lu, in an article entitled, “Stress: It’s all in your head,” on today’s MSNBC News’ Health section on Mental Health. (Read the article here.) Lu’s conclusion for those so affected? “Relax. They’re just in your head.”
Not a bad idea, I might add, but can people relax, especially when they under the throes of stress? And what about those most harmed by chronic stress---the hard-chargers---those often referred to as Type A personalities? “Go easy on the hostility and impatience…” says MSNBC reporting on a recent National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute research study.
If I have this correct, the recommended therapy to best combat stress and it’s attendant harm upon our bodies and minds is to ‘relax and lighten up.’ Sounds simple enough to me, but deeper inspection reveals that merely prescribing this regimen is bound to failure as therapy for two major reasons: One is that it is not natural to relax, and by “natural” I could also say “adaptive” and mean the same thing. The other reason for failure is that people do not know how to relax and require training and practice before they can.
Back in 2000 I wrote in an article: “Psychosomatic: When Body and Mind Join Forces:”
“…relaxation; something highly desired, but not at all easily accomplished without training. One would think that a response which essentially involves less behavior, and not more, would be easy to learn. But we all apparently hearken, albeit unconsciously, to our primordial past when existence was truly perilous and ingrained vigilance and emergency reactions were frequently necessary for survival.
Most of us, before relaxation training, can only relax partially up to a certain predetermined (by each our own constitutions) point. Beyond that and we feel slight panic at letting go, like that experienced when one falls backward into a swimming pool, and we will pull ourselves abruptly back to a state of self-control.”
We don’t relax because we have been pre-programmed throughout the millennia of our evolution to put safety and survival first and foremost---it’s tough to relax in the raging jungle, and it’s downright unwise. Furthermore, if we do succumb to chronic stress by dying of hypertensive-related stroke when we are in our mid-fifties, it’s irrelevant to our progeny, who have already been born. Thus, the need for safety and survival carry us on as we charge hard through our young adult, and our reproductive, years---hypertension and stress be damned, it’s full speed ahead! Only later on, after our genes have been already bequeathed, do we reap the ravages of our youth’s intensely driven ambitions: chronic stress and all that comes with it.
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