No-one is going to relax for you…
Tap dripping? Ring a plumber.
Broken lock? Ring a locksmith.
Cricked back? Ring a physio.
Fuse blown? Ring an electrician.
Stressed? What then?
The issue with stress is that it is an entirely ‘inside’ response to outside stimuli. It’s the deepest parts of your mind and body working together to release hormones and physiological resources because of perceived threats. In the animal world, that might be a threat to territory or food sources or mates but crucially, without language and conceptual thought, animals experience stress only when the stressor is present – another dog, walrus, stag or a predator.
For us lowly humans however our brains allow us to recreate stress and trigger that cocktail of internal chemicals/processes even when we are lying in bed. We can worry about tomorrow’s meeting. We can worry about what we said wrong in today’s meeting. Our thoughts curse us but we can’t ring a Destresser.
Yes, a massage or spa weekend or some aromatherapy can help but ultimately unless we strive to understand the root causes of our stress and tackle them head on, we are just masking.
Many Adeki clients see the results of our HRV testing – a good method for visualising our stress loads – and see what they always knew: too much stress, too little good sleep, too little day time recovery.
The next question is one we have all learned from our co-founder and Olympian, Leon Taylor…. “So what are you going to do about it?” And this is key. The only real discipline is self-discipline – because everything else hangs off it – and we exercise it in recognising, understanding and tackling our own stress.
A dog needs no help to relax. It sleeps when stress is absent. For humans, the challenge is more complex but it starts from a simple premise:
It’s down to us.
If you’d like to find out more about how Adeki can help you to help yourself when it comes to stress, get in touch. We’d be delighted to help.