Stress And Meditation

There are several definitions or desriptions of stress. Sometimes the term is being used as indication of a certain situation or stimulus. But sometimes stress is being understand as the psychological, physiological and chemical changes, that are the consequence of this. To prevend confusion between both definitions, one makes a distinction between a stressor (the condition that causes stress), and the stressrespons (the reaction of the stressor). The word stress point to the proces as an outcome of the stressor, and at the same moment is a cause for the stressrespons.

It means that we get alarming signals from our body that we have denied for a long time. Or maybe worse: we didn't recognise those signals! In fact stress can be compared, when it's levels get to high, with the injuries, of a boxer during or after a fight: he's bleeding and full of blue spots, but he doesn't feel the pain, untill he loses his consciousness (knock out).

In this broad definition of stress even a pleasant situation can cause tensions that can be described as stress, like the day of a wedding or going on holiday. Also one can speak of positive stress when a person prepares himself mentaly or physicaly for a game, a special performance on the job, and so on. After sometime the tension disapears and the body returns in a state of relaxation. When stress is not in the interest of a person and is being experienced as a bad event, we speak of negative stress. It's for certain that especially negative tensions are a risk for the health, becauze they have the biggest and more prolonged effects on the central and autonomous nervous system.

When stress has got it's grip on you, it will take some time to recover from it's negative impulses on your body and mind. One can go on a short vacation or take a day off. In most cases people with stress take tranquillizers. But the forget one thing: they should be aware of the beginning of stress, so that they don't have to search for a solution when it's to late.
To become aware of stress when it's building up, you should learn yourself to feel your body. It means that you realy should learn to feel, because you never gave your body enough attention, except when thing went wrong. But then it's too late. You ask yourself what kind of pain is this? Or in which part of my body I do feel the pain?

But you can also feel your body when you have no pain at all. Like in yoga ar form of body enough attention.

There is a little practical exercise to begin with: Feel your body with both sides at the same time. Start with feeling the palms of your hand. Then feel the rest of your hands and arms. You can continue with feeling the rest of your body. But you must take care not to stop when you arrive at the topmost part of your body: the head. So also feel your head on both sides. Feel the energy in it in a postivie kind of way.
The best advice I can give you is to set in a chair every morning. Lower your head a little bit an feel your body from both sides, beginning with your hands. After a couple of days you are aware of the stress when it's building up in your body. And by doing this simple excercise the stress will disappear.

By: Dick Lukas

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The author Dick Lukas works for Tijl-Publishers which is publishing books about Dutch politics and the house of Orange. Some titles will also be translated in English in the near future and will be sold at Amazone.com