silvia@hummingbirdmindtherapy.uk 
Grab a drink, get a seat and take this one in. Take action this month to reduce stress. 
Stress is something that will be talked about many times I am sure in this members area as time goes by. I think it is such an important subject however that I feel it needs this attention. 
 
Now I know this is your down time and I’m hoping you are nicely settled by now with a cup of something lovely so I wont go on too much about facts and figures. What I have found is that sometimes when we do take some time to look at facts it does help to put our emotions and feelings into perspective and give them a different level of understanding. The thing is, when we are stressed, logical thinking is very hard. How cruel is that? When we need our minds to work their best , we really need them to be there for us, the stress actually stops them. 
 
Why then, what is actually going on in there ? 
 
First thing to remember, our brains primary response is to keep us safe and its been like this since we evolved into humans. We were designed this way to keep us safe in a very risky environment where we could at any point be eaten by a large animal. 
 
Our minds are set up with a very efficient response system that tell us what to do when we are under attack. It tells us to either run away or attack and these actions are all designed to keep us safe. 
Messages are sent from out pituitary gland in the brain to our adrenal glands. The adrenal gland is where adrenalin and cortisol are produced. These hormones are sent all around the body enabling us to do what we need to keep safe. They super charge the body and override our conscious thinking. 
 
That seems like something out of a batman film when you think about it like this. I have visions of toxic green liquid pumping into our bodies changing us into super human beings and its not far off in reality. 
 
This is the very interesting if not a bit scary thing I want to share. This happens to our bodies when we are in actual threat. Great, that’s very helpful, thank you, but it happens when we are in perceived threat also. Ill talk more about this later. 
 
Ideally when we are out of threat….the large animal has gone away…. the adrenal glands calm down and our body relaxes. 
What we know about trauma is that while this does happen sometimes, our minds can be so effected by the event that they don’t calm down and the cortisol and adrenalin just keeps on flowing through the body. The threat has gone but we perceive the threat as present so the body reacts in the same way. 
 
What happens next ? We develop anxiety, we develop depression, we suffer with all the symptoms of these serious conditions. Inability to sleep, irritability, lack of concentration, sadness, worry, overthinking, over eating, under eating, and the list goes on. 
These symptoms can begin to effect all aspects of our life understandably. 
 
I want to go back to threat. Actual threat, we know about that but what about perceived threat ? 
Our body will produce these stress hormones if it thinks we are under threat even if this is untrue. It happens as I have said, after a traumatic event when the mind struggles to believe in a way that they are safe but it also happens when our minds thinks about things that have not happened. 
Here I am referring to worry. Worry is usually something we do about things that are out of our control or things that have not happened yet. They might happen, yes that’s true but they haven’t actually happened. Our minds don’t know the difference so they sent out signals once again to the adrenal glands. 
 
How easy is it to just switch off worry then ? Some things do worry us, it’s just life isn’t it ? I think to a certain degree it is. Of course things happen and we worry about them but its what we do with that worry that helps our bodies and our minds to settle and return to a state of calm and focus. 
There are so many things we can do to relieve stress in the body and worry in the mind so this is excellent news and guess what ? You are already ahead of the game by being a hummingbird member because every task you follow, video you watch and 5 minutes you take to switch off is teaching your brain how to combat worry and stress. Your physical body as well as your mind will be super grateful for this. 
 
Doing things you love and enjoy, exercise, meditate, eat well. These are all things that will reduce stress in your mind and your body and the key is to make them a normal part of your life, not just something you do when you have time, once in a while, because the things that cause stress can be all around us. The media, screens, relationships, work, family, environmental stress, diet, health. These are all everyday occurrences in our lives to combatting them needs to be too. 
 
Look out for this months journal prompt for more and as always if you have any questions let me know. 
Questions, or comments? I'm here to help. You can leave a comment or query below, or contact us if you want a confidential conversation. 
Tagged as: Stress
Share this post:

Leave a comment: 

 
Our site uses cookies. For more information, see our cookie policy. Accept cookies and close
Reject cookies Manage settings