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at choice, choices, Effective living, Kebba, living beyond, stress, Stress causes, Stress Management
© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.
What’s stressing you out?
As a stress management expert and holistic guide, I hear people describe their stress every day. What they are usually describing are the stress symptoms, not the causes– headaches, stiff necks, back pain, legs that ache, feet that burn… the list goes on and on. They are often grasping a body part that hurts, or rubbing points on the face. Many of these people didn’t realize they “had stress” until something began to hurt. Their bodies tell them when stress causes are too much.
A second group I talk with are the ones looking for strategies and solutions for the causes of their stress: conflicts, unmet needs, and circumstances. Here’s a chart of these causes:
Stress Sources
CONFLICTS
Difficult People
Available Time vs. Needs and Goals
Available Resources vs. Needs and Goals
Personal Values vs. Values of an Authority Figure
Worry/Anxiety About These
UNMET NEEDS
Unmet Emotional Needs
Unmet Physical Needs
Pain, Chronic Health Conditions
Limited Body Mobility
Old Emotional Agendas
Feeling Limited Or Trapped
UNEXPECTED EXTERNAL FACTORS
Significant Personal Loss (Death of Spouse or Child, Job Loss)
Significant Community Loss (9/11 Attacks, Superstorm Sandy, COVID19 Pandemic)
Do you have any of these stress sources in your life? Of course you do! We all do. What we need to keep in mind is that stress symptoms in the body can turn into conditions and diseases. In Oriental medicine, this is area-specific; each emotion affects a particular part of the body.
Shutterstock photo
One of my mentors said this:
“Stress is probably ultimately the underlying cause of all disease.”
–Dr. Gladys T. McGarey MD, MD(H)
Medical research has proven that stress is a factor in human health conditions, especially depression, heart disease, HIV/Aids, and some virally caused cancers. In a review of a range of medical studies, psychology professor Sheldon Cohen, of Carnegie Melon University, found two pathways by which stress might increase how sick we are.
Stress creates changes that may, in turn, cause or increase illness.
First, stressed people don’t sleep well and are less likely to take care of themselves and follow doctors’ orders. Second, stress impacts the body’s endocrine system, which should be releasing certain patterns of hormones that affect the immune system and inflammation. Stress creates changes that create changes that may, in turn, cause or increase illness. Cohen found a strong relationship between stress and depression, especially in people with strong social stress factors, like a divorce or the death of someone they love. Workplace stress and other forms of chronic stress, however, were more likely to contribute to heart disease. Since 2000, a number of studies have also shown that there is a link between stress and HIV/AIDS. No doubt upcoming studies will relate stress and COVID19 symptomology.
Given the Pandemic we are living with currently, it seems wise to manage our stress as well as we can, to stay as well as we can. There are so many tools for dissolving stress and its symptoms: attitude/philosophy, developing personal peace, breathwork, diet, exercise, meditation, energy therapies. We’ll discuss those more in upcoming articles.
Stress can be costly, and this is your life! Wouldn’t you rather be Healthy, Happy, and Loving Lifesm? It’s up to you!
Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM, is a stress solutions expert, holistic guide, and award-winning author who celebrates life. She has a longtime energy healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within: Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine. The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office. To email us, kebba@kebba.com .
Books by Kebba Buckley Button
Recently, on an idyllic beach on the coast of Brazil, dozens of people were sunning, relaxing, and swimming. The day was easygoing and calm. Suddenly, lumps appeared in the inbound surf. As they got closer, it became clear that there were about 30 of them. People started walking to the water’s edge to stare in disbelief. It was a group of creatures swimming vigorously toward the shore. They were actually dolphins, headed the wrong way. Beached, they would not survive. The people watching quickly began to experiment with ways to help. The first tried grasping a dolphin by its fins, pulling it back toward the surf. Others saw it was difficult to grip the fins and pull the dolphin, so they tried grasping the tails of other dolphins. Soon, a number of compassionate humans were grasping dolphins and turning them back into the surf. The redirected dolphins then raced away in exactly the direction they had come from, toward deep waters. The day before, would any of these people have thought they would know how to help save a group of dolphins? They had no experience with redirecting confused dolphins. Yet, out of concern for creatures in distress, this group of people promptly pitched in and experimented, successfully saving all of these dolphins. 
Healthy Happy Loving Life! 