Are you conscious of the situations where you can’t think straight, or where you have an uncontrollable surge of emotion? For a number of years researchers have known what happens when our brain, in layman’s terms,  switches to stress mode, or when it suffers from so called chronic stress. It is particularly tragic when the part of the brain responsible for judgments, decisions, planning and moral principles (the prefrontal cortex) shuts down partially or completely as a result.

These kinds of situations can occur briefly, however, there are a number of people in our society who suffer from this affliction for hours at a time, or who are permanently affected. This phenomenon is also well known in schools. 

Stress has both a physical and psychological impact on our bodies including symptoms such as increased health issues, behavioral problems, addictions, burn out, leading all the way to meaningless violence. The first symptoms of stress are a loss of energy, joy of life and drive; this can have a knock-on effect   leading to frustration at school or work. In a lot of situations, one feels like there is no real meaning to life. All of us, at some point, have gone through phases like this.

The stress phenomenon has taken on a life of its own in our society and we are all daily exposed to this very topic via the media. Experts and politicians have been trying to come up with solutions for dealing with stress, but so far unfortunately without much success.

In the reality in which we live, it is necessary to know and develop strategies against the stress mode in our brain which we can efficiently use on a daily basis. To train an integrated function in the brain is a key factor for the overall wellbeing, as well as healthy mental, physical and psychological state of being. The training of this ability should start ideally in school, in order to handle a stressful lifestyle successfully. The consequences of not doing so cost our society billions of Francs each year based on the “damages”.

What kind of tools have we been given along the way from our immediate environment, in order to successfully deal and handle all the stress factors? Almost none – mostly it is a question of how stress-resistant we become. This despite the fact that convincing scientific evidence has been available for years, regarding which methods we can use in order for our brain and system not to go into the so called stress modus.

It is important to keep our stress threshold stable at a high level, or when this breaks, to be able to quickly rebuild it to a high level. Any form of deep relaxation has this type of effect – the deeper the relaxation, the more efficient and the more often it is practiced, the more sustainable the results. The condition of deep relaxation, when practiced regularly, releases our system from blockages and stress which can’t even be reached in our deep sleep. The self-healing powers are animated, the regeneration is activated and decisively, our system starts to resonate again with the deep levels of our human being. Head, heart and the gut start functioning in an integrated way, fears disappear and a positive attitude towards life takes charge.  

There are a number of different techniques to relaxation and deep relaxation. As a rule of thumb, the different methods should be tried out in order to define which method is the most efficient in eliminating all of the above mentioned consequences of a stressful lifestyle.

More on this topic in the months to come……stay tuned!