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By Julia Rymut;

Causes of Stress

The causes of stress are many–from the big, lifetime occurrences like loosing a loved one or loosing your job, to the small, daily stressors like getting a parking ticket and talking with your child’s teacher about her latest grades. Sometimes the causes are physical–an illness or injury, and other times they are mental–a fight or a difficult deadline.

In everyone’s life, we have stress. Understanding the what causes stress can help us to better manage our stress, to anticipate what we need to do to cope, and make arrangements to reduce the stressors as much as possible.

Typical Causes of Stress

Woman Caring for her Elderly Father

  • Your job–especially jobs like nursing, or changing jobs.
  • School–exam time is particularly stressful
  • Moving
  • Relationships
  • Financial difficulties
  • Marriage–getting married or having a troubled marriage
  • Death
  • Pregnancy and having a baby in the house
  • Caring for an aging parent
  • Injury or illness of you or someone close to you

Demographic Groups that are Prone to Extra Stress

  • Women
  • Children
  • Students
  • Minorities
  • The Poor

Traits and Attitudes that Increase Stress

  • “Type A” personalities/overachievers
  • Rigid, inflexible thinkers when coping with change
  • Pessimists

Spiritual Causes of Stress

Yin Yang Symbol

  • Questioning “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “Do I matter?” Teenagers can experience this type of stress.
  • Not being in the now. Anticipating and fearing the future and replaying the past.
  • Resistance. Wanting things to be different than they are adds an additional layer of stress to whatever is happening.
  • Not knowing what is important. Chasing false ideals (money, fame, etc) and forgetting what matters to you most causes stress when your success seems empty.
  • Not knowing what is really a true threat. When we worry about unimportant things (or worry at all), we create stress but don’t create action to resolve the threat.
  • Lack of connection with God, creativity, beauty.

Spiritual stress may be the most amorphous of the stressors. We hardly recognize an existential crisis in our busy everyday lives, and yet often at the root of stress, we have lost our connection with the Divine. We yearn for meaning, security, a sense of place. When we are in touch with the Divine, often very stressful situations pass easily. A death becomes a tender farewell. A financial crisis becomes a chance to reprioritize. A lost job becomes an opportunity to do something more fulfilling.

Our lives have stress. The lists above demonstrate that the people who don’t have a stressor in their live are a smaller group than the people who do. So while the causes of stress are important to understand, what is more important is that we learn tocope with the stress that inevitably comes our way.

Filed Under: Causes of Stress, Stress Articles Tagged With: stress and health, stressors

By Julia Rymut;

Relieving Asthma and Stress Naturally

When asthma and stress come together, they can compound the symptoms of both. Fortunately, there are some natural ways to relieve both and get you breathing again.

Stress induced asthma can plague both children and adults. Stress is never the sole cause of asthma; stress, however, can trigger an attack. To understand stress induced asthma it is helpful to understand the physical factors involved in the asthma and stress.

Asthma

Asthma symptoms include wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath. During an attack, you may feel like you are being suffocated, because the muscles around your bronchial passages tighten, blocking the passage of air. Air moving through these constricted airways produces the wheezing sound so characteristic of asthma.

If you have asthma, you will also experience inflammation of the bronchial tubes; your airways swell, making breathing even more difficult. Your asthma attacks may be triggered by even small amounts dust, pollen, fumes, or animal dander. You will find you are much more sensitive to these environmental factors than people who do not have asthma. Stress induced asthma can also be triggered by an emotional upset.

The Relationship between Asthma and Stress

Western medicine has been puzzled over the mechanisms involved in stress induced asthma.

It is normal for stress to produce increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system; your blood pressure rises and your air passages dilate (open wider) in preparation to deal with the stress; after the stress, your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to return your body to a normal, calm state.

If you have asthma your body may respond to stress with more activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, than of the sympathetic nerve system. This constricts the airways and can lead to an asthma attack.

The reasons for this are not clear and so treatment in the West has centered on reducing asthma symptoms, rather than treating the underlying causes of the problem.

Alternative healing systems, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine approach asthma and stress with a holistic focus instead of a symptom-based approach.

Traditional Chinese Medicine: Build your Defenses

Yin Yang SymbolAccording to traditional Chinese Medicine, the three pathogenic factors of Wind, Cold or Heat are responsible for causing the muscle spasms which tighten the bronchial passages during an asthma attack. These factors are forms of energy. Wind causes imbalance in the bronchi and together with Cold or Heat causes the tightening of the breathing passages.

If you are having an asthma attack, you are in an acute Excess condition. During an attack, the aim of traditional Chinese medicine is to stop the Excess Wind and thus relief the attack. Once you are over the attack, you are considered to be in a Deficient condition.

In a Deficient condition, your body will produce Defensive Chi in the kidneys and your lungs will spread it throughout your body. Defensive Chi is energy produced by the body to ward off disease. The concept is similar to the Western concept of the immune system. Weak lungs or kidneys can cause a lack of Defensive Chi.

Long-term treatment of asthma involves efforts to stimulate Defensive Chi and build up your body’s resistance to the pathogenic factors of Wind, Cold, and Heat. Herbs and acupuncture are used to stimulate Defensive Chi and build up resistance. Acupuncture can also be used to relieve a patient in the midst of an asthma attack.

Acupuncture for Asthma and Stress

Chinese medicine recognizes that emotional turmoil and stress play a role in asthma.

Points for “calming the spirit” are used during acupuncture treatment for asthma. Acupuncture stimulates your body’s natural neuro-regulation of the bronchial airways. Acupuncture treatment to strengthen the kidneys and build up Defensive Chi has been shown to increase red blood cell count and produce other beneficial measurable changes in body chemistry

People undergoing regular acupuncture treatment report experiencing decreased tension and an improved sense of well-being. Asthma and stress both are relieved.

The Buteyko Breathing Method: Natural Relief for Asthma

Woman Taking Deep BreathSome people have found asthma relief with an alternative treatment developed in Russia. The Buteyko Breathing Method operates on the theory that people with asthma hyperventilate and this greatly contributes to their breathing problems

If you have asthma you unconsciously develop the pattern of rapid, shallow breathing known as hyperventilation. If you suffer from stress-induced asthma this can be a critical factor, since stress itself frequently causes hyperventilation. During hyperventilation your body is not receiving enough oxygen, but this is not the only problem.

Hyperventilation also deprives the body of carbon dioxide; while you probably think of carbon dioxide as simply a waste product of the breathing process, this gas is important in regulating your body’s use of oxygen. Without sufficient carbon dioxide in the blood, your body does not receive the chemical signals it needs to utilize oxygen effectively.

The aim of the Buteyko Breathing Method is to retrain asthma patients to breathe slowly and allow the body’s natural breathing regulation to ease their disease.

Break the Cycle

Asthma and Stress can become a vicious cycle. You are stressed by other factors and now the additional stress of asthma is added to the mix. Your fear of having an asthma attack may actually lead to a stress induced attack. Don’t despair. Explore your options. An alternative treatment may be your ticket to better breathing.

Filed Under: Stress & Health, Stress Articles Tagged With: stress and health

By Julia Rymut;

Acne Alternative Treatments: Your Best Choice for Stress Acne

When your acne flares from stress, use acne alternative treatments instead of harsh chemicals. You can improve your skin without adding toxins to your system.

Woman with stress acneWhen you are under stress, your body’s chemical balance is disrupted.  Among many imbalances, your body increases inflammation (an overactive immune response). Toxins of all kinds create the same response and so adding toxins to an already overloaded immune system just makes your body’s health worse.

Acne is caused when the follicles, or pores, of the skin get blocked and the sebum, or oil, inside the follicle is blocked from draining.  Once this happens, bacteria begin to grow in the blocked follicle.  This blockage can remain un-inflammatory (a whitehead or blackhead) or it can become inflammatory acne (papule or pustule).  In either case, the acne is the result of the follicle being blocked from properly draining the sebum.

There are several factors which some believe contribute to acne.  Poor diet may exacerbate it, as can stress.

Some people believe that heavy or greasy makeup can make it worse.  Some people mistakenly believe that acne is caused by not washing the skin frequently enough.  In fact, washing the skin may increase the acne.  While all of these causes are sometime disputed, the one cause I found most frequently agreed upon is that acne can be caused by hormone imbalances.

Natural Acne Cures

Organic essential oils can be a boon to people with acne.  Alternative treatments using essential oils can help dissolve sebum, and can help kill the bacteria that start to grow.  And because our bodies have a natural symbiosis with plants, the organic essential oils are more supportive to our bodies than artificial chemicals.

  • Tea Tree oil is one of the first oils to think of for natural acne cures.  In fact in a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia, tea tree oil was found to be as effective as benzoyl peroxide in the treatment of mild to moderate acne, and although it took longer to work, it also had fewer side affects.  You can dilute tea tree oil 50-50 with an organic vegetable oil and apply it over the oily areas, or you can take a drop on a cotton swab and put it directly on an inflamed pore.
  • Other essential oils which have anti-bacterial affects are clove, and the blends Thieves, Melrose, and Purification.
  • Oils which have the effect of reducing sebum production (drying skin) are bergamot (remember that this oil is photosensitive and should not be applied before going out in the sun), geranium, vetiver, and lemongrass.
  • Oils which soothing to the skin are lavender, rosewood, and patchouli.

All of these essential oils can help acne problems, but they can also be drying.  If you notice that your skin is getting too dry, just combine them 50-50 with and organic vegetable oil. When you apply the oils, rub them in very gently; do not irritate the skin.  And for maximum effectiveness, alternate your oils every day.

Hormone Balancing

The other way to use essential oils in your acne alternative treatment is to use oils which help balance your hormones.  Essential oils have homeostatic intelligence–they work to balance natural functions.  This means that the same oil may stimulate in one circumstance and calm in another.  Using oils which have hormone regulating effects will support your body finding its normal hormonal balance.

To use the oils, rub a few drops on the soles of the feet or crown of the head 1-3 time/day.

Oils which balance female hormones include fennel, anise, clary sage, sage, geranium and the blends Dragon Time, SclarEssence and Lady Sclareol.

Detoxing and Cleansing

  • Eat a healthy diet for both your stress levels and for your skin.  Avoid dairy products, fried food, chemical additives and sugar.
  • Avoid chemical make-up.  Try some pure mineral make-up to reduce the toxins on your skin.
  • Avoid plastics.  Some plastics exude estrogenic chemicals and may cause more hormonal imbalance.  Drink water from glass or ceramic containers.  Do not eat food that has been heated in a plastic container.
  • Begin a cleanse.  Increase your fiber to cleanse your colon and consider a short fast.  Like your colon, your skin is an organ of elimination.  If your colon can’t do its work, your skin works overtime.

When stress increases your acne, alternative treatments are the best way to clear your skin and support your overall health at the same time.

Filed Under: Stress & Health, Stress Articles Tagged With: acne, essential oils, stress and health

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