TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND RELAX!

Why this advice is just not enough.

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

Our bodies have an interesting way of navigating this world that we live and have created. There are some who say it is the brain that navigates this world for us and the body is simply a vessel to which the brain needs to move and gather fuel to continue with our journey around the world.

I must kick back against that notion, for it is the body that digests and distributes the chemicals to the brain, with specific directions to which the body will obey. The gut is the body’s second brain, The chemicals of the brain are placed into the bloodstream and directed to muscles and organs. With this dispersion of chemicals, the body then reacts in a certain biologically corrective manner.

Stress, the unavoidable aspect of human life that we must deal and manage. If we cannot manage, the stress becomes overwhelming for the body and a manifestation of physical and mental health issues such as depressions, anxiety, heart and cardiovascular issues, etc. Arise.. Making the ability to successfully thrive within our daily lives a challenge

Stress itself is not unique to humans. Animals in the wild face life and death stressors all the time. We as humans have evolved biologically and culturally. Herein lies the issue. Culture and the social contract has given us the ability to thwart off the impending danger of a lion or tiger attacking us in a cave to either steal our most recent hunt or kill us or our young for food. Housing barriers, social structures such as police, health care, and education have secured a spot at the top of the food chain for our species.

There is only one problem, the reptilian parts of our brains: the brain stem and the cerebellum have not evolved from the cave dweller times. Other aspects and parts of our brains have, but for a moment lets focus on this part of our biology, this part of the brain tends to be very rigid and compulsive in its ability to make decisions and decern information, reality vs perceived threat is not one of its skills, everything is a real-life or death situation and needs to be dealt with as such.