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Avoid This Stressor

We all know stress reduction is a must. The medical community touts it as a silent killer. Since no two people are alike we all have to create our own list of what to avoid. I have a Grim Reaper you may want to add if you haven’t considered it already.

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We all know stress reduction is a must. The medical community touts it as a silent killer. The concept goes like this: reduce the obvious stress in your life and condition your body to combat the left over.

A quick look around demonstrates affirmative steps taken in this life saving direction. An entire industry has been built with this single goal in mind. What causes stress?

One issue is whether you can identify specific causes in your particular life. This is tricky. Since no two people are alike, we all have to create our own list of what to avoid. The following is a
Grim Reaper you may want to add to your list, if you haven’t considered them already.

Imagine you are talking to an associate you have been around everyday for the past few months. This associate can be lover, co-worker, collaborator, doesn’t matter. Things seem to be going well. A rapport has been built. You believe they respect you. Obviously you respect them or you wouldn’t hang around, right.

Now suppose you are telling this person about some minor physical problem you are having. You begin to present it differently for a second time because they didn’t acknowledge they understood the first time. When you are mid sentence this associate says to you “Dealing with you, having my off the charts high IQ and your above average IQ, is like you dealing with somebody with a 90 IQ.”

Ouch. After you gather yourself back together, from this obvious condescending remark, what do you do? I see a couple options here. You could walk away and never speak to them again. You could think you didn’t hear them right or that they misspoke. You could choose to ignore it as an aberration. You could attempt to respond in kind. What would you?

The stress free option, and the one I highly recommend, is walk away. I believe most of you will stick around. Let me tell you why I think you will and why I think you shouldn’t.

This exact situation happened to me. At the moment of truth I chose to hang around. Why? After a rapport is built it is much harder to break away based on an isolated comment. We all tend to rationalize it away or try to combat it in kind.

However, if you accept this behavior once I guarantee it will happen again and again. What you do not realize at the time, if ever, is along with it you accept a subtle chronic stressor resulting from your anticipation of a similar future event.

After this, I was on the receiving end of some zingers, launched by an otherwise charming person. I witnessed others receiving similar barbs. Their response did not differ from mine.

Who wouldn’t be offended when somebody smugly tells you “You don’t talk like a lawyer.” Zing - never knowing when and where.

There I was, stuck in the “grin and bare it” syndrome. Meanwhile, every time this person was around, my body prepared for trouble.
Your body goes through changes to prepare. Let’s take a quick look at these changes.

Our natural defense system is a wonderful survival mechanism when appropriately stimulated. Everybody has felt that tingling sensation immediately following a sudden occurrence of a perceived danger. I usually sigh once my mind assesses the threat is over. Depending on the threat level and individual differences, our bodies usually return to a steady state in a reasonable time.

This is commonly known as “fight or flight” response. An adrenalin rush essentially makes physical changes occur. This natural hormone dashes around causing modifications to numerous involuntary systems.

The typical outcome is an accelerated heart and lung action; inhibition of stomach and intestinal action; constriction of blood vessels to the periphery; liberation of nutrients in muscles; dilation of blood vessels in the muscles; inhibition of tear glands and salivation; and dilation of the pupil. Our body is now geared up for the impending peril.

The areas of our bodies modified by this hormone hero are outside our consciousness. In other words you can’t say to self “I’d like a bit of acceleration coupled with inhibition, constriction and dilation in such and such body part.” No, no, no.

If your body stayed in this high level modification it wouldn’t survive. Imagine driving your car in first gear at 60 miles an hour, how long would it take for its motor to blow?

Fortunately we return to a steady state relatively quickly. And we hum along again until the next suddenly stressful event.

Some stimuli does not cause a tingling sensation. These threats loom in our existence for a period of time at a subtly low intensity. Driving down the freeway everyday to work is an example. Our body has the same response without the dash. The hormone hero continuously modifies to a lesser extent.

Contemporary society is filled with low level threats our bodies regularly confront. Many of these we voluntarily expose it to. A simple lifestyle change will reduce this stress.

Finally, historical events that have a high probability of occurring again in the future cause our body to prepare on the mere possibility. What is frightening is we do not realize our body is responding.

My decision to continue an association with an individual who made tactless condescending statements toward me caused stress.

The silent killer hung around in anticipation. Only after complete disassociation did I realize the level of stress I had been under. Without contact I felt lighter, less constrained, free to speak without concern.

Looking back I’ve identified this cue I failed to appreciate at the time. I felt different when he was around. The best way to describe it was heavy. The difference was subtle and I had no wisdom to prompt the discovery. A mental note of this lighter feeling might have motivated me to disassociation sooner.

This type of personality is a Grim Reaper. I urge everyone to make a conscious effort to discover if someone is causing you heaviness. Concentrate on how you feel based on someone’s presence. This person may be a lover, co-worker, friend or family member. If so, I suggest you take steps to remove them from your life for stress reduction.

And avoid this Grim Reaper.

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