Six Stress Surprises

Stress Surprises

1. Stress is not just “Fight or Flee”

It is common to associate stress with the “fight or flee” response of the body. But stress is more than fight-or-flee. Here are some broad categories of stress:

  • Fight-or-flee (This car is going to run over me! I better get out of the way!)
  • Worry (Will I be able to pay this bill? What will happen if I can’t?)
  • Drudgery (This work sucks!)
  • Pressure (Got to get this done in the next 30 minutes!)

All the above categories are considered “bad stress” as we are not productive when we experience these states. There is another stress that is usually considered “good stress” because it makes us extremely productive:

  • Focus (I am lost in my work, with no sense of time or space).

It is important to understand that whether we considered it good or bad, stress becomes poisonous for our mind-body if it never stops. This condition is called chronic stress.
Continue reading

Posted in articles | Leave a comment

A Date With Mom

A Date With Mom

After 21 years of marriage, my wife wanted me to take another woman out to dinner and a movie. She said, “I love you, but I know this other woman loves you and would love to spend some time with you.”

The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my mother, who had been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my 3 children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie.

“What’s wrong, are you well?” she asked. My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or surprise invitation is a sign of bad news.

“I thought that it would be pleasant to spend some time with you,” I responded. “Just the two of us.”

She thought about it for a moment, and then said, “I would like that very much.”
Continue reading

Posted in articles | Leave a comment

Three Men On Hill

Three Men On Hill

There were three men on a hill with their watches.

The first man threw his watch down the hill and it broke.

The second man threw his watch down the hill and it broke.

The third man threw his watch down the hill, walked all the way to the bottom, and caught it.

The other two men were puzzled and asked the third man how he did it.

The third man said, “Easy. My watch is 5 minutes slow!”

Credit: Source unknown

Posted in stress-busters | Leave a comment

Our Inner Ecosystem

While many amongst us are rightly concerned about conserving the ecosystem around us, scientists are waking up to a rich and diverse ecosystem within us that needs to be conserved and protected too.

In many ways we are less human than we think:

  1. We have 10 times more non-human cells than human cells
  2. Human genes are outnumbered 100 to 1 by microbial genes

It may be helpful to think of ourselves as a co-habitation of rich and diverse ecosystem. Scientists have a term for this: The Human Microbiome.

The microbes within us play a vital role in our health and well being:
Continue reading

Posted in articles | Leave a comment

Finding The Right Attitude

Find Right Attitude

Many common problems are caused by wrong attitudes. People see themselves as the center of the universe and judge everything as it relates to them. Naturally you won’t be happy that way. You can only be happy when you see things in proper perspective: all human beings are of equal importance in God’s sight, and have a job to do in the divine plan.

I’ll give you and an example of a woman who had some difficulty in finding out what her job was in the divine plan. She was in her forties, single, and needed to earn a living. She hated her work to the extent that it made her sick, and the first thing she did was to go to a psychiatrist who said he would adjust her to her job. So after some adjustment she went back to work. But she still hated her job. She got sick again and came to me. Well, I asked what her calling was, and she said, “I’m not called to do anything.”

That was not true. What she really meant was she didn’t know her calling. So I asked her what she liked to do because if it is your calling you will do it easily and joyously as I walk my pilgrimage. I found she liked to do three things. She liked to play the piano, but wasn’t good enough to earn her living at that. She liked to swim, but wasn’t good enough to be a swimming instructor, and she liked to work with flowers.

I got her a job in a florist shop so she could earn her living working with flowers. She loved it. She said she would do it for nothing. But we use the other things too. Remember she needed more than a livelihood. She needed other things. The swimming became her exercise. It fits in with sensible living habits. The piano playing became her path of service. She went to a retirement home and played the old songs for people there. She got them to sing, and she was good at that. Out of these three things, such a beautiful life was built for that woman. She became a very attractive woman and married a year or so later. She started right in that life pattern.

Credit: Written by Peace Pilgrim. “Peace Pilgrim, her life and work in her own words”.

You may also like: The Worry Habit

Posted in articles | Leave a comment