PMSM – Positive Mind Stress Management

PMSM - Positive Mind Stress Management - A 4 week program. 

PMSM - Positive Mind Stress Management

Are you stressed?

Do people say you are stressed, but you disagree?

Are you suffering from anxiety?

Is your job becoming too demanding?

Personal or Business, Stress is an Obstacle to Happy Living and Successful Business

What is Stress?

Stress can mean different things to different people. Stress is a conflict between our demands and our ability to cope. The way we cope with these demands will depend on many things. For example, how we think, our personality and our previous life experiences can affect our stress levels.

We live in a world where we hear about stress all the time, the health issues it can cause, the depression, heart disease and the suicides that have occurred from stress.

Stress is not a fad or a diminishing of one’s coping abilities or strategies. It is a danger to us. Ultimately it needs to be dealt with when it is presented.

Good and Bad

As with everything in the world, there is good and bad, and therefore there is positive and negative stress. A positive stress influence can help compel us into action; it can result in a new awareness and an exciting new outlook on a situation, event or life itself.

Triggers

Many things can trigger this stress, including change. Changes can be positive or negative, as well as real or perceived. These changes may be recurring, short-term, or long-term.  Stress is the “wear and tear” we experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment, which creates positive and negative physical and emotional effects.

How we cope

People differ dramatically in the type of events they interpret as stressful and the way in which they respond to such stress. For example, driving a car can be very stressful for some people and for others, it’s simply relaxing.

The ability to tolerate stress is linked to our personality, relationships, energy levels, and emotional maturity: For instance, if we are introverted, we are generally more comfortable with fewer stimuli than if we are more extroverted. Being in an unhappy relationship is energy-consuming; therefore, our energy levels become depleted and drained. The result is our stress resistance is compromised. Also, when we are recovering from illness or simply tired at the end of the day, our ways of dealing with the world around us are less robust.

Freeze-Fight-Flight

The human “Freeze, Fight, Flight” response is written into our DNA. It's part of our blueprint. It’s a primitive design to allow the body to adapt quickly to its environment to survive.

During a freeze-fight-flight episode, the breathing rate speeds up. The nostrils and air passages in the lungs open wider to get more air in quickly. Next heartbeat speeds up and, blood pressure rises, sweating increases to help cool the body and blood. Therefore nutrients are concentrated in the muscles to provide us with extra strength.

Stress is an instinct that exists as a bodily reaction to difficult situations as they may occur. Low-level stress in some can assist in the enhancement of professional goal achievement; however, as stress levels increase, so can the negative impact on productivity and motivation in the work environment.

Cortisol and Adrenaline

The adrenal glands release cortisol. Stress Hormones, Epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and norepinephrine (also known as noradrenaline) are produced. These hormones help you think and move fast in an emergency; in the right situation, they can save your life. They don’t linger in the body and dissipate as quickly as they were created. Cortisol, on the other hand, streams through your system all day long, making it so dangerous.

But the hormones released and the physiological changes are designed to be a “spurt” and not present long-term. Stress prolongs these changes because the body does not know that the threat is not real; as we live in stress, we have conditioned the body to believe it is in a permanent state of threat.

Our Well-being

The physical and mental well-being is compromised by the permanent state of stress and the presence of cortisol in the system throughout the day. The result may produce psychological conditions such as emotional disorder, irritability leading to anger, a sense of rejection moving us into depression and Physical conditions such as immune response disorder, chronic muscle tension, and increased blood pressure. These problems can eventually lead to serious life-threatening illnesses such as heart attacks, kidney disease, and cancer.

The Mind

Neuroscientists have discovered how chronic stress and cortisol can damage the brain. Stress triggers long-term changes in brain structure and function. Young people exposed to chronic stress early in life are more prone later in life to mental problems such as depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and learning difficulties.

Changes In The Brain Structure

It has long been established that stress-related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, trigger changes in brain structure, including differences in size and connectivity of the amygdala. Our brains are mouldable through the plasticity nature of the structure; chronic stress can prevent the neuropathways, connectivity and fluidity of the plasticity, making our brain structure rigid and less pliable.

The ‘stress hormone cortisol affects the neuropathways between the hippocampus and amygdala, creating a vicious cycle within the brain, leaving it predisposed to be in a constant state of freeze-fight-flight.

PMSM - Positive Mind Stress Management