So Bryan, do you believe your contribution to the stress levels of the world has been positive via this site?

Or is scaring people away from any form of medical treatment an attempt to create some type of harmony we have not yet realised?

Other than the irony and hypocracy in your post, i agree with the substance of what you say above.

Ah, but what causes the process of alienation from the world?  Why do we all have different thresholds?  This is a good thought process but perhaps lacking a little factual substantiation?

Stress is such a subjective thing to quantify and qualify that many people simply spend their lives subconsciously trying to push it to one side believing that the next person is in a worse place than they are.

This is exactly why we look at the anatomy of stress because if you can quantify and qualify this amorphous thing called stress you begin to take it more seriously!  

Alyssa Burns-Hill, MSc, FRSH , MIHPE

Research & Health Services Director

www.bio-vitality.com

Harradine, i must concur.  I do most dearly want to believe in the scientific veracity of this site and find myself depressed...... hypocracy indeed - and when you see the same reasoning being applied here as in elsewhere...... :o(

Our everyday life is adaptation to various stresses.If our trillions of cells have adequate energy to perform their designated roles in keeping our body in peak performance everyday stress will be taken care of. Our body is designed to be healthy if given chance to be feed with appropriate nutrients to ones Metabolic Type.

It's hypocrisy, please girls, not hypocracy. Bad spelling causes some of us pedants much stress.

Many people stress themselves out because they need to feel important.  The more stress they create, the more important their lives are.

Okay. Here's two examples. Someone having a mouth full of leaking mercury, causing diverse health problems, and someone getting hit over the head with a hammer.

Both people are stressed!

But not in the above "metaphysics" example. Sure, the power of the mind etc MAY be able to influence things a bit, but, in the hammer example, not much. The body is Wholistic and all elements need to be considered - nutrition (toxins, diet etc), physical (structure, posture etc), energy systems (meridians, lymph, colour etc) and emotions. Anyone for Kinesiology?

Dear Fellows:

Go to:

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/brod-31742-Stress-BSPIN-Background-speaker-Why-Happens-Stressed-Chain-Reaction-Negative-as-Entertainment-ppt-powerpoint/

"The Science of Stress And The Art of Managing it" By Vishu Hedge, Bangalore, on 12th April, 2007

I'm finding it a bit stressful that I can't read the comments as they are covered up by the 'Tags'... but, seriously. I think there are many reasons for stress beyond outlook alone, because our physiology actually strongly affects our outlook as well as vice versa. For instance, women who have PMT, children who have ADHD, depression caused by hypothroidism. This is just for starters. In my own life  I can't help but notice that when there is a piling on of stress factor after stress factor (I'm talking lifes bigger issues in quantity) without  respite my usually happy go lucky outlook eventually gives up and i get really stressed even at relatively small things. I have met a number of people claiming that outlook is the main issue, citing various tribal peoples as having, for instance, no money yet being happy. (I wonder whose decision it was that they were happy) I think it is the number of long term stress factors- often including physiological ones- that cause people to become 'stressed'. Overwork, bad work environment, serious money and housing problems, deaths of close family and friends, illness in oneself or those close... the people who I know personally who hold that happiness and a relaxed attitude is innate or can be always cultivated almost as though it is synonymous with 'virtue', have always been people with plenty of money and few stress factors. I have never ever seen it in someone with all of the above. And all of the above is not so unusual, as poverty for instance can lead to illness, as well as simply reducing opportunities for stress- relieving activities.

Not however dissing Bryan Hubbard, I haven't read the full article and I imagine it is as illuminating as always...

Ah! Feeling much less stressed now I got all that off my chest!

Most stress is caused by our artificial modern world.

Over processed un-natural food filled with preservatives and chemicals and pesticides.

Pollution from automobiles and industry and chemicals in our environment, building products, plastics. Pharma drugs, vaccinations and other bio-toxins. Radiation from microwaves, wi-fi, mobile phones.

All of these thing are stressors and worrying about them causes even more stress.

Richard

Not having any food to eat at all, or having a rival tribe steal all of your food, burn down your village and chop up all the menfolk must have been quoite stressful, modern world or not.

The modern world causes different kinds of stress.  This site is a great example.  Anxiety is its very oxygen.

Knowing that this unnatural level of toxins is completely un-necessary and merely an expression of big Pharma, the guvmint, big oil , to make money at the expense of the health of ordinary people, is the biggest stressor of all

It is widely accepted that stress in its various manifestations makes a medical condition worse. What then is the problem accepting that stress is actually the cause of a medical condition? Stress - not just anxiety - in its widest manuifestations is widely accepted to reduce the levels of t-cells which the body requires to fight illness, cancers, etc. It is not just t-cells but also the complete immune system.

That stress affects the body's memory, behaviour, speed of response, concentration, etc; is widely accepted in medical journals - mainly in psychology journals - so it really should not be a problem accepting that it suppresses the mechanisms which maintain our health.

Perhaps the problems are of indoctrination. Here I refer you to a book compiled by the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation written by leading neurologists - Understanding the Brain : the birth of a learning science. This book is noteworthy for the fact that it sets out to debunk scientific myths which prevent proper discussion of the key issues.  The problem is that many things practiced and accepted as fact by the medical profession are myths based upon assumptions e.g. there is not a concensus of opinion on what the cerebrum does, there is not a theory describing what the cerebellum does, the ability of a GP to diagnose accurately is less than 50%, the effectiveness of drugs (excepting antibiotics) is about 50%........ shall I go on?  

There are many good researchers in various disciplines studying the mechanisms which the body uses to maintain health. Surprisingly this has rarely been studied. Most research is based upon studying the effects of pathology.  These researchers are known as biophysicists, systems biologists and neuroscientists.

Graham

Graham, what do you mean there is no concensus on what the cerebrum does?  Do you mean cerebellum?  The cerebrum is a pretty archaic anatomical term for the cerebrex cortices and basal ganglia.  

Either way there is very broad concensus on what all these do.  Just how they do it is another matter!  What do you mean there is not a theory desrcibing what the cerbellum does?  Where did you read that!?  

The cerebellum is though to control our movement and help us with very precise control of our purposeful movement, co-ordinate more basic patterns of movement such as walking, etc.  Of course its precise function is not understood, (since neuroscience is a field with an aweful lot of unanswered questions.  But  Goodness me, to say there is not a single a theory deswcribing what the cerebellum is really very ignorant.  

The link between mental health and physical health is a very well understood, conventionally established biological phenomenon.  Just think of how long doctors have known about the link between stress, high blood pressure and heart disease.  Really nothing new.  All the way back to Hans Selye!!!