From Stress to Success: 10 Steps to a Relaxed and Happy Life: a unique mind and body plan. Xandria Williams
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that you feel stressed. The slightest thing that happens will trigger off an emotional response and you will complain about the level of stress in your life.
It is not of paramount importance that you reduce the outside events that are perceived as stressful, nor is it of primary importance that you learn relaxation techniques and do deep breathing exercises. The answer is to deal with the physical problem of your hypoglycaemia. The way to do this is discussed in the relevant section in Part II.
Alternatively you may suffer from allergies. Eating certain foods may make you feel anxious or irritable. It is unlikely that you can recognize these foods yourself; they are usually masked food allergies. Fortunately, tests are available by which you can identify them. If allergies are part of your stress problem the answer is not to learn to relax but to have the appropriate tests done and change your diet accordingly.
You may suffer from a variety of infections, possibly only minor ones, that leave you feeling vulnerable and anxious. Again, the answer is not to learn to relax and deal with the stress, it is to take better care of your diet, take nutrient supplements if necessary and improve your immune function.
You may be suffering from vitamin or mineral deficiencies, or candidiasis or lacticacidosis (see Part II, pp. 319–22, 341). In all these situations and in many like them you will have a reduced tolerance for outside stresses. In addition, the physical health problem can generate its own stresses. Yet again, the answer is not for you to do deep breathing exercises, learn relaxation techniques, meditate or listen to tranquillizing music and sounds. The answer comes from dealing with the physiological problem that is stressing your body to such an extent that you have reduced emotional balance and reduced tolerance for external and perceived stresses.
Thus the first part of the book deals with your individual reaction to an outside event based on your past mental and emotional experiences and on what that event means to you at a subconscious level. It also includes the necessary background to the way you use your thoughts or the way in which you are at the mercy of your thoughts and how to control or change them to your own benefit. Techniques are included that will help you unravel your past and be more relaxed about the present and future.
The second part deals with any physical problems you may have that will reduce your tolerance to outside events and explains how these physiological problems can be remedied.
When you use the two approaches together you will have the tools needed to reduce your perceived stress levels to near zero.
Overall
In the course of researching this book I have asked a large number of people the same question, namely ‘What do you find stressful?’. The one outstanding result from this has been that no two people find the same things stressful. Things that stress one person are no bother to another. In fact, things that stress one individual may even be a positive pleasure to another. The conclusion from all this has been to bear out the hypothesis that there is no such thing as an independent entity called ‘a stress’ on which everyone can agree.
Rosemary H., already mentioned, found standing in supermarket queues thoroughly frustrating and she would mutter and fume at the slowness of the check-out girl and the customers in front of her. Another woman thought long queues were wonderful: they gave her time to stand quietly and think, an oasis of time in a busy day that seemed to be all rush and go.
One man, Peter L., felt very stressed when family members depended on him to know what to do and how to do it in any emergency. Tom D., on the other hand, loved being asked for help and thrived on the challenge of an emergency; but when nothing was happening and no-one needed him he then felt anxious and unwanted.
Denise H. could only complete a task when she had a definite deadline and knew it simply had to be done by then. Once she knew or set the deadline she could settle down and get on with the job. With no deadline she would potter around, getting nothing done, and feel thoroughly dissatisfied and stressed at the end of the day as a result of having achieved so little. In contrast Charles T. hated to be rushed or have deadlines. He accomplished most when he could get on quietly at his own speed. Knowing he had to have a job done by a certain time or date could freeze him into immobility and diminish his output.
What does all this mean? It means that each individual responds to outside events in a way peculiar to them. If you experience the outside events as pleasurable, fun, satisfying, challenging, exciting, positive, etc. you are unlikely to call them stresses. If you respond to them as worrying, frightening, threatening, unsettling, disturbing etc. you are likely to call them stresses.
Stress rating scale
A patient once said to me ‘I wish there was a pain scale so I could measure my pain on it and tell you I have pain at level 4, or whatever, just as there is the Richter scale for earthquakes. Then you would know what I am feeling.’
This is an understandable wish yet impractical because the pain of a cut finger can be nearly intolerable to one person and barely noticeable to another, or it can be unbearably painful when you are bored and thinking about it and of little consequence when you are absorbed in something exciting that you are doing. Pain is a subjective experience, so is stress.
Many efforts have been made to quantify stress and then measure the effect of a given number of units of stress on the body. They have failed. One such scale was quoted in Choosing Health Intentionally (X. K. Williams, Letts, 1992). This scale ranged from death of a spouse at 100 points, through being fired from work at 47 points to minor violation of the law at 11 points. In the original study it was found that 49 per cent of the people who scored more than 300 in a twelve-month period developed serious health problems.
However, this also means that 51 per cent of people who scored over 300 points did not develop serious health problems. Either their bodies were more robust or their experience of stress was much milder. In fact this is fairly obvious. The death of a spouse is going to be a far greater stress for a devoted partner who depended on the one who died than for a partner who was already contemplating divorce. Travel is a major stress for people who like a structured life with a steady routine whereas for those who are easily bored and like constant excitement it is a delight, and so forth.
It all comes back to the basic premise that is worth repeating over and over. There is nothing that is inherently stressful. It is your subjective assessment of the situation that determines whether or not it will be a stress.
This is a good time to consider the dictionary definition of stress. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary it is: (i) a constraining or impelling force; (ii) effort, demand upon energy; (iii) emphasis or; (iv) force exerted between contiguous bodies or parts of a body. Another way stress is described is as some outside factor that impacts on you the object. In these definitions there is no suggestion that a stress is either good or bad. The stress of the wind on the yacht’s sails is what keeps the yacht moving once the helmsman masters the art of harnessing this stressor.
Pleasures may also be stresses. Anything that takes you outside your routine may involve a stress. Going on holiday involves the stress of deciding what to pack. Having a party involves the stress of extra cooking. A new and exciting job involves the stress of leaving old friends. There are stresses that you welcome and enjoy and call excitement and there are stresses that offer no pleasure.
Life without stress or challenge would be very dull and boring indeed. To avoid this and to avoid the pain of unwanted stress you need to convert all the unpleasant stresses into challenges, non-events or pleasant stresses.
It is time to start. If you think your problems are purely physical you may want to have a quick look at Part II and attend to whatever you feel needs attention. However, I strongly encourage you to work with Part I in depth. If you can sort out your reasons for thinking of things as stresses and learn to respond differently to them you may not only solve your emotional problems, you may also start to treat your body differently. The physical problems of Part II may disappear and thus their consequences may cease to be perceived as stress.
In other words you could be in a catch-22 situation. The thoughts and emotions you find unpleasantly stressful could be causing you