Release Stress: Psychological Stress Vs Biological Stress!
A book excerpt on how Skeletal Leap enables deep spirituality via energy healing, supported by science and psychology for mental health and self-improvement.
SKELETAL LEAP: THE MIND BODY EVOLUTION SERIES
Introduction:
In today’s episode, I explain the intricate world of stress, exploring both its biological and psychological dimensions in detail.
Stress is a universal experience, yet its effects can vary significantly depending on how we perceive and internalize it.
I break down the concept of stress, categorizing it into biological stress, which is managed by our nervous system, and psychological stress, which is rooted in our emotional responses.
Our biological response to stress involves complex systems like the autonomic nervous system and the HPA axis, which trigger a fight or flight response. This response is essential for survival, but chronic activation can lead to a host of health issues, including immune dysfunction and chronic diseases.
I emphasize that even positive stressors can contribute to our overall stress levels, highlighting the complexity of our interactions with the world around us.
The psychological aspect of stress is equally compelling. Drawing from the work of Hans Selye, who introduced the concepts of eustress and distress, I explain how our emotional pain can be both manageable and debilitating.
I also discuss the concept of hardiness – the ability to endure stress while maintaining health – and suggest a new perspective: lightness. Instead of viewing stress as a heavy burden, I encourage you to adopt traits of interest, insight, and adventure, which can help lighten the load.
One of the most fascinating parts of the episode is the discussion on how skeletal reposturing and chakra opening can transform our relationship with stress.
I share my insights into how guided skeletal meditation and energy ascension can facilitate this transformation, leading to a state of perpetual joy and lightness. This approach not only addresses stress but also promotes overall well-being.
You are invited to join the Skeletal Leap Community and learn more about how to achieve this state of lightness.
If you’re looking for practical strategies to manage stress and enhance your quality of life, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in and discover how to turn your stress into a source of strength and vitality.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
What is Stress? (Human Stress): Stress is a situation perceived by an organism as a threat or a challenge
Understanding the Causes of Stress in Life: Stress is a feeling of emotional pain that can be internal or external
How to Open Chakras: Skeletal Leap has a well researched and documented system of opening chakras
🎙️ Listen to the Journey:
📽️ Watch the Masterclass:
Transcript:
“The source of psychological stress can either be external or internal, but in both cases one internalizes the resultant pain.”
My name is Laadi Ojas. Welcome to “Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure”. Skeletal Leap transforms one’s life into a personal heaven.
Today’s episode will tell you about what stress really means in terms of chakras and skeletal postures.
Stress is a situation perceived by an organism either as a threat or a challenge that needs to be coped with.
In case of Homo sapiens, this type of situation has two layers to it. The first one is biological stress and the second, psychological.
In the case of biological stress, it is the nervous system that perceives it as a threat or challenge. But in the case of psychological stress, it is the mind that comprehends the brain’s perception as either a threat or as a challenge.
Biological Stress
In Homo sapiens, the following biological systems respond to stress:
Autonomic nervous system
Hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis
Sympathoadrenal medullary (SAM) axis is capable, via the sympathetic nervous system, of switching a ‘fight or flight’ response on. It directs a major portion of the body’s energy resources to cope with the perceived stress before returning to homeostasis via the parasympathetic nervous system.
On the other hand, the HPA axis releases cortisol to take care of metabolic and immunological functions in the meantime. The SAM and HPA axes are regulated by the following brain regions:
Limbic system | Prefrontal cortex | Amygdala | Hypothalamus | Stria terminalis
These coping mechanisms perceive stressors as one among the five possible categories:
Acute time-limited stressors posing a short term challenge
Brief naturalistic stressors - normal yet challenging
Stressful event sequences - sudden onset continuing in immediate future
Chronic stressors continuing for long terms in future
Distant stressors - set to affect in distant future
Physiological stress disturbs the organism’s homeostasis which responds by stimulating the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. This activates physical changes showing their short or long term effects on the body.
Homeostasis is an ideal state of biochemical equilibrium. It often keeps getting disrupted by internal and external stimuli, thereby keeping it in a state of continual flux. But if and when this disruption goes beyond a certain range, we experience it as stress.
In the presence of acute stress, the sympathetic nervous system takes over with a ‘fight or flight’ response involving:
Mydriasis | Increased heart beats | Vasoconstriction | Glycogenolysis | Bronchodilation | Gluconeogenesis | Sweating | Lipolysis | Decreased motility of digestive system | Apinephrine and cortisol secretion from adrenal medulla | Relaxation of bladder wall
After having coped with stress, the parasympathetic nervous system reestablishes ‘rest and digest’ aka homeostasis response involving:
Miosis | Bronchoconstriction | Increased motility of digestive system | Contraction of bladder walls
The HPA axis is a neuroendocrine system for stress response which stimulates the steroid hormones.
Stress also affects the immune system negatively.
In fact, chronic long-term stress affects our quality of life by creating:
Immune system dysfunction | Chronic diseases | Impaired growth in children | Fibromyalgia | Chronic fatigue syndrome | Depression | Functional somatic syndromes | Heart disease | Asthma | Diabetes | Headaches | Alzheimer’s disease | Accelerated aging | Premature death | Insomnia | Eating disorders | Anxiety and panic attacks | Colds and viruses | Circulatory problems | Cancer
It is not only negative stressors that add to the stress level, even the positive stressors do the same. Here is a list of some categories that some common stressors belong to:
Sensory inputs like pain, bright lights, noise, temperatures, etc.
Environmental issues like lack of food, water, housing, health, freedom, mobility, etc.
Social issues like struggles, defeats, relationship conflicts, deception, break ups, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, etc.
Life experiences like poverty, sudden wealth acquisition, unemployment, depression, OCD, lack of sleep, performance pressures, exams, deadlines, etc.
Accidental experiences like sexual abuse, traumas, etc.
Psychological Stress
Psychological stress is a feeling of emotional pain. Small amounts of them are manageable as well as motivating at times but their excess is debilitating.
The source of psychological stress can either be external or internal, but in both cases one internalizes the resultant pain.
Hans Selye came up with quite a few experiments on stress and its theories in the 1930s. He conceived the theory of universal, non-specific stress response and initiated extensive research programs in academic physiology.
Despite wide acceptance of his theories, experimental physiologists soon started opposing what they considered ‘vague’ approaches in his research. Hence, in the 1950s, he turned away from experimental physiology and started promoting his theories via popular books and public speeches.
His book titled ‘Stress of Life’ addressed to the general public turned out to be an international bestseller.
His was a biopsychosocial concept of stress and dynamic adaptation to changing global challenges. It promised health and happiness to anyone that successfully employed this approach.
He coined the terms ‘eustress’ for positive stress and ‘distress’ for negative stress. He also coined the term ‘stressor’ to mean the cause of stress as separate from the state of stress. On top of it, he redefined tobacco smoking as a ‘diversion’ or a ‘deviation’ from environmental stress.
Starting from the latter part of the 1960s, psychologists increasingly adopted Selye’s approach. They undertook extensive research to establish connections between stress and stress-related diseases.
By the latter part of the 1970s, stress had entered the common parlance globally. New research was conducted into the neuroendocrine, molecular and immunological aspects of stress. This new research is no longer directly tied to Selye’s hypotheses though it doesn’t negate it either. In the wake of the Vietnam War, a lot of research went into the newly coined ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ (PTSD).
By the onset of the 1990s, stress had become one of the biggest buzzwords while referring to the modern-day health and its complications.
The discourse on stress spanned the entire spectrum from mild irritation to ultimate nervous breakdown.
As recently as 2015, it was established through surveys that people’s greatest stressors were ‘money’, ‘family responsibility’ and ‘work’.
A New Personality Style: Hardiness
In the year 1979, Suzanne C. Kobasa had discovered a new personality style, which he named ‘hardiness’. It referred to the ability of a person to be chronically stressed yet healthy at the same time. This meant that the harmful effects of stress were not the same for all. They were as much due to stressors as they were due to the fallible personality styles. And if we were able to train people to adopt ‘hardiness’ as their personality style, the problem of stress would be gone.
In 1984, Salvadore Maddi with Kobasa and their graduate students in the University of Chicago came up with another book. The book was titled “The hardy executive: Health under stress” and it further elaborated the analysis of hardiness. It carried along a series of research reports done with executives in it.
Since then, a lot of further research has been done on military groups, teachers, firefighters and students along with executives.
In addition, several efforts have been made to train people to adopt hardy personalities with mixed results.
Research is still going on as newer training modules are being tried to achieve definitive results.
Hardiness suggests a personality structure dispositioned along the traits of commitment, control and challenge:
Commitment was defined as a trait to get involved in what one was doing.
Control was defined as a trait that made one believe one would be able to effect a change.
Challenge was defined as a trait that took everything including life in flux rather than stability.
In my opinion, the best example of a hardy personality was the co-founder of Apple Inc. named Steve Jobs. But the most charismatic man that he was, he too could not keep himself healthy. This exceptionally hardy man died of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor resulting in respiratory arrest at a young age of 55.
What does that show? Is the entire hypothesis of Suzanne C. Kobasa a faulty one?
I don’t think so. I have my own example in front of me having similar (though not the same) traits in my personality. And I cannot write off hardiness that easily. I’m quite healthy in my 70s while I am speaking these lines. As you already know, although I was born with myopia and contracted viral arthritis which then turned into rheumatoid arthritis in six months, I was able to cure both with central fixation.
I see a huge potential in Kobasa’s hypothesis of hardiness.
A Newer Personality Style: Lightness
I would like to change a few things in Kobasa’s hypothesis. First of all, I would change its name from ‘Hardiness’ to ‘Lightness’. Next, I would change its traits from ‘commitment, control and challenge’ to ‘interest, insight and adventure’.
Hardiness, in general, can be heavy but we need it to be light rather than heavy. Doesn’t matter if it is hard or soft. If it is light, it’ll be able to fight; like traveling light is always way more manageable than traveling with a lot of heavy stuff.
Commitment, as a structure of the mind, requires us to believe in it. And belief turns the mind heavy. On the other hand, interest is an instinct generated out of curiosity. We don’t need to believe in it. Thus, curiosity keeps our mind light. At the same time, it is much hardier and lighter than commitment.
Control evokes conflict. It makes our mind even heavier. Insight, on the other hand, keeps it light because it arises directly out of the lightness of curiosity and interest. Therefore, it is more effective in creating change.
Challenge, again, evokes conflict rather than passion or joy. It fills us with pride which, in turn, makes our mind heavy. Adventure, as an instinct, is the better alternative. It has very deep roots in our psyche and it keeps us light and agile.
These three traits - interest, insight and adventure - do a splendid job of keeping us healthy. They are effective even under the toughest of biological stresses born out of an ever-changing environment.
Psychological stress doesn’t even stand a chance because it vanishes the moment we become carefree and ‘light’ by emptying our mind. We don’t need to be heavy like dinosaurs. We just need to be light like birds. That is perhaps why the next phase of evolution after dinosaurs gave rise to birds. This brings us to the question, “How can people be trained to adopt lightness as a personality style?”
That is easy. Skeletal Leap already has a well researched and documented system of opening chakras through skeletal re-posturing. Once the re-postured skeleton becomes one’s first nature, the opened chakras allow energy to rise through the body. Then comes guided meditation. It pulls the Kundalini upward relieving the body of stress. This ascension of energy along Sushumna from the coccyx to the crown chakra is the same as the neural communication along the vagus nerve from the gut to the brain. The entire process results in a state of perennial joy and unbound passion, turning the mind empty and hence light. In our following episodes, we will see how this process unfolds, step by step.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure! In the next episode, I will tell you about how skeletal re-posturing opens chakras through completing our bipedal skeletal evolution.
Be a part of Skeletal Leap Community! Subscribe to Skeletal Leap Newsletter. Click on the link in the description to subscribe.
🔑 Unlock the Practical Plan:
To truly master the Skeletal Leap, you need the step-by-step memoir and the associated practice codes found in the book.
Get the Book: The “Resource Codes” for this chapter’s PDF practice plan are found in the Amazon Paperback Edition.
Join the Movement: Download the Free Prequel Ebook via StoryOrigin and join our community.
Subscribe: Follow SKELETAL LEAP: The Mind Body Connection on Substack for weekly deep-dives into the human potential archive.
You may also like…