Stressing about Stress and its Remedy

Sep 17, 2022

Experts in America discuss stress as the cause of death, describing the inability of people to handle the reality of messy lives. Unrealistic and ideal expectations cause people to strive for perfection at the cost of balance, relationships, sleep, meals, and overall health. Indeed, excellence is given great importance in modern society while denigrating the position of falling in at second, losing a race, or opting for a less ambitious career that will get less attention or promotion even if it provides better relationship care for loved ones.

People suffer with the mental problems of living, which become physical ailments as the brain's chemicals affect the body. This connection between mind and body was not validated by doctors just 20 years ago, as they laughed at the idea that the mind could alter the body and create heart disease, thyroid disorders or cancer. But slowly abundant and irrefutable evidence has emerged of the connection between the mind and brain. The ability of the mind's thoughts, emotions, and reactions to produce chemicals that affect the body has now been established, and the same doctors who laughed 2 decades ago now proudly tout their understanding of the influence of mind on body!

Even using its own rubric, modern medicine lacks scientific evidence for most of its treatments, though they are published in leading medical journals after review by the gang of peers who have the same limited knowledge. The prestige of peer reviewed medical journals only traps science under their limited understanding. Modern pharmaceuticals have deleterious and permanent side effects for most treatments, and is one of America's leading causes of death. For stress-related issues, most pharmaceutics lead to addiction, mental imbalance, and gut side effects.

Ayurvedic wisemen tracked millenia of real-life situations of stress and only then captured the wisdom into its medical science. Live, practice-based evidence, in humans, in different environments and of different ages, with different medical conditions is the basis of ayurveda. This makes the wisdom priceless while quietly throwing light on the discrepancies of modern medical science.

Ayurveda understood the reality of stress from watching women with large households, families with failed crops, men returning from war, and elders who witness death of their cohorts. It tested different remedies for different individuals based on their mental type and body type and created prescriptions for returning the mind to strength.

Overall, the middle road of balance is prescribed for anyone nearing their personal edge of ability. It did not encourage people to venture to the edges of excellence until they were stable at their core. People with vata body constitutions have movement more familiar to them, but they are also prone to more unwieldy mental and emotional reactions, leading to anxiety, panic and indecision. People with vata diseases tend to have the same tendencies when imbalanced vata overtakes their normal and optimal body constitution. They are prescribed consistency and stable footing on the earth, to ground themselves and give the movement better flow. Warmth and softness, which are depleted in sharp, fast movement, reemerge when vata types are given prescriptions for planting their feet on the earth, yoga on the mat, warm cooked root vegetables and soups, and longer sleep starting in mid-evening.

As the autumn emerges from a hot summer, the temperature cools outdoors and we reflexively put on warmer clothes and enjoy hot beverages and warmer, softer foods. We know unconsciously how to give our senses certain comforts. To overcome the dangerous effects of stress, we must also undertake the commitment to understand what affects us in our deeper senses.

Each person has different triggers for stress that reflect our personal unresolved issues. Most of these have to do with our relationships. Assess your relationship to your family and friends. Is there anyone to whom you cannot give a hug? What is the barrier? What emotions do you feel? What inhibitions do you have? Why do you keep that person in your life? Can you get rid of that person from your life, or do you have an unextinguishable commitment?

Assess your relationship to your home. Is it clean? If it were a metaphor for your inner body, would you consider it healthy? Do you have treasured collections? How are they useful to you? Do you hoard supplies? Do you regularly clean shelves and cupboards and air out everything you own? Do you have items squirreled away that have no active use in your life? Why do you keep them? What security does each item in your home have for you?

Assess your relationship to money. How much is enough money for you? What would you spend money for? If someone gave you a credit card for buying a million dollars a year, what would you spend it for? Do you enjoy giving money to others? Do you use money to manipulate others? Do you deprive yourself using money?

Which of the issues in your life give you stress? Can you walk everyday in nature, and give some of that worry or fear, anger or resentment, lust or laziness away to Mother Earth, who can absorb everything? Can you feed your soul and grow it so that the stress is lessened?

As you learn to work with the underlying issues giving you stress, you will become immune to the temptations that society offers for suppressing your stress, and you will become stronger. It is not a stress-free life that we need. It is the ability to manage stress, process it, and master the underlying reasons we felt stressed that we actually desire.

Everyday Ayurveda

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