#controlstress

Stress is the button that the brain presses which acts as a default mechanism to adapt to the worst-case scenario. The moment we become acutely stressed, glucose spikes in our blood. You also get a spike in inflammatory markers.

We know the evolutionary reason for it. So if you're running away from an animal and you have an open wound, being in a state of inflammation protects you. When we're stressed. It's a benefit as long as it's short term.

The problem is as soon as you keep the button pressed for very long, these effects become negative.

Constant/ Chronic stress can cause cardiovascular disease and promote illness. It's not that these shepherds here don't have any stress. They just seem to have not a lot of chronic stress. In a global survey of daily stress country by country, American report the opposite. American exceed the global average by 20%. One of the ways in which stress is beneficial is if we overcome it by active coping. Today, in our urban world, through social media, news media, we are brought all the problems of the whole world. These are the problems you can't physically control. But you can control how you treat your goat to make sure your flock is healthy. And this sense of active coping where you can resolve the problems that you are given is a very important part of mental health, cognitive longevity, and stress resilience. So in most of the world, we are driven to get ahead by working hard, day in and day out. In Sardinia, it's not so much what they do, it's how they do it. Ref:

I’ll be honest with you all. I enjoy yoga, but my mind wanders and I giggle easily. As a student counselor obtaining my Master’s degree, my mentor and I used relaxation techniques in group therapy. Even though they weren’t “my thing,” I came to appreciate the techniques and began using them when I had trouble falling asleep.

Body scanning and progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) are very similar and extremely simple. With both variations, you concentrate your thoughts on your body—from one end of the body to the other, one body part or muscle group at a time. PMR is slightly more active than body scanning because you consciously contract and release each muscle group before moving on to the next.