Stress & Anxiety Management

Is Stress a Problem?

The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines stress as:

<> the constraining or impelling force of something  (wind, weather, poverty, etc.)
<>or
effort, demand upon physical or mental energy

This doesn't imply suffering or malfunction.
Stress isn't, by definition, a problem. 
Life in all its forms is a creative balance of stresses. Our problem is that we react in harmful ways to the stresses of modern life.

We might be clearer describing our modern problem with an old fashioned word - distress:

The severe pressure of pain, sorrow, etc., anguish, lack of money or necessaries; damage or danger
 to ship etc. (in distress ); exhaustion, being tired out, breathlessness, misfortune, calamity.

The Roots of our distress

<>Our biological mechanisms have not altered significantly since our most distant ancestors lived hard simple lives in a virtually unchanging environment.  When facing a predator, or going in for the kill ourselves, we needed those automatic physical and mental reactions (instincts) that had been honed over millennia. Fight or flight was the order of the day.

These unconscious reactions aren't appropriate to everyday modern life. Today we need a direct line to the present, not to prehistory.

Even our parents' and grandparents' experience can no longer provide the models we need for managing modern life.

We no longer face cheetahs or tigers - our predators are now the clock, the economy, our consciences, our partnerships, and our competitors. 

The fight or flight response, once the appropriate reflex to threat, is no longer the answer. We turn these massive nervous and physical reactions against ourselves in the modern world, causing ourselves untold physical discomfort, suffering, unhappiness, and waste.

The ability to respond appropriately to a constantly changing world is what we need.  It means the difference between success or failure, health or illness, joy or fear, adaption or extinction.  This kind of responsiveness is both the means and the goal of the Alexander Technique.

The Symptoms

Symptoms arising directly from poor stress management make a very long list.  To go beyond them to those problems suspected by medical science to be stress induced or stress-aggravated is beyond the scope of this document.  Suffice it to say that the following list is going to lengthen, not shorten, in the coming years and decades: chronic back pain, digestive disorders, respiratory and vocal dysfunction, chronic headache, repetitive strain injuries, nervous disorders, depression, drug, alcohol and nicotine abuse, infertility and impotence, and heart disease.
 

The Goals

To live calmly and rhythmically in the middle of frenetic activity and information overload, you need to have sound and serviceable priorities.

Working in Alexander's way fosters a gentle re-evaluating of priorities and of familiar modes of behaviour and reaction.  This usually leads to more directed and productive thinking; a more varied experience and enjoyment of life; when necessary, the courage to make big decisions or changes; living more fully in the present.

The alternatives to this process are everywhere around you.

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