Reframing Chronic Health Conditions

Consider the Contribution of Chronic Stress

When you feel stressed, do you tell yourself that you ‘should just get over it’? Do you think that being stressed is a sign of weakness? Is part of you ashamed of being stressed and do you work really hard to push those feelings of stress away?

We are culturally conditioned to believe that stress is purely a mental thing and dismiss the possibility that it is affecting our physical health. We are led to believe that feeling stressed is a weakness and therefore you might feel ashamed to acknowledge it and work really hard to push these uncomfortable feelings away.

It is often overlooked how much of a part chronic stress plays in your overall well-being. And thus it is often not acknowledged how it may have contributed to the cause of the issues that you are facing. Or at least how it negatively affects the conditions that you are dealing with in an ongoing way.

The effects of a stress response on your physical body

I invite you to think this through: when you are stressed, you will notice some changes in your physical body. These may include sweaty palms, an increased heart rate, shallow breathing, increased tension of the muscles and shaking or trembling to name a few. The cause of the stress response may be physical, or mental, or both:

• You may feel a sudden sharp pain as you stepped on a shard of glass with your bare foot – a physical cause of a stress response in your body.
• You may be very anxious about the fact that you have to give a presentation in a few minutes – a mental cause of a stress response in your body.
• Or you may be involved in a car accident, due to which you are in shock because it was such a scary experience and you are in pain because you hit your head – a mental and a physical cause of a stress response in your body.

These are just a few examples. They show clearly that a stress reaction cannot be separated out as simply mental. Even if the cause is a mental one, the response always has a physical component.

The effects of chronic stress – a nervous system always on high alert

Now, usually, after a sudden event the stress will spike but it will also go down quickly afterwards. That is, when your nervous system is well balanced and it knows how to relax again. Unfortunately, most people in modern day life, do not have a well balanced nervous system. But they are so used to the way it is that they don’t even know it could be different. And so they live in a condition of chronic stress. Their nervous system is always on high alert.

This could mean a constant tension in your body, a constant worry in your mind. A drop in your immunity levels, ineffective digestion …. and much more… It is not your fault. There are a lot of challenges and most of us don’t get taught how to relax and rebalance our nervous system.

The effects of chronic stress – a brain biased towards the negative

It also has an effect on your brain. During the physical stress response, the blood drains from the prefrontal cortex – which is the area where you make logical and conscious decisions. And your brain begins to be ruled by fear and other negative emotions. Your ability to make good decisions becomes compromised.

The more time you spend in this state, such as when you are under chronic stress, the more your brain becomes biased towards the negative. The parts of your brain even begin to grow, neural connections get strengthened. This is why you are experiencing a negative spiral and it feels like you can’t break free from it!

Turning the Tides – Reframing Chronic Health Conditions

Thankfully, you are not doomed. It is very possible to turn the tides on this negative spiral in your brain. And the good news is, it is not hard to do this. It is actually fun! Having pleasant, relaxing and enjoyable experiences is a great ‘medicine’ to change course on this problem.

Turning the tides is fun!

This may sound ridiculous to your stressed brain, but I would like to invite you to take a moment to consider that when you are having a positive experience, you are engaging with different neural pathways. These cannot fire simultaneously with the negative pathways, it is one or the other at any moment in time.

Imagine that when you have repeated positive experiences, your positive neural pathways will be strengthened and can even grow, while the negative pathways will be put to rest and may even shrink. Isn’t that a hopeful picture?

Once I began to understand this, I just had to work out how to do it. It can be challenging to drag yourself out of that negative space. I have found the best partners that you can have on this journey are the 3 modalities that I use in my coaching: Nature Connection, Transformational Coaching and Clinical EFT! Pick one, or a combination of them and get started in a way that is easy for you to implement. Step by step, it will get easier. I would love to support you! 💚

Recover your nervous system from stress: Nature to the rescue 💚

Nature is able to assist you in:

• helping your brain recover from stress
• helping you release negative thoughts
• helping you find beauty in your daily life
• helping you think clearer and more creatively
• helping you to feel better and more hopeful for the future
• and more ….

Release negative emotions and even trauma with Clinical EFT! 💚

Clinical EFT is able to assist you in:

• lowering levels of the stress hormone: cortisol
• improving your immune system
• releasing negative emotions
• reprogramming the neural pathways that keep you stuck in trauma
• reducing the experience of physical pain
• and more …

Truly change direction in your life with Transformational Coaching! 💚

Transformational Coaching is able to assist you in:

• connecting with your deeper yearnings
• creating an enticing future vision
• discovering and releasing limiting beliefs that keep you stuck in old identities
• moving forward in alignment with your authentic self
• embracing a pathway of growth and expansion
• and more …

Turn the Tides. Now!

You can have all these things, despite your chronic health condition. You are not doomed, you don’t have to spend your life in darkness. Turn the tides! You can do this! I’d love to support you! 💚

Let’s talk:

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