Stress-related Ailments

[da5zeay]

I came across this article on Dr. Robert Sapolsky, specialist in the
physiology of stress.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/18/mindopening_lectures.html

>From the post:

"Sapolsky's engaging, fascinating lectures trace all the ways that
stress creates heretofore unseen ailments in a population that has
largely cured all the fast-killing diseases and can now afford to
contract slow and lingering ones. From psychogenic dwarfism -- children
who stop growing and never go through puberty due to extreme
abuse-stress, something that Peter Pan author JM Barrie suffered from
-- to the effects of stress on the heart, brain, blood, and long term
overall health, Sapolsky's research is mind-blowing to those of us who
wear our stress and overwork like badges of honor."

There are lots of interesting links there that I'd like to explore in
more depth, and apparently there are two free lectures by the professor
on iTunes. Although the topic is a bit negative, it's very interesting
to realize how mental health affects our physical health to such
extremes. I'm curious to hear more about studies from the positive side
of psychology...extreme NON stress leading to healthy bones and tall
offspring, for example, if such a thing exists :-)

[Think_n_See]

Great point. I've just been thinking about this. There's a book, "The
Power of Full Engagement" by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. It talks
about de-stressing parts of your life in order to increase
productivity.
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743226747/104-1157103-2082335?v=glance&n=283155)

It has two main points:
1) Jim and Tony treat a person who work as a 'corporate athlete'.
Jim's previous work is in training athletes, especially tennis stars,
and his techniques show that the best thing an athlete can learn to
control is down-time. Literally, the time between two volleys in
tennis can be lived by your body as down-time or as stress-time, and
that often makes the difference in winning. Jim and Tony write that
people who work and don't give themselves weekends off, or vacations
frequently enough... they burn on on the consistent level of stress.

2) There are four main systems working in parallel for people:
physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The authors say that
people tend to understress the physical and spiritual and tend to
overstress the mental and emotional. (Physical, mental, and emotional
systems are self-explainable... the spiritual system is your resolve,
intergrity, determination, etc.)

It's a book that can be skimmed very easily because examples stand out
in large outlined boxes on many pages.