Health and Well-Being: Turn off stress hormone faucet to weather financial crisis

PortWatch

Discussion

Welcome to our online comments feature. To join the discussion, you must use your real name as your screen name. Instructions can be found on this link: SIGNING ON

comments powered by Disqus

October 31, 2008

Health and Well-being The Daily News of Newburyport Fri Oct 31, 2008, 12:13 AM EDT

Right now, many of us feel the crush of financial stress. No wonder. Just buying gas, shopping for groceries and paying monthly bills can make anyone without a trust fund feel shaky and uncertain. The stock market crash makes it hard to look at our accounts without feeling fear, anger and even some panic. And the world's financial crisis makes it seem that we're on the brink of ruin, especially when the media keep screaming all the bad news details at us.

But all the emotional pain and worry isn't the worst part of our financial stress. The real problem is what's going on in our body — under the radar. Financial stress isn't just about feeling tense, wired, worried and on edge. It's about the release of toxic hormones into our body, hormones that seep into our blood and tissues, where they linger and cause serious harm.

Dr. Bruce McEwen, neuroendocrinologist, warns us of the consequences. He explains that "...stress hormones can impair our immune system and leave us open to invasions of cancer cells and dangerous infections." And neuroscientist Dr. Louise Hawkley describes just one of many ways financial stress can literally break our heart. She notes, "Financial stress hormones constrict the blood vessels which increases your risk for... heart attack."

Chronic stress takes a huge toll. The Endocrine Society tells us why the World Health Organization identified stress as the No. 1 health problem in the industrialized world. "Stress can cause some of our most common killers — cancer, heart disease and cerebrovascular disease," it reported. "Stress-related diseases include depression, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, reproductive dysfunction, and the worsening of diabetes."

Financial stress is especially insidious because it cuts to the bone of our most primitive concern: staying alive. We're hard-wired for a survival mechanism known as the "fight-or-flight response." It kicks in automatically when we're faced with life-threatening danger. The problem is that it's meant for short-term, infrequent activation only — and our stress is chronic.

That's because our hard-wiring is not well suited for life today. Evolutionary scientists call this a "mismatch" problem. Our hard-wiring is obsolete; it's not meant for the conditions we live in. It's meant for simpler life circumstances, circumstances that are long gone.

The mind and body are not two separate things. They're an interdependent unit — the mindbody. What we think and feel manifests in our body. When our mind is in the fierce grip of financial worry, a part of our brain called the hypothalamus mistakes our worry as evidence that our survival is at risk.

This triggers, in error, our fight-or-flight response. Our stress hormone faucet turns on and our body's housekeeping chores, such as digestion, elimination and metabolism, suffer as a result. If this happens chronically, illness and the misery of chronic anxiety and depression result.

When in a fight or flight response, we become hyper-alert to any cues of danger, including bad news blasting at us from every direction. This dips us into a panic mode. Right now, there's a collective financial panic. Stress is contagious. Studies show that marriages, families and organizations can be harmed and even ruined by "second-hand stress."

We're in a group fight or flight-driven panic right now where it's hard to tell the difference between what we're thinking and feeling and what's actually going on. Sure there is "real" financial loss and strain in our lives and real financial problems in the world. And we can be very uncomfortable, especially if we're caught in foreclosure or out of work. But we're not at survival. And there is a challenge in this financial crisis, an opportunity for us to grow into new possibilities.

Chronic stress leaves us floating around on a river of stress hormones. Many thousands of people drown in this river every day. You don't have to be one of them.

If you're under financial stress, don't panic. Develop an action plan based on your actual situation, a plan that will empower you to feel in control. Seek help doing so — from reliable sources. Don't stay isolated and lonely. And don't blame yourself. Offer yourself friendship, compassion and generosity. This too shall pass.

Some mindbody strategies can help. Try the following deep breathing practice whenever you're being dragged out to sea by unproductive financial worry: Take three deep diaphragmatic breaths, breaths coming into and going out from an area just below your breastbone. On the out breath, just let it go. Don't walk the breath out — just release it. If you're alone, sigh on the out breath, Aaahhhhhh. At the end of the out breath is a relaxed state; it's calm and clear. Tune yourself to that state as best as possible. It will help free you from catastrophic worry and from getting too wound up.

Be observant. Stay alert. When you notice yourself in financial stress, just pull the plug on what you're thinking and feeling and take the three deep breaths. Think of it as a way of waking yourself from a daytime nightmare. And then don't follow the thoughts when they return. This takes practice, but it's a great method. It will help keep your stress hormone faucet turned off.

¬¢¬¢¬¢

Dr. Jim Manganiello is a clinical health psychologist based in Groveland, author and founder of MESICS (www.MesicsTraining.com) and Stress Radio (www.StressRadio.com), and an expert on stress, personal growth and "inner fitness." A former Daily News columnist from 1988 to 1992, he is returning to the monthly with a monthly column on health and quality of life issues. E-mail him at drmanganiello@comcast.net.

Text Only | Photo Reprints

PortWatch

Search Results

Discussion

Health and Well-Being: Turn off stress hormone faucet to weather financial crisis

Site Map

Contact Us