Human beings have shown themselves capable of adapting to a wide variety of circumstances, not all of them healthy. You doubt it? Think about the people you know who are really stressed, and then consider the nature of your interactions with them: are they always late, talk fast in incomplete sentences, or frequently interrupt the conversation with “Sorry, I have to take this”? They may seem to have a hard time staying on topic and show very little genuine interest in you.
Let’s imagine that, being a caring person, you try to point out the danger of constant stress. You can tell your friends that humans were designed to respond effectively to intermittent stress, but chronic stress overwhelms and ultimately destroys the body’s defense systems. You’ll most likely get a response of, “Yeah, I know. But this is what my job demands. I plan to slow down once the kids leave home.” [say, in fifteen years]or when I withdraw [say, in thirty years]. In the meantime, I really don’t have a choice.”
You know what I mean. We all have friends like that. As they leave, you sigh with relief and tell yourself how glad you are not to be in their shoes. Guess what: there are probably people who look at you the same way. Do not you believe it? Try this exercise. Go to a quiet place and do six or seven abdominal breaths, not where you fill your chest but where you begin to breathe around your belly. You can see if you are doing it right by placing your hands on your stomach. In a sigh from the belly, your hands will go outside when you breathe inand in when you breathe outside. After you have completed six or seven abdominal breaths, take stock of your thoughts, your feelings, your body sensations, and your breathing rate. This will likely be an unknown state, or one you experience only on vacation (assuming you enjoy a leisurely vacation, not the “seven European capitals in eight days” variety).
Now, before you go back to work, ask yourself how you feel about this state of calm that you have temporarily achieved. Do you enjoy how it feels? Wouldn’t you like to change your life to spend more time in a calm state? I predict you’re likely to say, “Yeah, I know. But this is what my job requires. I plan to slow down once…”
“Okay,” you can say. “I get it. You want me to take some time to smell the roses.” Not precisely. If you give stressed-out people that instruction, they’re likely to come back and proclaim with Type A enthusiasm, “Hey, I managed to smell 147 roses and it’s not 11am yet.” External prescriptions are often met with objections: jobs, spouses, families, community responsibilities. They all offer compelling arguments against change.
What good is inner peace, anyway? Let’s look at what happens to the body during stress: There’s a spike in blood pressure and pulse and a rush of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, all appropriate responses in an emergency. But the effects of chronic stress can be devastating to the body, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke, contributing to obesity and diabetes, and accelerating the aging process, including the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Calming down can save your life, or at least prolong it. But calming down also increases the quality of your life. Go back to how you felt after doing the abdominal breaths. If you really value that feeling, you have to change your priorities so that calm experience counts for more than the rewards of the hustle and bustle. No one else can tell you what to change, but if you value that sense of calm enough, you will know the alterations needed to make it happen.
Relaxation exercises like deep breathing, yoga, or meditation help relieve stress. But becoming truly aware of the present moment—what you perceive with your senses, what you feel in your muscles, what you think about when you look away from deadlines and obligations—can help you appreciate the value of inner peace as an end. in itself. Once you’ve allowed that experience into your life, you may want to take steps to preserve it.