By Dr Robert Bates, DC
They say 90% of mental stress is in the form of auto-suggestion. Which really is just us beating up on ourselves. When we’re in a stressed state, there are two different sides of that. We are in the fight or flight response, which is like pushing the pedal to the medal on the gas. That is where everything is in high alert, such as when you find yourself in a dark alley and someone jumps out at you. Everything goes into high alert, and the blood rushes to the areas to get you to stay and fight or take flight.
The problem with that is a lot of times we get so used to being in this fight or flight response that our levels stay at a steady state of high stress for long periods of time.
We may feel stressed states for trying to get to work on time, waking up and rushing off to work, time schedules, paperwork, school, work problems, marital problems, and relationship problems. All these things create mental stress which is looked at, depending on how you interpret it, as a fight or flight response, and causes stress to the body.
When it does that your body is in high alert all the time, which is not what it’s supposed to do, it only should be during those life threatening situations when you have to fight or flight to save your life.
Your body has a tendency to start breaking down at that state, because it never has a chance to go on the other side of the coin, which is the restorative type of resting state that you should be in most of the time, in order to repair your body.
It’s really important to look at things this way, because a lot of times we are so used to it that we don’t even know we’re in this stressed state, because, it’s such a normal situation for our society or our lifestyle to be in a high stressed state.
It can be very hard to break these patterns, especially patterns of thought. Sometimes you think of something and automatically it’ll bring up a negative thought or feeling. It’s a reflex type of situation, because you’ve programmed yourself subconsciously that way.
The way the brain works is if you don’t use it, you lose it, but the more you use it, you have a tendency to go that way. It’s as if you’re walking through snow, the more you walk through one path the easier it is to go through it. So if that path is a negative thought or a negative auto-suggestion, when a situation arises, you will, more often than not, subconsciously take that negative path. So it takes a conscious effort to watch your thoughts, to see what you’re thinking, so that you can slowly start carving a path towards how you want to think.
It is up to you to really have the will to catch those negative thoughts of auto-suggestion. I want to some it up with a parable.
An old Cherokee was teaching his young grandson one of life’s important lessons. He told the young boy the following parable:
“There is a fight going inside each of us. It is a terrible fight between two wolves”, he said.
“One wolf is evil. He is anger, rage, envy, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies,
false pride, superiority, and ego.
The second wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, empathy, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The grandson thought about this for a moment.
The he asked his grandfather,
“Which wolf will win this fight?”
The old Cherokee simply replied,
“The one you feed.”
Drs C Gus & Jacqueline Tsiapalis
Vaughan Chiropractic: Family Wellness Centre
905.850.0909
