Imagine you are born into a swimming pool wearing arm bands and a backpack. As a human, our lifespan can be over 100 years. So imagine you are born into a swimming pool with a backpack on, with arms bands on, and those arm bands have a very slow leak. This very slow leak means that the air will run out of those arm bands in about 100 years. The lifespan of a human.
If you have no stress in your life, you will happily float around in there and get your full 100 years out of life. But any form of stressor (see definition below) represents a rock that’s added to your backpack. When you add a rock to your backpack, a couple of things that are very important happen each time. You will sink a little lower into the pool from the added weight. Your arm bands will have more pressure placed on them. That slow leak – the rock increases the rate of the leak. So what happens to your rate of aging? It increases – you have less time in the pool (less time on this planet). This is what long term stress does to your body.
As you sink lower into the pool, things seem a little harder. This might mean you find your day to day life more challenging – as it’s harder to keep your nose above the water.
So what do I mean by ‘Stress’? This is basically doing anything unnatural to your body. Eating processed foods/chemicals/sugar, drinking alcohol, smoking (any toxins around you); not getting enough movement or exercise, repetitive poor posture, injuries and accidents (the physical parts to life); mental stress, isolation, no social connections (mental and emotional stress). The more of these you do, the more rocks will be added to your backpack.
But what can you do to get rid of some of those rocks. The simple answer is the opposite of the above. Eating fresh, organic and natural foods, drinking plenty of water; moving and exercising well, good posture, chiropractic care; having good social connections/relationships, coping strategies for those inevitable stressful moments. Each time you do something from this list, you remove a rock from your backpack, making your life easier and then your body can live like it should – healthily and easily.
Not sure where to start? I would recommend getting out walking more often, drinking more water and cutting down the amount of sugar in your diet (check the labels on the packages for hidden sugar!).
Definition of ‘Stress': Pressure or tension exerted on a material object. A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.
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