how do you tell if you have stress?
>>31539511Everyone has stress. But, I can specifically tell because my whole fucking neck locks up and I start getting a killer headache.
>>31539511Stress is the awareness by your lower brain centres that something is threatening your survival and action is required to counter the threat.Acute (intense but temporary) stress is good because it spurs you to necessary action. It means you're doing something to improve your situation. On the other hand, chronic stress is bad because it disrupts your sleep, immunity and sex hormones. It means you're simply coping or immobilized in a losing battle.Good stress feels exhilarating while bad stress feels.. bad. The difference is a sense of control versus a sense of lack of control.When you have a sense of control, you are both relaxed while engaged in vigorous action, which sound paradoxical. It means your intellect is online and you can solve problems despite being flooded with "stress" hormones (cortisol and adrenaline).When you lose a sense of control then your intellect goes off-line and all you have is brute instinct and conditioned reflexes to respond with. So basically, your goal should not be to avoid stress. Your goal should be to stay cool enough to stay in control, while alternating between acute stress and relaxation.The psych scientists say that that is achievable by having good "vagal tone" which essentially means how good your autonomic nervous system is in recovering from stress. You can look up the technicalities of this if you're interested. The bottom line is that meditation is one of the best ways to maintain it.
>>31541142I might add that the stress hormones give you temporary super-powers, of strength and speed. Combine that with keeping your intellect online and you have what the literature calls "flow," where you become one with the task.
