Short Introduction

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Background Material:

    1. Introduction
    2. Energy Medicine
    3. Subtle Energies
    4. How Disease Starts
    5. Stress Is the Cause
    6. Types of Stress
    7. How the SCIO Works
    8. Other SCIO Uses

THE SCIO AND ENERGY MEDICINE (continued)
by Antera

Stress Is the Cause

Stress is now recognized by most doctors as the underlying cause of the majority of illnesses, but they can't do anything about it other than advise their patients to de-stress. Even the AMA says that 80% of illness is stress related.

So what is stress? Webster defines it as "emotional, physical tension, strain or distress." We know that it is somewhat subjective, because two people can be in the same stressful situation and one will get stressed but the other won't. Whether or not we are stressed by a situation can depend on conditioned responses such as opinions, beliefs, emotional reactions, and mental assumptions, as well as overall health.

When a person is excessively stressed, we see the classic symptoms of hypertension (high blood pressure)-rapid, shallow breathing and hypothermia (cold extremities). The sympathetic nervous system kicks in, stimulating a "fight or flight" response. When a person is stressed chronically (not uncommon in our culture) the "sympathetic on" state leads to depletion of the adrenals, pancreas, and thyroid, eventually bringing on exhaustion. Some symptoms of chronic stress are irritability, digestive complaints, breathing difficulties, over-reactivity, relationship problems, mental focus and memory problems, and weight gain.

Hans Selye, called the "Einstein of Stress," was the first to identify stress as a primary cause of disease. He said that stress accumulates in the body, so that the only true healing comes out of stress reduction. His pioneering model, called the General Adaptive Stress Model, described the progression of stress accumulation.

When a healthy person first encounters a stressor, they are in what Selye called the "Alarm" stage. A full alert goes up, creating symptoms that make them uncomfortable so they will get out of the stressful situation as quickly as possible. The body's sympathetic system goes into action, then as the stressor goes away, the alarm stands down and the parasympathetic system brings the person back to normal health.

But if the stressor does not go away, and the person either chooses to ignore the alarm or cannot change the situation, the sympathetic system stays on, and over time realizes that the alarm system isn't working. Then the symptoms go away, as the body adjusts to the new constant stressor. This is the Adaptation Phase. As the person adapts and the stress symptoms recede, they may think it is no longer a problem. But the stress simply goes deeper, affecting deeper parts of the body and lowering optimal functioning as the adaptation process progresses.

If the stress continues even longer, accumulating in the body, eventually the person goes into the Exhaustion Phase, when symptoms reappear as serious organ problems and disease. The body's reserves and glands are depleted, so organ functions are affected. The person is exhausted and diseased.

As a simple example of this stress model, suppose you lived all your life in a rural environment with clean air, then one day moved to a city with high levels of air pollution. The stress of the pollution may at first give you red, irritated eyes, and a scratchy throat. Your body is in the Alarm Phase, trying to tell you to get out of the city because the lungs can't handle the pollution as fast as you are breathing it. But you ignore these symptoms because you need to stay there for your work.

After a few months, you notice that you no longer have the irritated eyes and throat, so you assume that all is well. Your body has entered the Adaptation Phase. The alarm did not work, so it goes to a backup mode, finding other ways to cope with the stress. You notice that you aren't quite as energetic as you used to be, maybe you get colds or flu more often as your immune system is affected, or you develop allergies. But otherwise you don't notice that anything is wrong.

Over the years, however, you eventually go into the Exhaustion Phase. Symptoms of more major disease emerge as your energy becomes more and more depleted. Perhaps you develop a lung disease such as asthma or emphysema, or an inherited organ weakness develops into serious illness.

This is an example of one stressor, but most of us have many ongoing stressors in our lives that we can't easily remove, each adding more complexity and problems to our health. The process of healing often involves some changes in lifestyle and also our ways of thinking, so we do not react to stressful situations as we did before.

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Copyright 2005 Antera