The Strongest Predictor For Low Stress

Research from wild baboons provides insight into perhaps the best way to combat daily, psychological stress. During this holiday season it might bring some comfort. Christie Nicholson reports

 | December 25, 2010 | 0

Stress is crucial for survival. Zebra sees a lion, stress makes her run. But we modern humans get stressed mostly for psychological reasons. Which are much more constant and lingering than a run in with a lion. Work, lifestyle, family, even Christmas.

What makes stress dangerous is the glucocortocoid hormones that our body releases. Elevated levels of such hormones leads to diabetes, hypertension, decreased testosterone, memory loss, suppressed immune system.

Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Neurology at Stanford University, has been studying stress in wild baboons for more than three decades.   And he found there are two powerful predictors of who will be most affected by stress. Personality plays a huge role. Can you tell the difference between a big threat and minor issue? If it is big can you figure out a way to get some control over it? If there’s a bad outcome do you have a coping mechanism?   If you can answer yes to these it’s a good bet you’ve got relatively low stress.

Beyond personality traits, the single best predictor of an ability to deal well with   stress is how socially connected you are. Baboons who had strong relationships also had low glucocorticoid levels and outlived the more isolated baboons by about three years.

So this Christmas holiday, rejoice in your interconnections, your friends and family. It’s a good thing for your heart and health.

—Christie Nicholson

Tattered Pieces~ Mended Minds~Changed Lives

This is a twelve week lesson plan that I developed to help others

My name is Donetta.

I am not a professional counselor. 

I walked through seven years (and then some) of intensive family of origin based recovery. Addressing all forms of childhood abuse. Living under a parental curse seven generations. Some how getting freed from it.  These are some of the things that helped me in the restoration of my soul/mind/body.  The Lord has walked with me all of my days He knew me and kept me.Although Gods presence was with me I only came to begin to know and understand who He is on my twentieth birthday in 1981.<>john 3:16<>

Do you struggle with a lie over your head?  “ You’ll never amount to anything…loser…no one will ever love you. ”

Are the effects of your youth stopping you from uncovering what you long to be?<>

Do you ask your self “ why am I this way?<> 

Do you find yourself saying “ How could I (they) be so stupid”!

Do you share with Paul when you read “ I do the things I don’t want to do and don’t’ do the things I want to do. Who can save me?  Praise be to God who... <>

Synopsis

Together learning some tools to help ourselves in the process of becoming new  

Lesson One~

Why?

Why am I?

Why are they?

What made us this way?

It's No Wonder.

Lesson Two

Choice and Consequences

Under the will of others
The triad of Rescuer/victim/offender

Free Choice

Lesson Three

Where?

Where was God?

Salvation free choice

Repentance and restoration

Lesson Four

The Lie

Uncovering the lie

How it got there

Lesson five 

Discover the truth

Who you are in Christ

Replace the lie

Lesson Six

The gates of your mind

Understanding

education

training up a child

practice

Lesson Seven

Feelings

A gift from God

Appropriate/Inappropriate

Manipulation verses Direct meeting of needs

Lesson Eight

Rage triad

Identifying the components of rage

Silent rage
Fight Flight

What do we do when others rage at us

Lesson Nine

Triad of sin

Stepping of of it

Our responsibility

Lesson 10

Becoming New verses the curse

Boundaries

Character training
Re-parenting

Affirmations

Lesson 11

Risk verses blind trust

Learning to trust God

Learning to build trust with others

Lesson 12

A pure Heart

Clean hands

Seeing myself through eyes of love

Seeing others through eyes of love

Thinking it through

So think on these things...

Thankful for...
Love
loving
being loved
my best friend being my husband
my childrn being beautiful and wonderful to raise
friends who remain even in my absence
success of others
flowers in the garden
veggies germinating in the earth
Mercy and favor from God
Hair on my neck
light in my eyes
ring on my finger
roof overhead
food to feed us
grass to grow
a day off for the children
tools like this to refocus
tanacity to toward boundries
skills to hone
talents to offer
a home of my own
home to offer a santuary to those I love
that finger nails grow back

a cord of three strands not easily broken
ivig to save my bones for this lifetime
gentleness from my darling mate
computer to type on
grief that is healing
The memories of my sweet sister how in her dieing of such a rare thing I am given the gift of extended life.
She was the woman who three years into my recovery came forward asking forgiveness. She said that the things I remembered were true when all of the others denial all but drove me to suicide, she saved my sanity too.

I miss my sister she knew how to commiserate without correction or council just an empathetic ear. I had that joint friendship this week with a wonderful woman my very most intimate friend and it really refreshed my soul.

I think I am real sad, thankful for the gift of sorrow is healing.
I think I am angry and the gift of that anger is power.
I am much more powerful these last months
I am thankful for that.

It has been hard for me to hold fast to who I am and not let another rob it from me.
It feels as if sometimes I am bought. I do not like it! It feels like the old rescue/abusive/victim triangle thing. I am not willing to remain in this tangle this snag. If it were a bad friendship I would remove myself. In this with the details it is not the wise way to go. Too caring of this other to preserve myself.
How you can want something so much yet reality is that it is not different than how it is.

I am vulnerable with my sisters loss. Others remain removed and I am so trying to support, love and give opportunity to a soul to become new. Reality is that accepting others as they are will have a profound effect on how it effects us. Wisdom at times is to bite tongue and love through it. It is life sucking however.
I just treasure a hold on this little life left that I have fought so hard for.
I beome a fog, as it it were as I wished it were, the relationship. It is a madness for it is still yet the same as old for the ingrained triad is so hard to challenge with the love that it takes. With the courage that it takes
For if it is challenged the rescuer then becomes victim martyr. It is so infuriating!

I am thankful that it is for all of this that I endure.
yee haw here comes the holiday season.
I wish it were just the four of us. So much so, no other issues to master.
Kindness is a rule of this old heart that feels so worn of practicing it.

It is finished

"when will you know that you have given yourself a life?" she asked me .
This after telling her that it was my childhood goal to tell on them, to testify against the hidden things done in darkness. If I did not let them make me like them, I would give myself a life on day "i promised" this to my own soul.

After so many many years it has come the time. I see that it is time to accept that I have reached that goal.

When given the medication to stop the effects of the cortisol flush. That PTSD flight/fight response my psychiatrist told me that I should really consider if I ought to subject myself to any more EMDR. My very physical health was made at risk by keeping the stress hormone activated in the process of identifying the triggers to rid myself of the effect of them. It made me think long and hard about when I would stop and simply accept that there will be times when others would simply need to respect my boundries. That I will need to simply accept my limitations stemming from the PTSD triggers. To accept that I have given myself a life, and this is now time to be free to live it.

This only after many many years of a lot of really hard work. 
It is finished. My goal has been attained.
I am tired. It is finished.
Now I live.

I think I now know that I have given myself that life fought for. In the spring I will turn 50 years of age. I have fought for many years gaining back the life stolen from me to the best of my tenacious ability.

It is that now that I see that I have taken my power back!

I have my life gained! 

No longer to fight for anything grater than that I have so successfully attained. The world around me is just that. It can not be altered or changed. I can support those who walk this long road by declaring that Yes this will one day be finished

Many of you know my stand or jurney through the seasons of old when concerning this upcoming holiday.
For many many years my stand, my battle to tell the truth. Sound the bell, shout from the high places to pray for the children during the upcoming days. It has left my mind tormented with the memories of those days pass. Now no longer is it my bell to ring.

Now I let this to you. It will be no longer for me to be the clanging sound of arise and pray for the inocent who are harmed.

It is a season to pass that mantle on.

To you who understand this

Others must take that task so that I can no longer think on these things in order to attain the goal that is MY LIFE

That battle is not to flood my mind any longer.

I have told the truth, I have rung the bell now I pass that bell along to you who's duty it is to do so.

This will be the first year that I will no longer focus on the horror of this time of year.

I will rather be focusing on the pure and raise my family aware that we all can overcome.

I will example to all that I have overcome the world, the evil and naked violence that would remove the innocent as well as the vile.

I will celibrate the innocent and leave the vile to it's own devices.

I will yet pray and then let go for it is no longer for me to intercede when it takes me back to the very events that I fear happening to other children.

It is up to you and others who are able to pray without the effects of personal experience.

Denile, Stopping up your ears

"It really never happened".
Halloween is just pure simple kids fun, a chance for innocence and community affiliation. There is nothing wrong with it. It's all good.

This is a hard thing to put into practice. I hate Halloween!

We who have know horror have to hold our fingers in our ears, but when my fingers get tired...
When I get tired of the ghouls when trying my best to allow my kids the opportunity to witness what trick or treating means... When the folks scream...I am doing my best to manage the PTSD.

There are always ear plug...     :)              

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Stress

Stress. Stress initiates the release of a variety of hormones that make your pulse race and cause your blood pressure to rise. The hormone cortisol, released to lessen these effects, also creates problems when it remains chronically elevated. Try practicing relaxation techniques to help manage stress, and get enough sleep every night. 

I read an article in a health publication this morning. So alright it is true yep the effects are real.

So kids do this...address the cortisol NOW

Lamictal is a very useful tool or medication. It took a good 30 years for anyone to offer anything to help this cortisol flush to stop. This medication really has changed my daily life. That flush of cortisol made me someone else it left me an angry reactor, the shaking of frustration left me exposed to blowups and in-congruent responses. Embarrassed low self esteem and so on.

TEND TO IT
This does not have to be left to it's devices. The inflammation caused to our body is lasting so stop and tend to it.
You Matter

I often use essence oils like this one

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The effects of P.T.S.D. and disassociation

Fight / Flight

Hyper diligence ingrained into the very synapse of the physical tissue of the brain. Trained to focus constantly so constantly that over years it is not even a conscience event.  So that most of the focus of every moment of life is taken up in it. There is a very little percentage left to take in anything else. Then, after years of missing out on all the things going on around me, all the joys and people they disappear. In the fog of those very moments taken away being distracted on keeping safe and creating safety for those around me. I have been so riddled by the Flight/fight defense system ingrained in my brain that not even reason by this highly intelligent woman could will herself out of it. The height of this intelligence and tenacity got me into a safe life and kept me here. But even after 25 years the brain my brain is so hard wired to pursue safety at all cost it has even cost me my very ability to remember the special events with my kids, the names and faces of my friends and the relationships that I could not even relax enough in to remember who they were. Or what our relationship was. Very few folks have I been safe enough that relaxed friendships could occur and remain.

So the solve appears to be intentionally re-wirer'ed. See I thought I had done this but what had been done was actually really 'becoming safe'. Now I need to make my brain hard wire on the fact that I am safe and it can stop. By verbalizing my feelings of every moment into to the pleasures I am experiencing this will be a big start.

So now I have to convince the wiring of my brain to stand down. Physically it must now get intentional focused attention to speak out pleasure experience every moment and how it feels out loud. My Psychiatrist said that the medication itself can cause a slowing of cognitive function. The Disassociation is  actually the flight fight constantly being a sentential relentlessly stopping me from enjoying any given moment. The memory is not created because the synapse are to busy with looking out for danger are possible problems. Literally the ruts in the physical organic brain are stopping the new neuron pathways from forming. Now just like building muscle I have to force the new synapses to form associating feelings to experiences to create memory.

I forgot the appointment I had a week ago. It was a 3 month medication check. I got a bill for the no show. Called today after I got home with the good news from the neurologist. The secretary calls me back she wanted to know if 4:30 might work she had had a cancellation. 

Pretty obvious who orchestrated that.

By the way he gave me grace on the debt and erased it.

So the neurologist wants me to start back up the EDMR, I told the psychiatrist (he is renowned for his work with veterans he handles medications as an MD)  and he warned me to speak to the physiologist about it (p.t.s.d. is her specialty she rewires the brain to stop flash backs). To use care that it not provoke more of the Fight / Flight unconscious response apparently it will be a very fine balance.

The EMDR is to remove the stimulus causing the flight /fight at the same time I must also put huge focus on intentional verbal recognition of experiences at the moment of events identifying pleasurable experiences giving them a feeling name.

So if you already have made it this far in your recovery I applaud you. If your yet on the path and stumbling along I reach out this hand to you.

May this information be a hands up to somebody.

Yes the point is that God does have a purpose in all of this.

Get this the psychiatrist said "(the above) and to Expect and look for miracles". Reminding me that all along many of the things he has witnessed in my life over the years have killed many other of his patients yet I am making it through it all by the faith and grace of God. Cool that he sees it, even cooler that he actually acknowledged it.

My intellect is always unconsciously focused all around me for any dangers to myself or my loved ones . Now I must force this intellect to serve me in another way. Healer heal thy self.