10 Warning Signs That You’re Stressed Out

I’ve been talking the last few days about stress – it’s a huge factor that blocks you from living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Stress is all about living life in the fast lane – which is the High Density Lifestyle lane – but the unfortunate thing is that most people, when they’re stressed, don’t even recognize that they are, or what the stress is doing to them – they’re totally incapable of stress management.

So today I want to give you 10 warning signs that you’re stressed out.  Please take heed, and if you find you recognize yourself in this, start working on making changes, so that you can experience some stress relief.

1. Forgetfulness. Stress will short-circuit your memory, and cause you to be unfocused.

2. Irrational thinking. When you are stressed, your thinking is not always rational, and it is hard to think clearly. Small challenges can then become huge obstacles.

3. Easily feeling anger, anxiety, irritability and fear. Stress can cause your feelings to spiral out of control. You may start having anxiety and panic attacks over things that usually are easy for you to deal with.  You may also become easily angered or irritable at the slightest provocation, or perhaps at no provocation whatsoever.

4. Impulsive behavior. You may do things on a whim, without thinking about the consequences.

5. Tendency to make mistakes. You may forget something, leave it behind, or overlook details that you normally would have considered.

6. Headaches, backache, joint or muscle pain. Stress can express itself by causing you to have pain and other physical ailments. It’ll be hard to live a healthy lifestyle when you can’t manage stress.

7. Difficulty in falling asleep. Sleep problems affects many people, and stress and anxiety is the number one cause of that.  Stress makes it difficult to wind down and drift off to sleep.

8. Shallow breathing and tightness in the chest. Many a person has gone to the emergency room thinking they are having a heart attack, when instead it is just the stress and anxiety affecting them in a big way, causing tightness in the chest and shallow breathing.

9. Weakened immune system. When you are stressed, it is easier to develop a cold, fever, flu, sore throat, sinus infection, and other types of infections.

10.  Women’s health issues.  Stress can cause women to have pain during menstruation, irregular periods, PMS, fibroids, and other women’s health issues.

The key with stress is that everyone has stressors in their life—there are certain things outside of our control that happen to us.  But it’s your relationship to the stressor: do you let yourself become overwhelmed by the stressors to the point that some or all of the above warning signs manifest, or do you allow yourself to stay calm, roll with the punches and take things as they come?

If you become more self-aware and more mindful of your actions and reactions to stressful situations, you can become less affected by the stressors because then you are practicing stress management.

It also is important to make sure you are taking the time to relax, whether by going for a walk, exercising, being still, or whatever works for you to give you stress relief.

The more you relax, stay calm and stay in the groove, the more of a Low Density Lifestyle will you live, allowing you to live a healthy lifestyle and be in the land of health and wellness.

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Happy April Fool’s Day!!!!

The Great Spaghetti Harvest of 1957

What’s one of the best holidays for curing stress and giving you stress relief? Why, April Fool’s Day of course!

A good April Fool’s Day joke will make you laugh, and laughter makes you feel lighter of body, mind and spirit, and by so doing, will lighten your load and help you feel less stressed and more in the Low Density Lifestyle mode.

And so, in the spirit of April Fool’s Day, here are five of the most classic April Fool jokes and pranks:

The Great Spaghetti Harvest of 1957

The respected BBC news show Panorama announced in 1957 that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Many viewers called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

Wisconsin State Capitol Collapses in 1933

The Madison Capital-Times solemnly announced that the Wisconsin state capitol building lay in ruins following a series of mysterious explosions. The explosions were attributed to “large quantities of gas, generated through many weeks of verbose debate in the Senate and Assembly chambers.” Accompanying the article was a picture showing the capitol building collapsing.

Australia Converts to Metric Time in 1975

Australia’s This Day Tonight news program revealed that the country would soon be converting to “metric time.” Under the new system there would be 100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour, and 20-hour days. Furthermore, seconds would become millidays, minutes become centidays, and hours become decidays. The report included an interview with Deputy Premier Des Corcoran who praised the new time system. The Adelaide townhall was even shown sporting a new 10-hour metric clock face.

The Greatest Baseball Pitcher Ever

In 1985, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. This was 65 mph faster than the previous record. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.” Mets fans celebrated their teams’ amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. In reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the author of the article, George Plimpton.

Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity in 1976

The British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

I hope these April Fool’s Day pranks gives you a few laughs and some stress relief, and at the same time gets you feeling lighter of body and mind and less in the High Density Lifestyle mode.

Stress and the Teenage Years

Are You Stressed?

So, are you stressed? Are you able to relax and experience stress relief? Do you have time to play? Do you sleep well? These are some essential questions, because if you’re overly stressed, not able to relax, not taking the time to play, and not managing stress well, you’re also most probably not sleeping well.

And if you’re stressed and not sleeping well, you know what that means? You’re living life in the fast lane, the lane in which you’re burning your candle at both ends and the candle is just about flamed out. You know what you call this: that’s right, that’s living the High Density Lifestyle, a lifestyle that is not conducive to healthy living and health and wellness.

So where do I start when talking about stress?

Teenagers and Stress

How about this? I’ll tell you that if you’re stressed out when you’re younger, you’re setting yourself up for a High Density Lifestyle adult life. Habits that we learn when we’re younger follow us into adulthood.

And getting stressed out when you’re younger is a nasty habit that if you don’t change, will affect you adversely when you’re an adult, because you’ll have a harder time managing stress and experiencing stress relief.

Teenage Stress and Heart Disease

A recent study found that teenage stress can lead to physical problems in adulthood and put adults at risk for cardiovascular disease. Researchers found that a greater frequency of stress in teens was associated with higher levels of an inflammatory marker called C-reactive protein, or CRP. CRP has been identified as an indicator for the later development of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

When you’re a teen, there are a lot of stressors that come at you, and most teens are ill-equipped to deal with them. And just think, if you’re ill-equipped to deal with them when you’re younger, then the adverse reactions your body has to stress will follow you all the way to when you’re grown-up.

Peter Panning It

Now you can take the Peter Pan approach to growing up, and basically refuse to grow up, but, and I hate to be the one to deliver the bad news, until science develops a cure for growing up, it ain’t gonna happen.

What researchers found was that daily interpersonal stress experienced during the high school years was associated with elevated levels of inflammation, as measured by higher levels of CRP, even among normal, healthy teens.

“Our findings are consistent with the emerging body of evidence that points to the link between stress and increased inflammation, which places individuals at risk for the later development of cardiovascular disease and could have a significant impact upon long-term physical health during adulthood,” was the summary of the research.

Develop Self-Awareness

So the bottom line is, getting immersed in living a High Density Lifestyle can start in your younger years and follow you along when you become an adult.

This is no way to live, so the best bet, if you’re not a teen anymore, is to develop the self-awareness of what stress is doing to you, so that you can be better at stress management and get yourself onto a Low Density Lifestyle.

And that’s when you really start living. The good news is that healthy living will be a beneficial byproduct of this.

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Stress: Life in the Fast Lane

For the next few days I will talk about stress and relaxation. Stress is both a symptom and by-product of living a High Density Lifestyle, while being relaxed and calm is something easy to do when you’re living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Relaxation is one of the ingredients in the acronym FREE, which if you remember, stands for Flow/Relaxation/Effortless Effort. Living FREE means living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Life in the Fast Lane

When you are living life in the fast lane, you are putting your body under a lot of stress. There is only so long the body is capable of operating at a maxed out level—you can only burn your candle at both ends for so long, and then the inner flame starts to be extinguished.

Stress is all-pervasive in our modern fast-paced culture. I will return to this category time and time again, and I will also return to the category of relaxation many times over. Why, you may ask? Because it can’t be talked about enough. Stress puts you smack in the middle of living a High Density Lifestyle, and the longer you live that way, the worse things become.

So let’s look a little more in-depth at what stress is.

A Brief History of Stress

The term stress was coined by scientist Hans Selye in the 1930s based on his careful observation of physiological responses in laboratory animals. Selye later broadened his findings to include the human response mechanism to a perceived threat, or “stressor.”

Selye found that when he exposed various lab animals to unpleasant or harmful stimuli, there were three general stages of reaction. He called these the General Adaptation Syndrome, or GAS. The three stages were Alarm, Resistance and Exhaustion.

By the end of the third stage of GAS, Selye found the animals depleted of their body’s most important resources: their adrenal glands were fatigued, their autonomic nervous system was misfiring and their immune systems were burnt out.

Furthermore, it was found that this type of reaction played havoc on the feedback loop that constitutes the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the system that controls reactions to stress and regulates many body processes, including digestion, the immune system, mood and emotions, sexuality, and energy storage and expenditure.

Not everyone reacts to stressors in such a detrimental fashion, and there are times when stress can have positive attributes (Selye called stress that enhanced function eustress). But most people don’t cope well to stressors because they are on system overload, bombarded by stimuli and overwhelmed by life’s demands. Living in this manner is truly a major impediment to a Low Density Lifestyle.

Stress: A Major Impediment to a Low Density Lifestyle

Stress is a major impediment to living a Low Density Lifestyle. It will stop your ability to be in the flow and find your center of calm and stillness.

Stress can negatively impact your health, well-being, happiness, and ability to live a productive and successful life. Stress will keep you living a High Density Lifestyle.

One of the things about stress is that for a lot of people, because they’re not in touch with how they feel, they aren’t even aware that they are stressed out.

And so, with that in mind, I’d like to offer you some helpful advice to recognize some of the signs of when you are over the edge with too much stress:

1. You get sick often. Stress can depress the immune system, making you more susceptible to various upper respiratory ailments.

2. You have digestive problems. One of the places that stress is felt in the body is in the digestive tract. You may have trouble digesting food, you may get stomach pain, you may have acid reflux, or you may have irritable bowel sydrome.

3. You suffer from pain. It could be back pain, joint pain, or even headaches.

4. You easily get anxious. Stress can affect the nervous system and make you very wired, so that things can easily set you off and cause your heart to race, your chest to become tight, and your breathing to become shallow.

5. You are easily angered. Stress will cause you to have a short fuse and to unload on people, even loved ones, often times for reasons quite trivial.

6. You can’t sleep. You go to sleep, but your mind is still racing, still thinking about everything. Or you go to sleep, but then you wake up, and can’t fall back asleep.

7. You act erratically. You do things impulsively, or you do things that you normally wouldn’t do.

8. You are drinking or using recreational drugs a lot. You need a way to unwind, and so you turn to drinking or drugging as an outlet to help you release all that pent up energy.

9. You are using pharmaceutical drugs to enhance/stabilize your mood. Stress can negatively impact your mood, attitude and emotional health, and so if you are not aware of how stressed out you are, you will be turning to prescription drugs to help you.

10. You lack focus and clarity. You forget things easily, and can’t think clearly. You also can’t focus on any one thing and mentally flit around.

I strongly suggest using the above 10 signs to help you manage your stress. Your life will improve greatly for doing so.

Ten Signs That You’re Living a High Density Lifestyle

How do you know if you’re living a High Density Lifestyle?  Here are ten signs that will tell you if you are.  Ok, I’m having a little fun with it, but you’ll get the point when you go through it.

1. That Mother and her 3-year old just don’t seem to walk fast enough through the
crosswalk for you!
2. You begin to think that there is a conspiracy out there to make you late for work every single morning!
3. You’re starting a petition to replace food, water and air as our basic needs with an extra large coffee with triple cream and triple sugar.
4. When you leave the driveway in the morning it looks like a chase scene from your favorite police show.
5. The space around your lounge chair at your kid’s soccer, hockey or baseball games look like the desk at your office.
6. You pray for red lights because you figure that waiting at the light is a great time to get some business done.
7. You find sitting for anywhere beyond five minutes is a great time to get into REM state.
8. You’ve developed your own system of increasing muscle tone in your neck and shoulders without the benefits of working out!
9. You have discovered that ten minutes a day of crying is a new way of replacing meditation to release stress.
10. Whenever your heart starts beating fast you get excited because you’re reminded of your favorite disco tune.

Ok, so how did you fare?  Are you leading a High Density Lifestyle?

To achieve a Low Density Lifestyle might at first take work, but it is work that will pay off in tremendous dividends. Attaining this state is not hard, although for many of you there are countless roadblocks, most of which are self-inflicted.

But when you arrive at a Low Density Lifestyle you know it, because suddenly you begin to feel that everything flows and all tasks are done effortlessly. In this situation, the body and mind are in such resonance that you feel like you are “in the zone.”

Low Density vs. High Density Lifestyle

The opposite of a Low Density Lifestyle is a High Density Lifestyle. This way of living sooner or later creates blockages, or density, in the body and mind. When there’s high density in the body it can measurably be observed as high blood pressure, along with high levels of plaque, cholesterol, triglycerides, low density lipoproteins (where a Low Density Lifestyle is the right kind of LDL, low density lipoproteins are the wrong kind of LDL), and other markers of negative blood chemistry.

A person with high density in their body and mind will suffer from chronic health problems, and also will be prone to rigid and inflexible thinking.

At first, it’s actually easier to live a High Density Lifestyle than a Low Density Lifestyle. That’s because a High Density Lifestyle occurs when you go through your day on autopilot, oblivious to your body, environment and relationships.

How does a person end up living a High Density Lifestyle?  Living a stressed-out existence is one of the primary ways.  The greater the stress and overstimulation, the more the body will produce excess amounts of adrenaline, cortisol and other fat-soluble steroids in order to keep you in fight-or-flight mode and capable of staving off what is perceived as a threat to your existence.

The problem with these chemicals is that they cause tangible densities in the body.  Once they are manufactured, because of their fat-soluble nature, the body doesn’t easily metabolize them, leaving their toxic chemical residues to linger in the blood stream and to be stored in various regions.  The end result is damage to the body, and it can be severe.

“There is more to life than increasing its speed,” Mohandas Gandhi once said.  And this is so true.  Looking for more speed at all times is a sure-fire prescription for living a High Density Lifestyle.

People need and want to get off the gravy train of the High Density Lifestyle. They want to be FREE.  They want to be more in the flow, relax and feel their stillness, do things with effortless things.  This is our natural inclination and aspiration.  This is the Low Density Lifestyle.  This is the way life was meant to live.

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