Scientists have discovered that we humans produce stress hormones that are brilliantly designed to help us survive unexpected threats. But non-life-threatening stressors, such as constant worrying about money, pleasing your boss or figuring out what went wrong with your computer, also causes the release of stress hormones. Over time, a constant and chronic release of these hormones increases health risks. The human body is just not designed to respond to stress on a daily basis.

According to Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroscientist, “Primates are super smart and organized just enough to devote their free time to being miserable to each other and stressing each other out, but if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed you’re going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we’ve evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.”
(excerpted from an article released by Stanford University, Feb. 17, 2007)

Studies show that long term stress has some profound effects on our health:
Suppressed immune system, susceptibility to infectious diseases, disruption of menstrual cycles, and erectile dysfunction, to name a few!

At Sapolsky’s lab, they have spent the last 20 years focusing on stress and brain function. They have found that chronic stress impairs many aspects of how the brain works.

According to Sapolsky, happiness and self-esteem are important factors in reducing stress. He also notes that “The United States has the biggest discrepancy in health and longevity between our wealthiest and our poorest of any country on Earth, We’re also ranked way up in stress-related diseases.”

Stanford reports that Sapolsky recommends the following:
“We’re now about 70 years into thinking that sustained stress can do bad things to your health. The biggest challenge for the next 70 years is figuring out why some of us are so much more vulnerable than others.”

Sapolsky suggests that people do whatever they can to reduce stress in their daily lives. “It takes work” he says “But the same things that make us smart enough to generate the kind of psychological stress that’s unheard of in other primates can be the same thing that can protect us.”

What are you doing to stop the stress in your daily life? Can you feel it when you really shift out of the stress mode? What do you notice about how your reactions to stressors “infect” those around you?

My friends and colleagues who have stayed in touch over the years know that I often “follow my nose” which is my quirky way of saying that I am always studying something new that magically shows up in my life and speaks to my heart and soul. I am always looking for ways to help folks deepen their ability to connect with the joy in their beings.

In the last few years I have been immersing myself in learning about the “intelligence of the heart”. What a fabulous journey this is turning out to be. There is so much to say about it that it may take me several posts. Here are a few interesting facts I have learned about the heart:

We now have scientific evidence about the heart that is surprising, yet rings true. How often we hear descriptive language that indicate that the heart is not just a pump moving blood through the body.

This is true across many cultures. The heart is in constant communication with the brain and it is not just a receiver of messages from the brain. The heart has a brain of its own, which sends messages out. In the heart there is an organizing and central intelligence.
Unlike the brain in our heads, the brain in our hearts is “a high speed, intuitive source of wisdom and clear perceptions”. It combines mental and emotional intelligence. I like to think of it this way:

The brain in our heads is “the brain in a box”. It looks for patterns and it catalogs information to help us learn “the right way” to do things, to stay safe, to understand the way to “fit in” in a complex world.
Ah, but the brain in our hearts thinks outside the box. It can rise above chaos and look for new and different solutions. With heart intelligence, we access deep inner wisdom, balancing thoughts and emotions. It can also be described as being really connected to Source Energy. That’s a mini description, I know. I hope it sparks your excitement like it did mine.
The best part is, that just about anyone can learn to make these tools work for them in a relatively short amount of time. And, the more we practice them, the more heart intelligence becomes our default mode.
I can’t wait to tell you more about how easy this is and how it can reduce stress and bring on the JOY!

These techniques and technology are being used in major corporations, schools, clinics and hospitals across the country to teach people to reduce stress, fatigue, hypertension, and sleep problems as well as increasing productivity and improving “emotional fitness”. The research has led to the development of some fabulous programs that I am now teaching to my clients 1 to 1, in the office and over the phone.
I attended a special certification training, at the HeartMath Institute, last spring to deepen my ability to work with this fine system. These tools can be learned on your own, through the books and software, but working with a skilled practitioner can be the key to true mastery and really making these tools a part of your life. If you would like to learn more, call me for a complimentary phone consultation.