Читать книгу The Mind-Body Cure - Bal Pawa - Страница 36

Everyone has a different definition of stress, but at a basic level it refers to a state of mental or emotional strain caused by a physical, chemical, or emotional factor. Stress comes in all shapes, sizes, and quantities, and each of us perceives it differently. All of us experience daily stress, and our bodies can adapt to handle not only everyday stress but unpredictable and acute stress exposure too. For example, we encounter stress when avoiding immediate dangers such as an oncoming car—our SNS is activated, we go into a fight-or-flight reaction, and after the few seconds of fear, we realize the collision has been averted. Our PNS then kicks in, and our rest-and-digest response allows our body to relax. Some stress can even be positive: we may feel an excited adrenaline rush when skiing down a mountain, running a race, or meeting a deadline. Those events, however, are not usually sustained. When stress becomes prolonged, chronic, and excessive, it causes disease in our body. But how and why does it get that way?