Stress is our body's natural biological response when triggered by a threat of imminent danger or a demand. This response has evolved over the millennia (and continues to!) to a perfected system-wide series of chemical releases and reactions for optimizing our survival.

Our typical reaction includes:

• Increased focus and attention
• Increased heart rate to optimize oxygenation
• Shift of energy and strength to particular areas of the body
• Suppression of the immune and digestive systems. (Who needs to fight off a cold or finish digesting that meal when we ourselves may become a meal?)
• Converted energies for strength and stamina
• Released cortisol

After a threatening event, our systems return to normal and we carry on digesting food, fighting off potential illness, and planning our next steps.

All of these reactions, honed over tens of thousands of years, support an appropriate response for physical danger--fight, flight or freeze. It is only in our most recent generations that our experience with stress has shifted from a real need to protect our physical bodies to a perceived need to protect our sense of self.

But our biology automatically responds the same--whether there is an actual threat or a perceived threat--and today, it can lead to chronic health problems.

(Asia, like most everywhere, is a mixed bag--there is much to love juxtaposed with challenging to meet circumstances and conditions. This is the second part in the series of reflections from travel to Myanmar and Thailand in December, 2016 through January 2017.)


Hot springs and massage are a way of life. I've yet to experience anything that takes stress out of my body quicker than soaking in the hotest pool at a mineral bath. It is the closest thing to magic I've encountered in my 50+ years. I still believe that the hot shower is humanity's greatest invention.

We've explored how we can influence and grow our own happiness, but what are the effects of happiness? Why is it so important, besides the obvious that it feels so good?

In the last blog post, we learned that being mindful about how we think about stress affects how stress impacts us. This is a powerful piece of knowledge that has life-changing implications for good in our lives. How we think about stress in fact changes our biology--and how we think about anything is in our hands.

But there is something more intriguing that Kelly McGonigal discovered during her research and presented in this TED Talk ...

As we learned in the previous blog, our bodies have a built in reaction to perceived threats. Tension builds and we have an enormous storehouse of energy that can be used to fend off immediate danger.

But in today's world of stress, we rarely have the need for the physical strength we accumulate, and unless we physically expend that energy, our bodies remain bathed in chemicals and reactions that can actually cause harm to us in the long run.

How then can we make stress be a force for good in our lives?

I don't usually subscribe to the "5 Things You Can Do To ____<insert some great outcome here>____" format of writing, or the use of an astonishing headline that boasts powerful transformation devised to pull in a reader. Oh, I know these are the trend for writers and marketers in our fast-paced, information-overloaded culture, but it seems somewhat deceiving and belittling to think that my audience's needs and happiness can be reduced to a bullet pointed list that they can read over breakfast. (I have to say, though, when I do get pulled in by this style, I do glean some great benefits from the information shared.)

That said, I have discovered one simple (but not always easy!) thing to help me in the current wrestling match I'm involved in with binging and weight gain.

Significant progress was made when I began looking at the deeper issues of what was happening in my life--what was causing me to go numb at night when I was home alone and when I was out and about with friends or traveling, but I unearthed another contributor that has made a huge difference...