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Historically, the majority of stressors facing humans were physical (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!), requiring, in turn, a physical response. "We are not particularly splendid physical creatures," says David Spiegel, M.D., director of the Center on Stress and Health at Stanford School of Medicine, who explains that plenty of other animals can outrun us, overpower us, out-see us, out-smell us. "The only thing that has allowed us to explore the planet is the fact that we can respond effectively to threats."
Via Maggie Rouman
It is important to understand how our brains and bodies react to stress. This article also includes an infographic.
Without the stresses of life we would not be here today reading this article. The issue is that when I stress in situations that are not life threatening or overreact to situations and events that shoot a squirt of adreneline into my system 200 times a day, I am training myself to be anxious...almost all the time. I like to say: When this occurs I am swimming in an adreneline stew. When you stew me enough, my autoimmune system gets compromised. My normal and natural defenses wear down...andI wear out.
The trick is to train myself to become a non-anxious presence in an anxious and overstressed world.
The aphorism is: I learn from my experience. The trust should I look a little deeper is: I DO NOT learn from my experience. I LEARN from my interpretation of my experience. Two people can have the same experience. One sees it as a learning lesson, grows from it and continues on with life. Another person sees it as a horrible experience that they will never get over, and remain a victim of that experience for the rest of their life.
This is where an attitude of gratitude and appreciation come in. Take a breath in, and then out. Move on to the next breath. I only have this moment.
The evolution of the fight or flight response is no longer as adaptive as it once was