Stress, deadlines, exams, jobs, expectations, assignments, exhaustion… pressure. Has your heart rate increased? Are you still reading or hiding under the covers?
There is always something that needs doing whether it be working, studying, catching up with friends, housework, something for church, etc. While we might enjoy all of these things, it can quickly become overwhelming when it feels like everything is happening at once. However, there is no use waiting for the ‘to do’ list to end, so it might be more useful to work out how to manage the pressure and enjoy life now!
It turns out that what makes stress unhealthy is avoiding it and believing it is bad for us. Our bodies need stress but they also need us to deal with it healthily and to know it is not necessarily unhealthy.
In her TED talk, Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist, shared the results of an experiment on stress that contradicted everything she had ever told her clients about stress. This experiment found that people who experienced a lot of stress had an increased risk of dying only if they viewed stress as harmful. Those who believed stress was not harmful to them had a smaller risk of dying than even those who experienced relatively little stress. It was also found that avoiding stress altogether caused atrophy, the degeneration of cells, in the body.
So, if it is unhealthy to avoid and unhealthy to think it is unhealthy, what do we do with it?
We were designed to reach out to people.
Our bodies have built in stress resilience. Spending time with friends also helps us relax and even physically heals us. Connecting with friends via a conversation, a hug or even just eye contact releases oxytocin (a natural regulatory substance in our bodies), and this chemical is also released when we feel stressed. It prompts us to seek connection and comfort from other people and if we do, more of the chemical is released, which also repairs the cells in our body that may have been damaged when our heart was racing, our muscles were tense and we physically experienced stress. Social contact even helps us recover faster from stress.
Jesus modelled this response to stress. Jesus understands loneliness. He experienced separation from God and the Holy Spirit for the first time because of the weight of our sins placed on Him. On the cross He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27:46, NLT). In chapter 26 of the book of Matthew, it describes Jesus going away with a few close disciples into nature to pray. In verse 38 (NLT) He says to them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Let’s reach out when we are feeling under pressure just like God designed us to and Jesus modelled for us. When the going gets tough, the tough… seek connection with others.
AUTHOR: Mikaela Borrott, NNSW Conference.