The first aspect of stress that you can control is your physical response to it. Much of the damage caused by long-term exposure to stressors comes about from the poor choices we make about diet and exercise. Stress causes our muscles to tense up, affecting our relaxation and our posture, and we fail to find time for important stress-reducing activities like exercise and enjoying ourselves.
This chapter examines five points of control that you have, and how you can exercise that control to both reduce the effects of stress and also reduce the amount of stress you feel yourself under. We will look at:
- Good posture – the way that you use your body throughout the day can affect your wellbeing, and some simple exercises will help you to maintain good posture and relaxed muscles.
- Good rest – the importance of relaxing and sleeping well, and some advice on how to get a good night’s sleep.
- Good humour – why laughter sometimes really is the best medicine, when it comes to stress.
- Good energy – exercise will help you build the energy that you need to fight the symptoms of a stressful life and reduce your response to stressors.
- Good fuel – we are, literally, what we eat. Our bodies incorporate the chemicals we put into them to build the chemicals they need to keep us healthy. Good choices about nutrition and diet make a valuable contribution to controlling stress.
The chapter ends with two sections on the use of legal drugs, and on what research tells us about healthy ageing.
An important note about this chapter:
Only carry out the exercises and advice in this chapter if you are in good health and fit. Otherwise, always consult your qualified medical practitioner first. If in doubt, check it out.
Good posture
Your nervous system does not just connect your brain to your body – it also connects your body back to your brain. Changing your physiology sends powerful signals to your brain to release different hormones that change the way you feel. How we stand, sit and use our bodies can have a profound effect on our mood.
As you feel your muscles start to tense up, make a conscious decision to relax them. When you do this, you will get the double benefit.
Benefit 1: Reduced harm
Releasing the tension will reduce the harm that it does to your musculoskeletal system (causing aching around the neck, shoulders, back and hips, which can be followed by more serious harm). It will also reduce pressure on your arteries that restricts blood flow to your brain (causing reduced concentration and ‘tension headaches’).
Benefit 2: Increased sense of wellbeing
Your body, nervous system and brain form a positive feedback loop: when your brain detects tension it thinks ‘There’s something wrong: tense up!’ This makes the tension worse … and so on. If your brain gets signals telling it your body is relaxing, it will think ‘Everything’s okay now: relax!’
Posture and movement
The first step to taking control of your posture is to become aware of the way your body feels when you stand, sit or move. Does it feel completely relaxed and free, or are you aware of any points of tension or tightness where you are holding yourself stiffly or your movement is not as fluid as you would like?
Progressive relaxation
For most of us, this bodily awareness does not come naturally; it takes practice. So start off, when you have finished this paragraph, by putting this book down and taking an inventory of your body. Start with your feet and work your way up. As you notice a little tension in a muscle, release it. Don’t let yourself go all floppy and limp, but allow your different muscles to work together and balance one another. Work your way up your legs, paying attention to the joints at your ankles, knees, then hips. Now work through your trunk and chest to your shoulders, which often carry a lot of tension. Notice your breathing, before you work down your arms, relaxing your shoulders, elbow and wrists, ending up with a soft feeling in your hands and fingers. Now return to your neck. Let it relax and straighten, and feel your head perfectly balanced. Relax your facial muscles, allowing your expression to soften, your eyes to defocus a little, and your tongue to relax in your mouth.
Try it now.
Good posture
Having a good posture is not only good for your health and fitness; it also leads to a greater ‘presence’ that conveys confidence and authority to the people around you. Our bodies are designed to adopt a natural posture that is well balanced, but the muscle tensions that frequently accompany stress pull our joints this way and that, upsetting the balance and leading to a wide range of poor postures. These in turn give rise to all sorts of long-term problems and even disabilities.
If you have any concerns that your posture is asymmetric, twisted or bent in a direction that it should not be, or if you have any serious or chronic muscle or joint pain, you must see a suitably qualified medical practitioner. These things can usually be put right quickly and painlessly if treated early but, if left, can take far longer to resolve. Often, your general practitioner will refer you to an osteopath or a chiropractor, and you may choose, if you are confident that your discomfort is joint or muscle related, to visit an osteopath or chiropractor without consulting a GP. Do ensure that whoever you select is fully registered by the appropriate professional body. If you can get a personal recommendation from somebody you know, all the better.
Sitting and standing
Standing up
Perhaps the most natural posture for us is standing up. When you do so, good posture should come naturally to you, but to help you find it, here are a few tips. First, your feet should be flat on the floor, about shoulder width apart. You will notice that they are not naturally parallel, but a little splayed outwards. Notice any tension in your ankles, calves and knees, and adjust the amount of splay, until you are at your most comfortable. You should also notice an equal weight on each foot and, as you do so, become aware of how each foot is like a tripod, with your weight shared between three points: your heel and two pads behind your big toe and your little toe. The pads of your toes also bear weight, but when you are still and balanced, they should only do so minimally. They principally help balance you as you move.
Further up your body, notice your hips. These should be aligned to face forward, with weight evenly carried by each. Now release your tummy muscles and get a sense of relaxation lengthening your back and widening your shoulders and chest. Imagine that there is a puppet string attached to the very top of your head. Imagine that this string is being pulled upwards, straightening your neck gently and allowing your head to sit easily on your neck. Hang your arms comfortably by your sides, with your hands and fingers relaxed – neither in a fist, nor overly straightened.
Sitting down
Many of us like to just flop into a chair. It feels relaxing and, when we are fully relaxed, it will do us little harm. When you are carrying a bundle of muscle tensions, however, this can emphasise the imbalances and increase the damage that they create. Good posture when sitting down is as important as your standing posture and there are a few tips to getting it right.
The first tip is to select a chair of the right height for your body, or either pad the seat (if it is too low) or use a foot rest or a couple of books to support your feet (if it is too high). You should find that, with your thighs level on your chair and your knees bent at right angles, your feet rest easily on the floor with no tension.
Rest your weight evenly on the two ‘sitting bones’ (your ischia) inside each buttock and allow your ankles and knees to relax. Once again, imagine that puppet string gently guiding your head upwards, allowing your back and neck to lengthen along the direction of your spine.
The Alexander Technique
The two sets of tips above, standing up and sitting down, are based on the Alexander Technique. This is a set of techniques that you can learn, and which help practitioners to understand how we use our bodies and gently improve our posture. If you want to learn how to relax your body and improve your posture, or develop more even breathing to improve your speaking, singing or music playing, then this is an excellent discipline to pursue, and you will find Alexander teachers in most towns.
The importance of movement in posture
Moving freely and easily will help keep your posture good and strong, and also improve your confidence and your mood. One simple exercise can have a rapid and surprisingly profound effect on how you feel when under mild levels of stress. You can use it at any time, to prepare for a meeting, relax before an outing, or simply to cheer yourself up after a tough day. If you are concerned about what people may think, then do it in private.
Stand up, with your feet about shoulder width apart and make yourself comfortable. Let your puppet string pull you up into a comfortable posture. Now, gently move your head to look upwards, without overstretching. Finally, bring a smile to your face – it may help you to imagine a warm sun shining down on you, so that your eyes softly close. Relax in that posture for up to a minute. You will be surprised how much of a sense of wellbeing this can bring about.
Jiggle and shake
The next exercise is a lot more dynamic and will give you a sense of energy and relaxation. It is taken from Ki Aikido, a gentle martial art, well suited to relaxing and exercising at any level. Practitioners range from young and fit people practising with astonishing energy to elderly and disabled people, practising at a level that suits their abilities.
Stand up, feet about shoulder width apart, firmly on the floor and make yourself comfortable. Allow your puppet string to draw you up into a good posture, with your arms comfortably by your sides.
Now let your fingers wiggle and, as they do, let your wrists start to shake. Let the shaking increase to include your whole arms. Then let your shoulders move too and, eventually, allow your whole body to rise up and down, on the balls of your feet.
Now, progressively reverse this. Take all your weight on your feet and then slow the shaking in your trunk, then your shoulders, gradually still your arms, and then your wrists and, finally, let your fingers come to rest.
You should notice a little tingling in the tips of your fingers. That is the sensation of oxygenated blood flowing. If it’s flowing in your fingers, then it is also flowing into your head and giving your brain a good boost of oxygen.
Good rest
Rest and relaxation are an essential part of dealing effectively with stress. As we become more stressed we find it harder to relax and sleep well. And, as we get less sleep, our ability to put events into perspective and cope with stressors diminishes. Rest and stress are part of a feedback loop, so take control and move from a vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle of good rest leading to resourceful attitudes, bringing about effective actions, that allow you to relax properly and sleep well.
Relaxing
Relaxation triggers a physiological response that is the opposite to the stress response. Now your sympathetic nervous system will reduce its activity, slowing your breathing and heart rates, while your parasympathetic nervous system takes control, re-activating your immune response, your digestive system and your natural sleep cycles. Your sex drive will surely follow.
If only you could then boost your relaxation and create a powerful sense of wellbeing. Perhaps incredibly powerful drugs might help. Drugs that are legal and completely safe to use would be ideal – and better still, free.
The drugs we are talking about are a group of natural brain chemicals called endorphins, which are responsible, wholly or in part, for senses of elation, relaxation, and pain relief. Our hypothalamus and pituitary glands (which also play a big part in our fight-or-flight response – see Chapter 1) produce them naturally at times when we exercise hard, feel love or excitement, eat spicy food, and have an orgasm.
You can also fool your brain into releasing endorphins by allowing yourself to think about a pleasurable memory in great detail. Take about 10 minutes to close your eyes and wallow in that memory, seeing the scenes you saw, hearing the sounds, smelling the smells and feeling the textures and temperature. Make it as real as you can and feel free to amplify how good it was in your memory. You can use this technique to conjure up a sense of calm, happiness, joy or anything else. Build a library of recollections or even fantasies that you can call on when you need them.
The perfect relaxing posture
We met the Alexander Technique earlier in this chapter, with some tips for standing up and sitting down. To relax completely, try lying down the Alexander way.
The Alexander semi-supine posture
Find a comfortable place on a firm floor – ideally on a carpet or exercise mat. You will need a couple of books to rest your head – approximately 5 cm thick, but take time to find the right height for you.
Lie with your bottom, back and shoulders on the floor and your head resting on your books. If you feel pressure on your chin or throat, try a smaller pile of books and, if you feel your head tilted back, try more. Bend your legs and bring your feet up, just in front of your bottom, about shoulder width apart, with your feet flat on the floor and your knees pointing upwards. Rest your hands gently on your tummy or flat on the floor beside you. Breathe steadily from deep down.
Try resting in this posture for 10 to 20 minutes – maybe combining it with a gentle meditation. Imagining yourself to be made of chocolate on a warm day works well. As you do this, feel your body melting and spreading over the floor. This will encourage your muscles to relax and your joints to lengthen and widen.
Figure 2.1 The Alexander semi-supine posture
Other routes to deep relaxation
Mankind has found a host of ways you can relax deeply, which in itself indicates how important it is to us. Here are some brilliant options. Some of them will not be for you, and may seem far out or ineffective. What matters is that you can find one or two that do work for you.
- Aromatherapy
- Body massage
- Indian head massage
- Reiki healing
- Reflexology
- Listening to music
- Performing music
- Reading
- Taking a bath
- Sitting contemplating the world
- Daydreaming
- Taking a nap
- Watching a movie
- Listening to the radio
Meditating
Meditation has a long and glorious history, with modern science only now starting to figure out why it is so valuable to us. A New Scientist review article published in January 2011 identified 17 benefits that have been measured in scientific studies, in the areas of behaviour, thinking, emotions and health. Of particular interest to you in controlling your stress are: reducing anxiety, combating stress, reducing emotional reactivity, helping with eating disorders, reducing depression and sustaining concentration.
Meditation
Find a comfortable upright chair somewhere where you will not be disturbed, and sit down in a good posture. Place your hands in your lap, left hand on top of right (unless you are left-handed). Gently close your eyes.
As you relax, you will start to gently focus your attention on one thing. Some people prefer a word, or mantra. In traditional Indian techniques, this may be a Sanskrit word, but you can choose any word or phrase, although something abstract will work best. You could focus on an image and, again, something abstract like a simple shape will work well. Another common approach is to focus on your breathing and, in Ki meditation, practitioners focus on a point in the centre of their abdomen, called the Hara in Japanese, Dantian in Chinese and known as your ‘one-point’ in English.
So, focus on the object of your meditation; I will use the word ‘calm’ in this example, and allow yourself to repeat it whenever it comes into your mind. Your thoughts will stray: that’s natural. As soon as you notice that you are no longer focused on the word ‘calm’, then let go of the unwanted thoughts and bring your mind back to ‘calm’. As you sit, your mind will gently settle. The unwanted thoughts will return, but simply push them gently away and return to ‘calm’.
When you start, 10 minutes will seem like a long time. But gradually build up your practice to 20 minutes to get the full benefit. Meditation works best when it is regular, every day at the same time. To get the most from it, 20 minutes in the morning and then again in the evening will truly relax you and sharpen your ability to concentrate.
One thing that new meditators often find is that their body takes the opportunity, while relaxed, to get the sleep it needs. If this happens to you, do not worry; your body knows best. However, once you establish a routine, it is best to avoid times when you are over-sleepy or, indeed, overstimulated. In the morning, try meditating after you have got up and had a shower, but before you eat breakfast. When you get home from work in the evening, take some time to unwind, and then meditate before your evening meal, and before you drink any alcohol. These aren’t rules, but they will help you get the best from your meditation.
Breathing
Why do smokers smoke when they are stressed? It is not just the effect of nicotine (which we will examine later); when they smoke, they breathe deeply – which their body associates with relaxation – and so they relax. So when you feel stress, make a conscious effort to breathe deeply. Stand or sit upright and take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Five or six deep breaths like this can really calm you.
If you want to energise yourself, you need to get as much oxygen into your bloodstream as you can. Start with the longest out-breath that you can sustain, through your mouth. When you can go no longer, stop, pause and then expel a little more air with a ‘ha’ sound. Now take a deep breath in and hold it for a second or two. Then repeat the out-breath process. Now take two or three deep in-breaths through your nose, followed by out-breaths through your mouth. Finish with a deep slow in-breath. What you have done is replaced as much as possible of the stale air in your lungs. Normal out-breaths only clear half to two-thirds of the air in your lungs, so this process will replace much more of that air with new oxygen-rich air. Needless to say, the best place to do this is outside.
Sleeping
Nothing is quite so important for keeping a realistic perspective on your stressors as regular and refreshing sleep. So give sleep a high priority in your life.
The most important step if you are having trouble sleeping is to get yourself a sleep ritual that involves a regular time to go to bed and get up. Do relaxing things for at least an hour before you are ready to go to sleep, like taking a bath or listening to music. Create a regular ritual that tells your body it is getting towards time to turn off for the night. Avoid stimulants like nicotine, caffeine and alcohol for the last few hours of the day and try to finish eating at least two hours before bedtime – these all have a disruptive effect on your sleep. But do not go to bed feeling hungry. If you need to snack, avoid sugary foods and go for something like toast or cereal with milk.
Make sure your bedroom is relaxing, well ventilated and not too warm, and invest in the best mattress and pillows you can afford. Remember, you spend around one-third of your life in bed – far more than in your car or on your sofa, or watching your television.
If you are not feeling sleepy, read a book for 20 to 30 minutes, rather than lying awake, wishing you were asleep. If this is a regular problem, then get more exercise in the early evening, finishing around two hours before bedtime. The only strenuous activity that promotes sleep immediately is sex.
Pets and relaxation
Pet ownership seems to be a great way to relieve some of the symptoms of stress. As well as the healthy aspects of exercising a dog, or the way responsibility for an animal can take your mind off your own troubles, research evidence suggests that caring for a dog can reduce blood pressure and one of the most interesting reasons is that walking a dog creates social interactions where passers-by smile at the owner and even stop and chat.
Cat ownership seems to have less effect, although there is little doubt that stroking a friendly cat does produce short-term relaxation. It does, however, require a lot less commitment and may fit better with many people’s lifestyles.
Good humour
The nerves connecting your brain to your mouth work in both directions. When you smile, it signals your brain that all is well and triggers the release of ‘happy hormones’. Laughter is one of the greatest cures for feelings of stress and maybe is the best medicine. Make time for fun and laughter in your life.
The average adult laughs 15 times a day, while the average four-year-old laughs 400 times.The source of this quote is numerous websites, none of which offers any definitive evidence. But it’s a great quote and, if we ignore the problem of the word average, seems to accord with experience. My toddler seems to laugh hundreds of times a day – I rarely do!
How many times have you ever thought: ‘One day I’ll have a good laugh about this’? Well, why not laugh about it now? Laughter is one of the most powerful ways to increase your sense of wellbeing and stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system (the healing part).
The Felicity factor
LeeAnn Harker and Dacher Keltner, at the University of California, Berkeley, studied a college yearbook, looking at the faces of every woman and identifying those that had genuine smiles. They controlled their study for factors like physical attractiveness and found that observers rated women displaying more positive emotion as having more attractive personalities. Most significantly for us, these positive emotional expressions predicted good outcomes in marriage and in personal wellbeing up to 30 years later.
This is one study among many suggesting that happy people tend to have happy lives: what I call the ‘Felicity factor’. Felicity means ‘happiness’ or ‘a cause of happiness’. It is also the name of my wife.
Finding the funny
So, assuming you aren’t smiling enough in your life, where can you find the funny?
- Make time to see funny films.
- Buy your favourite TV comedy shows on DVD.
- Go to comedy clubs.
- Share a joke with friends.
- Read a funny book or cartoon strips like Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Dilbert …
- Look for funny clips on internet video sites.
Good energy
Increased regular exercise reduces your need for sleep and generates the hormones that activate your parasympathetic (repair and maintenance) nervous system. If you don’t sleep well, or enough, then building regular exercise into your routine will help. It will also have a great effect on your mood and your energy levels during the day. It is no coincidence that the busiest people take rigorous steps to protect regular exercise time. Just 20 minutes in the gym or taking a brisk walk in the fresh air will help to get your mind and body balanced.
Regular exercise does not simply mean sporting activities; your range of options is enormous. You could also try walking, jogging, gardening or dance. For more gentle exercise, you might think of tai chi, yoga or Pilates. A lot of the benefits for stress reduction can come from the social aspects of your exercise, as well as the fitness, weight control and sleep benefits.
Low-impact exercise
- Walking, swimming or dance
- Washing a car, vacuum cleaning or decorating
- Gardening, sweeping leaves or mowing the lawn
- Yoga, Pilates or Alexander Technique
- Chi Gung, tai chi or Ki Aikido
Whatever form of exercise you choose, pick ones that you enjoy, and start gently. The biggest risk from any exercise is starting with a burst of enthusiasm and overdoing it. This is especially so if you are either starting again after a long break, or are taking up something new and you have not yet built up the skills and experience to do it safely. If you are in any way ill, overweight, injured or disabled, get advice from your medical practitioner before taking on something new.
Good fuel
You are what you eat and drink. If you know that your diet is not what you want it to be, you won’t change it until you start to recognise the link between what goes into your body and the person you are.
Your choice of what you consume will have a huge and rapid effect on your mood and your response to stress. Why do nicotine, caffeine, excess sugar and fats, and various drugs have such a massive impact on our bodies? It’s because they contain powerful active chemicals. In most cases, it is this high biological activity that renders them toxic when used to excess.
Food
Dietary choices are intimately tied up with all aspects of your health, and only experts can truly hope to keep up with the constant stream of research showing heart benefits of this food and cancer risks from that. How to Manage Stress cannot give you the information you need to fine-tune your diet, but balance and moderation will always be a good starting point, as will the use of fresh, seasonal foods, with the minimum of pre-processing. Keeping your salt, saturated fat and sugar intakes to moderate levels is extremely important, and ensuring you eat good quantities of a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables will keep you feeling good.
Perhaps as important as what you eat is how you eat. Make time for your meals. Making meals a social activity and participating in their preparation will slow you down and chill you out. Eating a meal at a relaxed pace and enjoying good company will help put your body in the ideal state to digest your food well.
Stress-healthy foods
Here is a list of food for which there is some evidence of stress reduction or helping your body stay healthy at times of stress.
- Fresh fruit
- Fresh vegetables – especially leafy green vegetables like cabbage, spinach and broccoli; carrots; tomatoes; onions and garlic; peas; capsicums (peppers)
- Oily fish
- Pulses and beans
- Dried fruit – but avoid sulphur-treated fruits
- Nuts and seeds
- Fruit and nut bars based on oats (not on chocolate, sorry!)
- Eggs
- Soya products like tofu
- Herb teas and infusions
Water
Your brain is like a grape – or a raisin. Very slight shortages of water – well below the level that triggers fatigue or headaches – cause your brain to shrink and wrinkle up. Not by much, but it is enough to diminish its effectiveness. Keep drinking fresh water (British tap water is very good quality) to stay at your best. Typically, you should aim for a cup an hour – more in hot weather or dry, air-conditioned environments.
Another reason to drink plenty of water is that your brain can often confuse thirst for hunger, triggering you to seek more food than you need. So, even if you don’t feel thirsty, make a glass of water your first priority when you feel peckish between meals, have a headache or feel fuzzy-headed, or in any way lethargic.
A word or two about drugs – the legal ones
Most of us would like to think that we can control our stress levels without the benefit of drugs like sleeping pills, tranquillisers, anti-depressants or illegal narcotics. But how many of us are truly drug-free? Three legal drugs are widely used, yet each can do us significant harm when abused:
Caffeine
The least harmful of the three, caffeine can, nonetheless, exacerbate the problems you face when you are stressed.
Nicotine
The harm from nicotine is well documented and its use in the Western world is declining. Yet many turn to nicotine at times of stress, and smokers typically increase their intake.
Alcohol
Alcohol’s potential for harm is huge, from addiction to alcohol-induced accidents. Yet it can also be used safely and, in small doses, can help alleviate some of the symptoms of stress and help promote relaxation and laughter.
We will examine these legal drugs one at a time.
Caffeine
Caffeine is a stimulant with similar physiological effects to adrenaline and, in small quantities, will do you no harm: your liver can deal with it and clear it from your system. But make no mistake: large doses of caffeine are toxic.
Too much caffeine can cause heart palpitations and it is also a diuretic, causing your kidneys to excrete more water than normal, placing you at risk of dehydration. It reduces calcium levels in your body, affecting bone growth and maintenance and, in pregnant women, high doses are implicated in low-birthweight babies.
How much caffeine is too much?
Caffeine is toxic in doses of over 300 milligrams (300 mg). This is equivalent to three mugs of instant coffee or two of brewed coffee, six cups of tea or four mugs of strong tea, eight cans of cola or four of high-caffeine ‘energy’ drinks. The most startling effect is how long it takes your body to clear caffeine. After around five hours, half of what you drank will still be in your system, keeping you buzzing.
While one cup from time to time can enhance your cognitive performance and memory, when you drink too much for a period of time you will be less able to concentrate, make more mistakes and find the quality of your sleep is impaired. If you recognise these symptoms, it is time to detox: stop drinking caffeine. You will probably get a severe withdrawal headache around 24 hours after your last drink, but the next day you will feel much better. Replace the caffeine with herb or fruit teas, or decaffeinated products, and drink caffeine-containing drinks now and then, as a treat.
Nicotine
Why do smokers smoke when they are stressed? Because when they do, they breathe deeply – which their body associates with relaxation and so they relax. So, when you feel stress, make a conscious effort to breathe deeply. In fact, nicotine itself is a stressor – it activates your sympathetic (fight and flight) nervous system, increasing your breathing rate, heart rate and blood pressure.
The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that, for every minute you smoke, your life expectancy drops by one minute. So for a typical 20 cigarettes a day, that could be more than 2 hours. That’s a month of your life, for every year of smoking. This effect gets greater as you age, so a lifelong smoker can easily lose a decade of living. But you will look older when you die.
You will find lots of advice for giving up smoking, and the impact of doing so is pretty quick. Within 24 hours, your blood oxygen (good) level comes back up to normal and your blood carbon monoxide (bad) level drops back to near zero. Your lungs have started to clear the soot, ash and old mucus, your clean clothes smell fresh, and you have saved over £6. A month later, you are £200 better off, have no nicotine in your body, you can breathe better, and food tastes and smells wonderful – as will your house, if you have cleaned and aired it. Most important, your blood circulation is starting to improve already.
After a year, your breathing is noticeably better and you have reduced the risk of a heart attack to half that of a smoker. Think what you can do with the £2,500 you have saved. Ten years later you can buy a new car and enjoy it, knowing that your chances of getting lung cancer have reduced by 50 per cent.
Alcohol
One or two drinks, within safe limits, when you don’t need to think carefully or operate machinery, are a good way to relax. But a little social drinking is the tip of a big iceberg for some.
Who would really sign up for memory loss, poor judgement, dehydration, headaches and dizziness? And these are just the short-term effects. Long-term overuse of alcohol can increase your susceptibility to heart disease, strokes, cancers (mouth, throat, breast, liver and colon), liver and pancreatic diseases, stomach problems, infertility and impotence, and osteoporosis (brittle bones). And these are completely separate from the social and emotional effects of alcohol abuse.
From time to time, medically recommended safe limits are revised. Keep reviewing these and make sensible choices. Avoid binge-drinking and keep your average consumption within safe limits. Don’t go more than a few days without taking a day or two off completely, to give your liver some time to recover.
Healthy ageing
In his book Aging Well George Vaillant describes seven factors that promote successful physical and emotional ageing: lack of tobacco and alcohol abuse, an adaptive coping style, maintaining healthy weight, exercise, a sustained loving relationship, and years of education. Surprisingly, his research found no evidence that stress levels are a relevant factor. But look more closely and in the list you will see ‘an adaptive coping style’. People who can handle stress well do indeed have an advantage.
Almeda County Study
The biggest survey of how life outcomes link to behaviour is known as the Almeda County Study, in which Dr Nedra Belloc and Dr Lester Breslow studied the lives of 7,000 people. Their results were very similar to George Vaillant’s. Could it be that, together, these studies give a good prescription for controlling your physical response to stress?
Table 2.1 Belloc & Breslow’s seven health factors for longevity
| 1 Sleep 7 to 8 hours per day |
| 2 No eating between meals |
| 3 Eat breakfast regularly |
| 4 Maintain proper weight |
| 5 Regular exercise |
| 6 Moderate or no use of alcohol |
| 7 No smoking |
- If you have alcohol-related problems, Alcoholics Anonymous are a good source of help: www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
- The Alexander Technique is unregulated in the UK. However, The Society of Teachers of The Alexander Technique (www.stat.org.uk) is prominent.
- Chiropractors in the UK are regulated by The General Chiropractic Council: www.gcc-uk.org
- To learn about Ki Aikido in the UK, contact the Ki Federation of Great Britain: www.kifederationofgreatbritain.co.uk
- To give up smoking in the UK, start with the NHS SmokeFree website: www.smokefree.nhs.uk
- Osteopaths in the UK are regulated by The General Osteopathic Council: www.osteopathy.org.uk
- If you improve your posture, you can reduce both the feelings of stress and the damage and pain that tensed-up muscles can cause your body.
- Relaxation and sleep are vital to controlling your stress. Use techniques like meditation, and prioritise sleep, to ensure you are well rested and have a clear perspective on your situation.
- Exploit the ‘Felicity factor’ – happier people have better lives.
- Exercise is important to build up strength, stamina and suppleness, and reinforce your reserves against stress – it also helps your sleeping. If you aren’t keen on sport, there are plenty of alternatives.
- You are what you eat, so make careful choices about what you put into your body.
- Healthy ageing is not a matter of chance or accident; you can stack the odds in your favour, with the right behaviours.