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Writer's pictureSebastian Attewell

If You Don't Master Stress It Will Master You

Updated: Jan 28, 2022



One of the common areas #personaldevelopment #coaching clients struggle with is #stress and the need to manage or reduce their stress.

Stress is not always bad, it is your body's natural response to helping you overcome challenge. Your heart rate increases, adrenaline starts coursing through you, and you narrow your focus, and you find an immediate solution and win. There is a big difference between feeling stressed at times and living in a state of stress.

Prolonged or long-term stress, living in a state of stress, generally indicates something deep within your belief system is unhealthy. Prolonged stress has a destructive affect, both on physical and mental health.


People who describe themselves as stressed out or regularly stressed are not being stressed by work, or relationships, or people, but are being stressed by the beliefs about their work, relationships, and people.


All of us have endured difficult circumstances where there was lack or situations where we were a victim and an instinct kicked in to help us survive.


If, however, the trauma from these situations was severe enough, a belief system is formed and stress persists as situations trigger that same reaction, or instinct to kick in.

You will not, nor do you need to eliminate all stress. But you do need to eliminate the long term, enduring stress which is so destructive, even debilitating.


A typical category of situations which cause long term stress are those which, themselves, occur over a prolonged period of time, such as toxic environments, for example; parental relationships, abusive marriages, a polarised or negative workplace or being bullied at school.


Beliefs can also be developed through conditioning, for example; growing up with the subconscious belief that you are measured on achievements or excelling rather than who you are can lead you never feel you are reaching high enough or constantly feeling judged for not being perfect and therefore feel constantly stressed that you are not making the grade.


Living in a state of stress has significant impacts on all areas of your life. You are so focused on the things that you are stressing about that you lose focus on the things that really matter, your relationship, your children, your goals, your health!


When you are stressed, when the fight or flight response is invoked, your body directs resources away from functions that are not crucial in life threatening situations, which is fine for short bursts escaping imminent danger. The fight or flight response is meant to be short term and adaptive. When your body goes into that mode, your normal immune function is temporarily shut down. If a vicious animal is chasing you your body devotes energy and resources to escaping, not to digesting the last thing you ate or to sending lymphocytes to kill a cold virus.


Inflammation is your body’s response to a threat, whether it is bacteria, virus, cancer, a transplanted organ (which your body sees as foreign), or even a psychological or emotional stressor. In response, your immune system sends out an army of chemicals, pro-inflammatory cytokines, to attack the invaders. If the stress doesn’t ease off the cycle of stress and inflammatory response gets habituated in your body, your cells become addicted to the stress response prompting the brain to act and react in a stressful way to feed them the chemical response they have become accustomed to.


The resulting inflammation in your body can lead to many health conditions, even if you believe you are the living embodiment of heath in every other aspect of your life. Stress can induce or worsen medical conditions as you body stays fight or flight mode, cortisol and adrenaline pumping through your veins, for extended periods, which our bodies are simply not designed for. Stress also reduces the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells, that are part of your immune system.


On the EMF I will work with you to uncover the source of these beliefs and reframe them so that you have a different relationship and understanding of them and yourself and let go of your stress. Through modules, including those on emotional mastery, purpose and direction, and relationship to life, through being held accountable and being part of a group of like minded people on a similar journey, you will not only identify and remove the negative and #limitingbeliefs you have of yourself but reprogram yourself with new beliefs and create a new you and #greaterfuture.



1 comment

1 Comment


James Newington
James Newington
Jan 28, 2022

Never really had an easy to understand explanation of how the body reacts to stress. Thank you for this.

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