Stress is
destructive. Stress is ageing. Stress is a killer. Thirty-six chemicals pour
into the blood—lethal chemicals like adrenaline and histamine. Blood rushes through
the heart, blood pressure and pulse rates shoot up. The rate of breathing
increases. The body gets ready to fight or flee. Digestion is switched off. All
parts of the brain, except the primitive ‘lizard brain’, are switched off.
The force of
blood-flow in an enraged person causes minute tears in the tender fabric of the
arteries. Fatty deposits find a convenient place to park themselves to repair
the tears, and cholesterol, the plaster of paris of the body, slowly builds up
to occlude the artery. Soon the tender flexible artery becomes stiff and hard,
preparing the stage for a heart attack.
The good
news is that there is hope at the end of the tunnel as people are becoming
aware of the stress epidemic and are making conscious choices to not to become
just another statistic. A fundamental shift in leisure time and spending
priorities has taken place in recent years. This includes higher budgets for
movies, personal fitness, meditation, holidays, adventure sports and fine arts.
You have a much better chance of doing what you love as an artist, sportsman,
musician or film maker today than ever before. Meditation and pranayama provide
a way of reducing the automatic and violent reactions to stress. You can
actually control autonomous systems like heartbeat and pulse rate, which were
thought to be outside the individual’s control.
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