YOGA FOR STRESS MANAGEMENT

Week 01_Module 03: Stress according to Western perspective

Prayer from Mandukya Karika (3.44)

Laye sambodhayet chittam vikshiptam shamayet punah,
Sakashaayam vijaaniyat samapraaptam na chaalayet.
Om shanti shanti shantihi

Meaning:
When the mind gets to a state of drowsiness, stimulate it and awaken it
When it starts speeding up and distractions set in, calm it down. (Repeat this process)
When the mind is silenced, let it remain that way.

The phenomenon of stress as understood and defined by experts in the field

Fight-or-flight response:
Walter Cannon proposed that when a person faced with challenging situation, he or she react in a
particular fashion which he termed as the fight-or-flight response. That is either ready to face the
situation or run away from the situation. During the fight-or-flight response, the body is rapidly
aroused by activation of both the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system. This arousal
helps prepare the person to either fight or flee from a perceived threat.

According to Cannon, the fight-or-flight response is a natural mechanism that helps in maintaining
homeostasis—an internal environment in which physiological variables such as blood pressure,
respiration, digestion, and temperature are stabilized at levels optimal for survival. Hence, Cannon
considers fight-or-flight response as adaptive because it enables people to adjust internally and
externally to threats in their environment, allowing them to survive and overcome the threat.

General Adaptation Syndrome:

Han Selye defined stress as “nonspecific response of the body to any demand “.
But it varies from person to person. This is called phylogenetic response
Later he proposed the General Adaptation Syndrome, where the person under stress goes through 3
stages; Alarm, Resistance, and Exhaustion.

Alarm:
This stage refers to the initial symptoms the body experiences when undergoing stressful condition.
The “fight-or-flight” response, response to stress, the natural reaction prepares you to either flee or
fight for survival. Your heart rate increases, your adrenal gland releases ca stress hormones, and you
receive a boost of adrenaline, which increases energy.

Resistance:
After having a fight-or-flight response, the body begins to regain balance itself. It releases a lower
amount of cortisol, and your heart rate and blood pressure begin to normalize. Although your body
enters this recovery phase, it remains on high alert for a while.

Exhaustion:
This stage is the result of prolonged stress. Struggling with stress for long periods can drain your
physical, emotional, and mental resources to the point where your body no longer has strength to fight
stress.
Stress responses in the body
The stressor could be anything, leading to various emotions and reactions happens in the mind. It
could be fear, tension, anger, greed, jealousy etc. The disturbances in the emotional cortex stimulates
hypothalamus, which in turn brings about two sets of reactions. One is called the autonomic and
another endocrine system. Stress can bring imbalances to both systems.

ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) has two parts, the Sympathetic (SNS) and the Parasympathetic
nervous system (PNS).

Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) responds to the stress situation by increasing the sugar level,
breathing rate heart rate and blood pressure. So sympathetic stimulation is the one that builds the
stress reaction. Parasympathetic one does the opposite. It tries to calm down the existed state, once the
stressor is removed.

The physiological mechanisms of stress are extremely complex, but they generally involve the work
of two systems—the sympathetic nervous system and the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA)
axis. When a person first perceives something as stressful the sympathetic nervous system triggers
arousal via the release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands. Release of these hormones activates the
fight-or-flight responses to stress, such as accelerated heart rate and respiration. At the same time, the
HPA axis, which is primarily endocrine in nature, becomes especially active, although it works much
more slowly than the sympathetic nervous system.

Stress reaction is built within our system for the very survival of the human system.
But chronic stress condition can affect us in long run and it can cause problems on various fronts
including inducing non-communicable diseases. The relationship between stress and disease is now
well established, though not always recognised.

Imbalance in the autonomic nervous system, imbalance in the endocrine system is called disturbed
homeostasis. When this disturbed homeostasis continues for long, stress becomes bad, stress becomes
a hazard and stress becomes the biggest challenge that we are seeing today.