What is stress and where does it come from?
Stress is not a recent thing. It’s actually a survival technique that proved to be pretty useful for our ancestors.
Imagine one of our cavemen ancestors coming face to face with a woolly mammoth. How would he react in a moment of stress?
Luckily for our caveman, the stressful situation doesn’t last long.
But what about today?
There may be no more woolly mammoths, but we have other things we perceive as being stressful – work, money, relationships – but these don’t tend to go away as quickly.
We’ve evolved, our societies have become more complex and our living conditions have changed. But our nervous systems haven’t evolved to catch up. They’re still living in the cavemen days.
So, when we perceive things as stressful, our ancient ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode kicks in and we have a number of physical and hormonal responses. When the stress doesn’t go away, neither do the responses. And if they’re left too long, they can start to turn into something like this …
So what’s all this got to do with massage? Click here to find out how it can help.
Want to know more about stress and how to manage it? Find out more in a workshop