Category Archives: Stress

Freeing your Covid19 Lockdown Trauma

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The previous post focused with a trauma lens on the effects of a lockdown to your health. It can be very traumatic. In this post we look at what to do to undo those effects, even during a lockdown.

As you feel the stress in your body build, some of it can turn into a traumatic response. Freeing the trauma response as soon as possible is ideal. So what can you do? You can’t think it away, it’s not a prefrontal cortex (cerebrum) problem.

Answer: You have to move and feel it away.

Freeing the Fight response – Boxing bag, Pillow Fights, Weights, Gym, Kicking, Martial arts, Tai Chi, Competitive Sport.

Freeing the Flight response – Walking, Jogging, Running, Trampoline, Rebounder, Up/Down Stairs, Swimming.

Freeing the Freeze response – Meditation, Bubble Bath, Long Shower, More Relationship contact, Animals, Hugs/Cuddles, Heavier blankets, Massage, Play, Dancing. Stretches, Singing, Music. Reading, Gardening, Journaling, Being in Nature, More Sunshine.

Notice there is nothing on this list about watching more TV, playing video games, eating more, drinking more, working more, shopping, drugs, smoking. These are avoidance techniques that create addictions. They provide an initial brief relief, but cause more problems longer term.

Anything that doesn’t acknowledge the trauma in your body and offer a healthy outlet, only builds the pressure inside your body, making it worse later. Keeping your mind and body in limbo, is dangerous to your long term physical and mental health.

In fact it is important to make sure you are covering all these aspects at some point on an ongoing regular basis, Covid or no Covid, and even more so, if you have been traumatised in the past.

So how do you know which activities on the list above to do first? Enter your mindfulness meditation. Close your eyes, go down and connect in, wait and your body will tell you what it needs to do next.

The more you can let go (of that thinking brain), the more you will know (from your body.)

Lock down #5 – Staying in Control

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When a traumatic event hits – where your locus of control resides,
will greatly determine if that event will have a long term affect on your health and life.

Today my home state of Victoria just announced another (fifth hard sharp, five day lockdown) in Melbourne Australia.

So it is important to turn the trauma lens this week, on the effects of a lockdown to your health.

You can have a trauma in your life, if you have been: Failed, Attacked, Threatened, Abandoned, Terrorised or Abused by other human beings, and that their actions have made you feel (even for a split second) that you could die or be seriously wounded or hurt. Even if that didn’t eventuate.

This split second fear occurs because you don’t seemingly have control over your life’s safety. You could die – and for a moment there is nothing you can do about it. That moment is what fires the limbic brain’s amygdala, switching on a fire alarm in your body, which activates the lower brain into fight/flight to attempt to save you. And it can be quite a strong response in the body creating extreme stress and anxiety responses for years to come.

Having a fifth lockdown is now compounding the trauma/stress created by the first four lockdowns. Especially if people’s income/business have been severely affected. Losing a lot of income can feel like a serious threat to ones survival. And it can feel as bad as facing death, if there are no savings to fall back on.

So if this registers as a traumatic event, the fight/flight/freeze system kicks in. The fight – protests, anger, abuse for the government, blame and attacking. The flight – worry, anxiety, panic, firing staff, moving to the country.
The freeze – negativity, depression, giving up, feeling lost, withdrawing from the world. To name a few.

If your locus of control is outside of your body, then the lockdown can affect you as above. But..if your locus of control is within your body, you have a much better chance of limiting any traumatic reactions now and in the future.

To strengthen that internal locus of control, body mindfulness meditation is a great way to acquire that skill. Ongoing practice, helps keep that skill strong and a buffer to outside future unforeseen events.

Because from the inside you can control your responses. Body Mindfulness practice gives you more and more access to your internal world. The more you can access your body from the inside, the less affected you will be by outside circumstances and the quicker you can recover, when hit.

By focusing what’s happening right now in your body, you get more present, and can think more calmly in this moment, leading to better wiser decisions and less reactions day to day – however long the lockdown lasts

Conviction and Repetition – The keys to greater health.

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“There are no incurable diseases. Only incurable people.”
Bernie Siegel MD.

With the escalating Corona virus at the moment, this is good to remember.

Dr Bernie Siegel is a surgeon who over twenty five years ago noticed how some of his patients healed in remarkable ways that were not expected. Looking at these exceptional cases he realised how the patient’s self healing ability came from their attitude, beliefs and emotional expression to name just a few.

Diseases that should have killed some patient’s didn’t. These patient’s found a way to self heal themselves.

It is good to read and hear about these well respected doctors. They confirm that we as humans have better healing abilities than we ever realised before.

Spending regular time to go within your body and spending deep meditative mindful time, giving your body and it’s 50 trillion cells more love and attention, is very powerful.

But to do this exercise/practice regularly, you have to believe that such ability is there within you.

Know that it is.

Hopefully you can feel the benefits of the reduction in body stress and allow that to spur you on to regular practice. This regularity and depth of focus (that only closing your eyes can do) accumulates to produce a much stronger immune system and a healthier freer functioning body.

If you find it difficult to get that depth of focus, coming to a few of Mindfulness classes in a group can really help reset your connection deeper. Even if you have to travel a fair way (if you live in Melbourne) to get here, it is worth doing every now and then. If you live a fair way away, you don’t have to attend every week.

It can be once a month, or for a few consecutive weeks once every three to four months. The period doesn’t matter. Maintaining the conviction and depth does.

YouTube
My recent appearances on the Channel 31 TV show Health, Wellbeing and Lifestyle have concluded. All five interviews (each 8 mins long) are now permanently available on YouTube for viewing. Or you can click on each one below.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel (George Gintilas). There are many more videos to come.

I appear in the following episodes (and the topic):
Episode 5 – How we Heal
Episode 6 – Trauma (Biggest block to healing)
Episode 8 – Anxiety (Hyper Arousal)
Episode 11 – Depression (Hypo Arousal)
Episode 12 – Presence and Spirituality

How far ahead are you playing out your day?

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On describing why he meditates, AFL Football player Zak Jones recently replied..

“I started very slow, but then it became before every game to clear my head and try not play out the game before it began.

For me it was enjoying this for what it is. There’s going to be highs and lows and if you’re worrying about what’s going to happen you’re not enjoying it.”

This leads to a great point that meditation helps reduce worry. How far ahead are you thinking throughout the day? Your body only needs to deal with this moment right now.

Anything more than this is extra stress that is not necessary. Future worry creates stress on your body that affects the quality of your present moment action right now. It also adds extra stress on your body, (which is responding like it is real.)

So how far ahead are you playing out your day right now in your head, while doing what you need to do in this moment? Bring all your thoughts right back to just this moment right now, reading this. These words right now. Nothing more.

If you manage to bring yourself back to this moment and just reading these words right now, you will find there is more enjoyment, doing just this moment. There is also more peace and quiet in your head because you don’t need to be thinking and worrying about the future right now.

When it’s actually time to plan your day, then that’s when you deliberately do it. Any other time, is just added body stress and wasted energy.

Mindfulness meditation helps to bring your mind and body back operating more from this present moment.

Mastering Stillness and Speed

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“Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections. It slows the ball down so that we might hit it. It generates a vision, helps us resist the passions of the mob, make space for gratitude and wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed.”

Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key, (2019)

Stillness is vastly underrated. Although with mindfulness this is now slowly changing.

There is an amount of speed that is optimal when doing and working that allows us to get a lot done without too much stress. At some point additional speed doesn’t help to get more done. That’s where more mistakes creep in, thinking jumbles, creates drama and the effort creates more costly maintenance and wastes time.

Conversely, there is an optimal stillness level. Where things slow down, get into focus, thinking clears, more intelligence and creativity are freed up and new ideas and solutions are hatched. At some point any additional stillness creates complacency, laziness, disengagement, over drifting and stuckness as momentum grounds to a halt and direction is lost.

How do you make sure you stay in that optimum range? Also how do you make sure you don’t stay stuck in speed or stillness too long? You need the alternating flow of both, in that optimum range for the best productivity and best use of your time and energy.

We have been culturally stuck in that high gear speed for too long and not nearly spending enough time cultivating the power of stillness.

Stillness allows you access to your depth and to more time in the present moment, within which everything gets done.

It is very important to make some stillness a priority in your day. It will sharpen your mind and help focus more of your doing and its speed.

The balance your body needs in a revved up world

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“in 1990, 49 per cent of Europeans felt their work schedule was too strenuous. By 2000, that had increased to 60 per cent – and those who felt themselves to be rushed were almost twice as likely to complain of classic stress disorders, such as back pain, or tight shoulders and necks.”

Robert Colvile, The Great Acceleration – How the World is Getting Faster, Faster, (2016)

A study was conducted in the early 1990s of 31 countries and then repeated again with the same countries in 2006 to measure the pace of life. What psychologists found was that the pace in 2006 had gone up by 10%. World wide, people were covering the same stretch of ground on the street in 10% less time.

So you are not imagining it when you feel like people are running around faster than ever before. It is actually happening. And more so in the more advanced and industrialised countries.

This type of speed is often good if it helps us get more done in less time, and it is tied into technology advancements. But when we get caught up in it and cannot switch off regularly, is when the body begins to feel the type of stress that can lead to problems. Problems personally and problems with others.

Psychologist Stephanie Brown says ‘for many people, their relationship to technology and speed has become more important than, or even replaced, human relationships.’

A body mindfulness practice can help bring our stress levels back into balance. So you can enjoy the benefits of the speed, (getting more done in less time,) but also enjoy the ability to switch off by choice without getting trapped in that high revved up state.

The Stress and Trauma of Modern Times

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“Mindfulness involves paying attention to something, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally….You actually have to tell your brain that is your intention. It won’t know what you’re doing, and it will priorities its activities based on your emotions or your mental energy or your physical needs.”

Stan Rodski, The Neuroscience of Mindfulness, (2019)

Another good book released earlier this year on mindfulness. A psychologist/cognitive neuroscientist, talks about the basics of mindfulness.

Unless you take control of your thinking mind, it will run you. Your conscious awareness needs to direct your thinking mind to stop. It doesn’t need to stop for long to de stress your over cluttered thinking thoughts. But stop it must.

Without conscious attention to stopping, your brain will run on auto-pilot and continue to rehash all the unresolved traumatic events of your past.

This fast paced period of time in our history is stressing your fight/flight emergency system out. Most of our stress is from past traumas where our nervous system has not fully come down from the high alert state, created by one event or the high level of continued pressure from many events, in our current environment.

TV news is traumatic to your body. Video and satellite crosses and instant transfer of bad news from any part of the globe was never there one hundred years ago. Now it is on tap, through TV, social media, radio, newspapers etc. And your body responds as if it is a secondary traumatic event happening to you now.

Witnessing a traumatic event can be just as traumatic to your body as actually being in the event.

So it is very important to consciously each day have the awareness to switch off and stop at some point, or at a number of points.

De stressing daily is vital to your health.

Staying vital and alive for a lot longer, as you age

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“There’s …a difference between extending life and prolonging vitality. We’re capable of both, but simply keeping people alive – decades after their lives have become defined by pain, disease, frailty, and immobility – is no virtue.”

(David A. Sinclair PhD, Lifespan, 2019)

Australian researcher Dr Sinclair has just released a book on his research into extending life and vitality and he has made a few breakthroughs. He says,

“Many of my colleagues agree. There is no biological law that says we must age. Those who say there is, don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Dr Sinclair believes ageing is a disease and not an inevitability, and that he has managed to reverse ageing in mice. He says prolonged vitality will include more active, more healthy and many more happy years and it is coming sooner than most people expect.

I’ve long believed that as time goes by, you have more years to actually get healthier as long as you are doing the biological natural things that create this. With the proof that our brains can continue to grow and evolve indefinitely, we know now that you are not condemned to growing painfully old as was once thought.

Dr Sinclair is applying some of these breakthroughs to himself and says he is now 50 years old and feels like a kid.

Creating good stress in your body helps – intermittent fasting, regular intense exercise and lowering the temperature of the room to make your body work a little harder.
I would add – a good mindfulness practice and regular access to your hidden emotional blocks and traumas that over stress your body (the bad stress) for prolonged periods of time.

Having the Courage to face your Demons

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“Manning up in the past was to suffer in silence, manning up now is to put your hand up.”

(Danny Frawley, AFL Football Great/Coach, 2019)

Danny Frawley died in a car crash hitting a tree last Monday afternoon. He was only 56. The whole Australian AFL football world was in shock that this great man had died.

He was the second longest serving captain ever of the St.Kilda football club – the club that I follow – so I remember his playing days well. He also did some good things in his coaching days and then was a great host and commentator in the media, radio and TV. He was a great leader and inspired many. He was much loved by all.

Danny had major depression issues over the last ten years. He was one of the first men in football to go public with his mental health issues. Having them splashed across the newspapers would not have been easy. This was such a brave thing to do for a celebrity and for a man so much in the public eye of the australian football world.

I am hoping his legacy will have a wide reaching effect on all men, to stop playing tough and pretending ‘she’ll be right mate’ and be brave and courageous enough to speak up and ask for help without feeling it is a sign of weakness. In fact it is a sign of great courage.

It takes great courage to face your demons. It takes men even greater courage to do that, because of cultural conditioning growing up. I believe it is the beginning of a death sentence when a man decided to completely suppress his real feelings in order to be or look strong. This is just not healthy whatsoever. Blocking off feelings reduces your life span.

It takes great courage to face what you have going on within you. I see this regularly with new clients, coming in shaking and scared at what will be revealed. I was the same. Having been through it myself, most are able to calm down fairly quickly and begin the deep inner process.

Looking back at all the sessions I had over the years, I would often be sitting in the waiting area terrified at what I was likely to show to the therapist which had never been safe to show ever before in my life, even to myself. This type of courage leads to freedom and greater health in your life. It’s not easy, but it is worth it.

Doing a regular Body Mindfulness meditation practice means you will have to go within and eventually face some of your old traumas and demons that you could not face in the past. Don’t give up when uncomfortable feelings arise. Just take a smaller piece, whatever is manageable and face that. Do that regularly and you will progress further than ever before. You will thrive.

The Effort Required to Produce Quality Results

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“..how total are you in what you do?
Is your doing surrendered or non-surrendered?
This is what determines your success in life, not how much effort you make.”

(Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks, 2003)

Another timeless classic from Eckhart. This book came out a year before the world wide best seller, The Power of Now.

This is one of my all-time favourite quotes.

People think that you need a lot of effort to accomplish things well. But there is a big difference between lots of doing doing doing action and quality embodied action. You can put in a lot of effort and strain and sweat and produce little of value. Or you can put in quality measured, embodied effort and achieve high quality great results.

It’s not the amount that counts, but the quality of that doing. And you cannot produce quality without first being present in your body in the here and now. Without body mindfulness meditation it can be hard to be consistently present enough in your body to produce that quality result.

Another way of putting it, the quality comes from being in the ‘zone’. That alpha deeper state in your body, where your brain is not obscured by a multitude of thoughts that are irrelevant to the task at hand. Unnecessary thoughts that make you push through, strain, strive and sweat to produce a quality result.

The habitual interference of thoughts that have nothing to do with the present moment you are working in, is a world-wide phenomenon. Each of those thoughts will link back to something unfinished on your mind, or something habitual that you thought was normal to think right now.

How do you let them go? How do you drop them? By surrendering to this moment. By practicing focusing on your body and the here and now and not giving up or beating yourself up when the thoughts take over.

You can do it. It is inherit in your primary nature to be able to do it. You had it as a child before you were taught to over think through everything.