The 3 Stages of Stress and how to Recognise them
I’m sure you will have heard the saying that your eyes are the windows of your Soul, well, they are also a good indicator of your stress levels. Stress exists because we feel we can’t handle what’s going on around or within us. Life often confronts us with unpleasant, unexpected & unwanted events and situations. The only way to avoid stress is to avoid life.
When something we don’t want or expect happens, we go into stress, e.g. a physical accident or an unsolved problem. It’s an individual matter as we are all unique and what is a major stressor for you, could be a minor stressor or not stressful at all for others. Your Belief system determines the intensity of your stress level.
When stress levels become too high, we go into a state of diminished awareness, an emotional overload. We don’t function effectively, we feel out of control, feel we have no options and wish the problem would just sort itself out or go away.
Stage 1 – In a moment of shock or as fatigue overwhelms us, you enter into a “fight or flight” mode. Your brain sends out a signal to withdraw blood from the surface of your body and sends it to your muscles to carry out those actions. The same basic process happens in your brain and it goes into survival mode – it cuts conscious thinking to a minimum necessary for survival, which is why, when under stress, we ‘can’t think’. Without normal circulation, the pores of the skin close, our tear-ducts close and our eyes become dry and dull and staring. Our eyelids drop to protect the eyeball’s dry surface. In Stage 1 stress, we can barely do what has to be done. Better to do nothing, drink water, relax and take time to rebalance yourself. A good sleep can help tremendously.
Stage 2 – If stress goes unrelieved for hours or days, you will see more white showing under one iris than the other – your depth perception is off. This is characterized by doing clumsy things (and not being amused) and having irritating little accidents – in fact, accidents looking for a place to happen. What to do? Drink more water to help flush out the stress chemicals from your system and rest. The real issue here is that you’ve allowed a stressor to remain unresolved over a period of time.
Stage 3 – White shows under both irises. This is an unresolved obsessive problem – physical, emotional or mental in nature, which has been going on for a long, long time. It underlies everything a person thinks about or does, it colours all actions and relationships. To get to Stage 3, a person has been through the other 2 stages first but has avoided the choices that could have relieved the original stressor and is now living with the unpleasant consequences. The worst way to handle stressors is to deny they exist.
Stress equals diminished awareness. Just because we are still conscious, doesn’t mean we are in control – under stress we have ‘knee-jerk’ duplication of learned reactions and our ability to function effectively decreases drastically.
So, if you recognise yourself in any of the above stages, well, perhaps it’s time to visit me for Specialised Kinesiology, Reflexology or Reiki/Natural Healing.
When something we don’t want or expect happens, we go into stress, e.g. a physical accident or an unsolved problem. It’s an individual matter as we are all unique and what is a major stressor for you, could be a minor stressor or not stressful at all for others. Your Belief system determines the intensity of your stress level.
When stress levels become too high, we go into a state of diminished awareness, an emotional overload. We don’t function effectively, we feel out of control, feel we have no options and wish the problem would just sort itself out or go away.
Stage 1 – In a moment of shock or as fatigue overwhelms us, you enter into a “fight or flight” mode. Your brain sends out a signal to withdraw blood from the surface of your body and sends it to your muscles to carry out those actions. The same basic process happens in your brain and it goes into survival mode – it cuts conscious thinking to a minimum necessary for survival, which is why, when under stress, we ‘can’t think’. Without normal circulation, the pores of the skin close, our tear-ducts close and our eyes become dry and dull and staring. Our eyelids drop to protect the eyeball’s dry surface. In Stage 1 stress, we can barely do what has to be done. Better to do nothing, drink water, relax and take time to rebalance yourself. A good sleep can help tremendously.
Stage 2 – If stress goes unrelieved for hours or days, you will see more white showing under one iris than the other – your depth perception is off. This is characterized by doing clumsy things (and not being amused) and having irritating little accidents – in fact, accidents looking for a place to happen. What to do? Drink more water to help flush out the stress chemicals from your system and rest. The real issue here is that you’ve allowed a stressor to remain unresolved over a period of time.
Stage 3 – White shows under both irises. This is an unresolved obsessive problem – physical, emotional or mental in nature, which has been going on for a long, long time. It underlies everything a person thinks about or does, it colours all actions and relationships. To get to Stage 3, a person has been through the other 2 stages first but has avoided the choices that could have relieved the original stressor and is now living with the unpleasant consequences. The worst way to handle stressors is to deny they exist.
Stress equals diminished awareness. Just because we are still conscious, doesn’t mean we are in control – under stress we have ‘knee-jerk’ duplication of learned reactions and our ability to function effectively decreases drastically.
So, if you recognise yourself in any of the above stages, well, perhaps it’s time to visit me for Specialised Kinesiology, Reflexology or Reiki/Natural Healing.
