How to Battle Your Stress Addiction and Free Your Mind
Stress addiction is a real thing
Lately, I've had to disconnect from the world. I'm not feeling balanced in my life right now.
No matter what you do, stressful situations are always around the corner. Covid-19 is a major one, but trivial things like getting stuck in traffic, having conflict with a friend, or perhaps not feeling appreciated in your work environment.
Whatever the case is, stress is something we all are dealing with and can relate to, but did you know that stress addiction is quite common?
I started to understand stress addiction when I decided to put effort into my meditation practice. I wanted to clear up the negativity and inner conflict I've been dealing with, which led me to come across a book called Becoming Supernatural, written by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I've come across his work in the past few years, but only recently have I dug deeper inside this incredible genius mind.
Dr. Joe Dispenza is not only a doctor but also a scientist and mystic. His work entails quantum physics, epigenetics, molecular biology and neurocardiology. He pushes the boundaries in our biological thinking and teaches us how to have a more fulfilling life that only we can create.
Living by the hormones of stress
When I came across his introduction in one of his chapters, living by the Hormones of Stress, the following few pages blew my mind. Every word I read was exactly how I was living and how my meditation practices responded.
The more I practiced meditation throughout my day, the more my body detoxed from stress chemicals. As the doctor explains, most of us live in the past, continuously creating the same future.
Our body has become addicted to stress because that's the kind of society we live in; we are constantly in stress mode, so the body doesn't know any different. We have made this a standard way of living—a continuous cycle of the day before. When we first wake up from the same side of the bed to make our coffee, we open social media apps and think about everything we need to do for the day, creating our predictable future.
When I try to sit down to meditate, my body rejects me by fidgeting or wanting me to get up and check my phone. It behaves this way because sitting in silence and stillness is uncomfortable, which is the present moment.
That's why so many of us have difficulties with meditation practice: we don't know how to sit in stillness, so we give up. The body continuously wants to move because of how we have conditioned it.
Meditation is a practice that you must put effort in
For three days, I committed to my meditation. Whenever my body started to wander back into the past or create a predictable future by my thoughts, I would bring my awareness back into the present moment.
It was tricky; I became frustrated, and my ego got involved. The ego kept bringing up stressful events and amplifying them. The body was reaching its chemical fix because it felt safe living in the past, but I stayed committed and would sit on my yoga mat throughout the day, retraining my body until it surrendered.
“I practice meditation so that it can keep me in the present moment, which is a more expansive place for me to create.”
When you practice meditation, the brain waves go into an alpha state, which relaxes the mind and when the mind is relaxed, so is the body. The body goes where the mind goes because they are connected. The body follows the mind when it is constantly dwelling on the past or creating a predictable future.
Talk to your body
Recently, I started talking to my body, especially when I was frequently urinating, mainly in the morning because of the number of liquids I would drink, such as coffee, tea and water.
“I’ve changed how I speak to my body, and since I know my brain controls the body, how I talk to it will determine its health.”
Only a few months ago, I changed how I spoke to my body. Instead of complaining about using the washroom, I would tell my body we did not have to go; we just went. It only took my body to surrender to my brain's request a few times, which had me experience the mind-body connection.
A few months later, I decided to try this new practice with my constant neck tension from a previous car accident. Instead of complaining about the pain (which has me living in the past), I now tell my body we don't have pain.
I have removed my thoughts from my past and decided how I want to think in my future.
By implementing this new way of thinking, I am replacing my stress addiction with healing statements. My body has no choice but to believe me because that's how I feel and think now.
Your environment determines your gene expression
Science has had a breakthrough when it comes to gene expressions. Scientists used to think that our family genetics and DNA determined our genes, but recently, they have discovered through epigenetics that our environment creates our gene expression.
Our environment, both inside and outside of our body, can affect our health. Dr. Joe Dispenza also mentions that our genes can be turned up or turned off depending on our emotions and environment.
Emotions are chemical feedbacks, the end products of experiences we have in our external environment when we react to a situation that produces an emotion. The resulting internal chemistry can signal our genes to either turn on (up-regulating or producing an increased expression of the gene) or turn off (down-regulating or producing a decrease expression of the gene). The gene itself doesn't physically change — the expression of the gene changes, and that expression is what matters most because that is what affects our health and lives — Dr. Joe Dispenza.
In my experience, my neck tension could still exist because I keep complaining about the pain. Now that I've decided to change my thought process and altered my emotion from thinking that it is healed instead of complaining that it won't heal, I'm not feeling the neck tension as much.
Final thought
As I continue with this newfound practice and implement it into my life, I can recognize my stress addiction. Now that I have this awareness, I can use meditation to help find my balance to better deal with stressful situations.
Now that I understand that my body feeds on stress chemicals produced from my emotions when I'm in stress mode, I can recognize when my thoughts are ruminating in the past or worrying about the future.
Practicing meditation is a good start when detaching from stress addiction, and it is challenging.
First, notice how often you focus on past events or worry about a future that has yet to happen. The practice is refocusing your mind to be in the present moment, even if that is simple as sitting with this article for a minute to absorb the information before you start reading the next one.
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