Stress = Aging. Eustress = Anti-Aging
HOMEOPATHY
Frank King
September is back-to-school month for many families, and that change to the summer’s routine brings both excitement and stress. Children have a healthy outlet for stress: play. Adults tend to be more stressed and play less. Do we stop playing because we age, or age faster because we stop playing?
My life’s work in chiropractic and natural healing is interesting and fulfilling because I enjoy constantly learning and sharing knowledge with others. Learning new things is another healthy outlet for stress. For me, work is like play, as I suspect it is for most (if not all) of my colleagues.
Many of our patients, unfortunately, do not share this enthusiasm for their work. A majority of people in our society (including children) report that stress negatively impacts all areas of their lives. In 2010, the American Psychological Association warned that stress could be our next national health crisis.1
Stress is an organism’s response to the disruption of its comfort zone, or homeostasis.
In 1936, Dr. Hans Selye published his findings about the adrenal glands and their stress response and coined the now commonplace phrase “fight or flight.”
Bad Stress
Constant stress causes high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in the bloodstream, which increases blood pressure and blood
sugar, reduces digestive and immune system function, reduces sex hormone production, increases abdominal fat, and causes brain cell death. It’s easy to connect the stress dots to rising levels of heart disease, diabetes, depression, and obesity.
Moreover, constant stress ages us.2 Prolonged stress without adequate recovery time causes cellular breakdown through oxidative stress, glycation, and diminishing telomeres,3 which are the cellular determinates of longevity.
When stress is constant and the person in distress feels a lack of control over his or her stressful circumstances, it is especially harmful.
That’s the bad news about bad stress.
Good Stress
Selye’s research revealed that constant stress is unhealthy, but the advice to “reduce stress” is like saying, “Since the air is polluted, breathe less.” Many feel that they can’t leave or change the stressors in their lives, so they feel like helpless victims of circumstance. I encourage everyone to become victors instead.
We need to understand that there aie two sides to the stress equation. There is the bad stress (distressed) feeling of being overwhelmed. However, Selye also coined the lesser-known term “eustress” (pronounced “you-stress,” like “euphoria” with a similar positive meaning).
Eustress is “good stress.” For example, eustress is the pleasurable excitement we feel when vacationing in a new place, or learning a new game. Eustress is the feeling of being in control and confident of your ability to handle the demands and tasks required. Think of it as “eustress is you-handling-stress.”
Interestingly, successful strategies to reduce cortisol levels in children and adults include not only the typical stress-reduction techniques we often hear about (yoga, exercise, and meditation), but also affirmations. When test subjects approached school or work stressors with the mental imagery that affirmed “I can solve this task,” their cortisol levels dropped.4
Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
About Homeopathy
Homeopathy is mind-body health care for the twenty-first century with a 200-year track record of safety.
It is based on the principle of “like cures like,” also called the “law of similars.” This means that a substance that can cause symptoms in a healthy person can also safely cure someone suffering from those symptoms after it has been transformed into a safe homeopathic medicine through a process of serial ultradilution and succussion (potentization).
This “like cures like” principle is still utilized in pharmacology today with viruses in vaccines and allergens in allergy desensitization shots. A big difference, however, is that homeopathy is nontoxic in any dose.
With no known negative side effects and no medical contraindications with other medicines, I call homeopathy “the perfect medicine.”
All anti-aging protocols should address mental and emotional health, diet, lifestyle, and detoxification... and homeopathy can help with each one.
Discovering the Source of Stress
The most damaging stress is constant and occurs when people feel helpless to change their circumstances. Reactions vary.
Some people express stress with physical anger or road rage, some with verbal anger, and some internalize their stress.
Does a patient’s stress stem from procrastination, pessimism, or perfectionism? Or is the patient depressed, overweight, or toxic?
Regardless of what caused the unique individual expression, homeopaths look at the top symptoms that are “speaking the loudest” at the moment and address those first. The beauty of homeopathy is that a remedy for one symptom may also clear seemingly unrelated symptoms.
Discover solutions for your patients that go deep into the psyche to correct those glitches in internal wiring that sabotage their success in the world. Homeopathic remedies help fix the
causes of stress at deep levels of the body and mind, which aie inseparable.
You can quickly determine the causes in each of your patients by using a free tool on my website, the Personal Health Appraisal (the link is in the bio below).
Anti-Aging with Homeopathy
F or your type A patients who aie always whipping their adrenals for more energy, educate them that this pace is aging their bodies faster, even if they don’t feel it now. Adrenal exhaustion leads to susceptibility to disease and a shorter lifespan.
A few homeopathic remedies for this type of patient include
Belladonna (for agitation), Arsenicum album (for tension, restlessness), and Clematis erecta (for indifference and sleeplessness).
Examples of homeopathic anti-aging remedies include:
• Confusion, apathy - Carboneum oxygenisatum
• Muscle twitching - Humulus lupulus
• Urinary disturbances, hair loss - Lycopodium clavatum
• Flabby muscles, stiff joints - Ferrum metallicum
• Wrinkles, brown skin spots - Helleborus niger
• Low libido (men) - Orchitinum
• Low libido (women) - Baryta carbónica
Rather than single remedies, I prefer using contemporary homeopathy. I find that today’s multilayered health problems respond better and faster to combinations of homeopathic remedies formulated in multiple high potencies (including the LM series) to address a broad spectrum of symptoms.
Anti-Aging with Eustress
I like the term “sage-ing” better than “aging.” Gaining wisdom by continuing to learn new things is anti-aging.
For your stressed, depressed, or aging patients, offer specific homeopathic remedies. Help rekindle their youthful spirit and enthusiasm by brainstorming about ways that they can nurture the inner child. Encourage them to turn stress into eustress by learning something new, starting a hobby, joining a meditation or yoga group, doing affirmations, or playing a musical instrument.
As practitioners, we are in a position to help our patients fix the cause of their feelings of having no control over their stressors. We can empower them and encourage them to find solutions to strengthen their lives. Assure them, “You can change the results of your life. You can make a positive difference in your life and the lives of those around you. Turn your stress into eustress, which is you-handling-stress.”
It can be done and it’s easier than anyone might think. Try the tools and techniques previously mentioned and help your patients make the rest of their lives the best of their lives!
References:
1. http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/11/stress-in-america. aspx
2. http://www.nia.nih.gov/health/publication/biology-aging/metabolism-doesstress-really-shorten-your-life
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ vivian-diller-phd/the-science-behindstress_b_1261390.html
4. Shawn Talbott, Ph.D., FACSM, The Cortisol Connection, citing “value affirmation task” psychology research from UCLA, p. 140.
and recognized lecturer, Frank researcher, King, is the nationally founder author, and president of King Bio, an FDA-registered homeopathic
manufacturing company. Dr King is dedicated to completing chiropractic destiny with homeopathy. Learn how to easily incorporate contemporary homeopathy into your practice, with your fixe, downloadable Physician ’s Reference Manual at www. SafeCareRx.com. The free Personal Health Appraisal is at http://www.safecarerx.com/ manuals Questions? Call 866-298-2740, or e-mail: procsr(Tfsafecarerx.com.
