From Amanda's very early writing (1990s to early 2000s), shared as it was originally written.
You're on Holidays, so why are you sick?
You can fool your mind but you can't fool your body. While your mind says you are coping just fine, your body stores stress. As you work your way through the year full of stress, you're blood is full of adrenalin and cortisol- the stress drugs/chemicals .
Adrenalin and cortisol are fantastic drugs if you have to suddenly react or fight or flee in the face of a stressful situation. They gear us up - increase our heartbeat; send blood to the muscle; focus our attention on the things we have to fight or flee from etc. This is great if we have a physical stressor (the thing causing the stress)- like you're in a dark street and you feel something is wrong - there's a noise behind you - your hair stands on end, your hearing becomes acute, your heart races - and then you see a cat running away. Whew! And you can breathe and relax.
Have you ever noticed that after you have narrowly avoided being hit on the road by some maniac that you were OK at the time of crisis, but started shaking like a leaf 5 minutes afterwards? That's the response to adrenalin and cortisol. It's a physical response to a physical stressor. Which is the way we are programmed.
Unfortunately, most of the things that stress us today are non physical. Like worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. Or living with constant fear of the unknown or change. Or seeing the look on someone's face and going into a spin cos they looked like we had done something wrong. Or punishing ourselves for something we didn't really mean to do; Or feeling guilty, or insecure or inadequate and the millions of other things that we beat ourselves up with each day.
All these nonphysical issues troubling us are fooling the brain. The brain has only one way to respond to perceived stress - to pump out adrenalin and cortisol, anticipating a physical activity. The only effective way to burn off this excess adrenalin is to fight, flee, flow or do some exercise! Deepak Chopra likens it to a cat stalking a bird. If the cat misses the bird, it doesn't wander off angry, frustrated and upset and take it out on everyone else! It goes MIAOW (cat language for 'blast!'), stretches, yawns then goes to sleep to let it's system settle back to normal. We don't. We carry round the memory of how frightened we were, what we should have done, how we could have done it better, what could have happened etc.
This is not a smart way to live because adrenalin attacks our immune system and cortisol attacks our brain cells. It sort of keeps us boosted up during the year - seemingly healthy. But as soon as we go on holidays and the adrenalin subsides, all we are left with to fight off germs and bugs , is our immune system. And it's had a big beating all year and is really functioning at half or quarter strength. So the first germ/bug/disease process that comes near you, gets you.
Usually, you're just starting to feel better when it's time to go back to work!
That's one of the reasons it's so important to take care of your immune system during the year. Make immune boosting activities like exercise, meditation, relaxing, helping others, massages, touching others, having pets, laughing, sleeping, social support, watching comedys a weekly routine. Or be aware when adrenalin and cortisol are pumping through your system and do physical things that burn them up. That way you get to enjoy your holiday when it arrives!
If you read this and think "that's me!", then listen to your body. It's begging you to take better care of it during the year and it's telling you that you have been functioning with too much adrenalin/cortisol in your system. You need to play more, relax more, lose your fear and learn to 'go with the flow'.
