When you are stressed or anxious, your body naturally produces excessive amounts of adrenalin which is a natural hormone that the body secretes in response to any increased emotional reaction such as excitement or anxiety.
For an irritable bowel syndrome sufferer, having an excess of adrenalin flowing round your body is a very bad idea because adrenalin has the capability of stimulating or upsetting the contractions of your stomach very quickly.
As a natural symptom of irritable bowel syndrome is to suffer irregular contractions of the gastrointestinal tract anyway, anything that stimulates further irregularity or unexpected increases in contractions is by definition bad.
Thus, it should be easier to understand why stress is such a problem for people who suffer from IBS and why you need to bring it under control as quickly and as effectively as possible.
Why you must get a good night’s sleep…
Whether you suffer from IBS or not, it is a fact that most people are not at their best if they have not had enough sleep. People who are tired tend to be far more irritable with correspondingly low stress-tolerance levels, whilst general fatigue often has a habit of turning smaller problems into larger ones that cause further anxiety and upset.
In terms of IBS, the importance of a good night’s sleep has been proven by research that indicates a clear correlation between the incidence of early morning IBS attacks and poor sleep. In fact, the relationship was established to such an extent that a very clear pattern of association between poor sleep and raised incidences of IBS attacks is accepted as fact.
Specifically, most of these studies indicate that anyone who suffers from irritable bowel syndrome that manages to get more than eight hours sleep a night does not suffer increased stress and concomitant attack levels the next day, whereas people who sleep for less than eight hours a night do.
The message from this could not be clearer. You must ensure that you have at least eight hours restful sleep every night if you want to maximize your chances of minimizing stress, thereby reducing the chances of IBS attacks.
Yoga, meditation and deep breathing…
There are many practices like yoga and meditation that focus on training you how to get the best out of yourself and an integral part of most of these practices is acquiring the ability to relax deeply and thoroughly.
Hence, it is a fact that if you take up yoga or meditation, you are likely to learn many skills that will help you to relax and also overcome stressful situations far more effectively than you might otherwise do.
The best part about learning a form such as yoga or meditation is that whereas a few years ago, the only way of doing so would have been to learn from a book or to join a local class, there are nowadays many other options available with a plethora of information available for free on the internet.
The advantage of this is that you can pick up everything you need to know to start learning the basics of either yoga or meditation at home and in your own time. Based on your experiences during this acclimatization period, you can decide whether to take it further by seeking a local class or group where you can take your studies to the next level in a controlled and disciplined environment.
By following this initial study pattern, you ensure that you get the most out of whatever you are doing. This is very important as you have a very specific objective in learning either yoga or meditation, which is to relax, and this could be far easier if you are confident and enjoying herself.
As a starting point, I would suggest that you take some time to study the information about yoga on this website as all of the basics that you need are here.
Alternatively, some people prefer the slightly more sedentary approach to learning relaxation and mental discipline adopted by meditation over the more exercise based approach of yoga.
If this is the case, the same proviso applies once again. All of the information that you need to get started can be found on the net, with this being a very good place to start.
Both yoga and meditation put great emphasis on the importance of learning how to breathe properly can help you to master the art of relaxation.
Moreover, having the knowledge and the ability to breathe deeply and slowly at those times when stress seems imminent is an invaluable gift. There is no doubt that for the majority of people, the ability to stand back from such a situation in an effort to regain control before stress hits is a difficult one to master.
However, if you can do so, it is one most effective ways of making sure that it never does.
In my own efforts to master the art of effective deep breathing, I found this website to be particularly valuable because it teaches a method of deep breathing that becomes almost involuntary that makes the whole thing easier.
I would however also recommend that you should look at this page as well because there is also plenty of invaluable information here too.
Whether you ultimately decide that yoga or meditation is more ‘your thing’ than the alternative, the crucial thing to remember is to focus on learning as much as you can about mastering your emotions so that you can relax on demand. If you can do this effectively, you have acquired the ability to walk away from 95% of situations or scenarios that might have caused distress and anxiety in the past.
In this case, you have taken another giant (and completely natural) step towards bringing your irritable bowel syndrome under control by removing yet another everyday situation that might otherwise spark an IBS attack.
You may not be able to cure IBS, but if you can remove most of the factors that cause it from your life, it’s the next best thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment