Stress, anxiety and perhaps the state of perpetual “busyness” (always doing, not relaxing) is part of our stress response, the ‘fight or flight’ response which stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. The body responds in this way as it feels under threat and not safe. It is our survival mechanism which enables us to react quickly to a life-threatening situation, which was vital to our survival in evolutionary times when we had to run away from danger. In this instance, the body was responding to physiological stress and after the acute episode had passed it returned to a relaxed state, this is termed “acute stress”. Today, this sympathetic system is being stimulated increasingly due to psychological stress when there is no physical danger present. Therefore, we can remain in this sympathetic state (under threat) daily. This is termed “chronic stress” which may be detrimental to our health.

The opposing response to ‘fight and flight’ is the ‘rest and digest’ response which acts upon the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system acts like a brake and calms the body down after the danger has passed. If the perceived threat is still present, such as in chronic stress, this is when stress reduction techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, meditation (mindfulness), yin yoga and yoga nidra, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can be beneficial as it may help to switch the body onto this system⁷, so our bodies feel safe again. Digestion is particularly sensitive to emotion through the gut-brain axis, which can lead to gut symptoms. As Naomi Judd said, “your body hears everything the mind says”.