Anxiety increases your risk of aging-related conditions due
to accelerated aging at the cellular level
Relaxation strategies may help you avoid this accelerated
aging
People who practice relaxation methods have more
disease-fighting genes switched “on,” including those that
protect against pain, infertility, high blood pressure, and
rheumatoid arthritis
By Dr. Mercola
While 99 percent of Americans feel relaxation is important, most
spend less than 5 percent of their day in pursuit of it, according
to a survey commissioned by, fittingly, a major cruise line.1
After you’ve done all of the ‘must-dos” of your day, you may
simply feel you don’t have time for relaxation or, like 62 percent
of the parents surveyed, you might feel guilty doing it.
One-third of those polled even said they feel stressed out just
by thinking about relaxation! Perhaps, more aptly, they feel
stressed out because it’s just onemore thing that
you’re “supposed” to be doing to stay well.
But I assure you, once you get into the habit of daily
relaxation, you won’t know how you did without it. And don’t feel
guilty. Regular relaxation is every bit as important as proper diet,
sleep, and exercise; it’s all a part of feeling your best,
physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Anxiety May Accelerate Aging, While Relaxing Slows It
Part of what makes relaxation so good for you is by tamping down
the effects of stress and
anxiety. For instance, a recent study revealed that anxiety
disorders increase your risk of several aging-related conditions,
which might be due to accelerated aging at the cellular level.2
This cellular aging was reversible when the anxiety
disorder went into remission, which suggests sound relaxation
strategies may help you avoid this accelerated aging. In fact, you
might be aware that your body has a stress response that kicks into
gear when you’re facing a real (or perceived) threat.
The counterpart of the stress response is the relaxation
response, which is a physical state of deep rest that changes
physical and emotional responses to stress.
Researchers now know that by evoking your body’s built-in
relaxation response – your innate, inborn capacity to counter the
harmful effects of stress, according to an associate professor at
Harvard Medical School, Dr. Herbert Benson3
-- you can actually change the expression of your genes for the
better.
“RR [relaxation response] elicitation is an effective
therapeutic intervention that counteracts the adverse clinical
effects of stress in disorders including hypertension, anxiety,
insomnia and aging…
RR practice enhanced expression of genes associated with
energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion and
telomere maintenance, and reduced expression of genes linked to
inflammatory response and stress-related pathways.”
Previous research by Dr. Benson and colleagues also found that
people who practice relaxation methods such as yoga and meditation
long-term have more disease-fighting genes switched “on” and active,
including genes that protect against pain, infertility, high blood
pressure and rheumatoid arthritis.5
The Many Health Benefits of Deep Relaxation
If you want to experience the health benefits of relaxation, you
need to do more than lounge on your couch watching TV. You’re
looking for deep relaxation, the kind where your mind stops
running and your body is free of tension.
Jake Toby, a hypnotherapist at London's BodyMind Medicine Center
who helps people to evoke the relaxation response, told The
Independent:6
“What you're looking for is a state of deep relaxation
where tension is released from the body on a physical level and
your mind completely switches off," he says.
"The effect won't be achieved by lounging round in an
everyday way, nor can you force yourself to relax. You can only
really achieve it by learning a specific technique such as
self-hypnosis, guided imagery or meditation."
Once you get into the relaxation “zone,” however, your body can
benefit greatly.7
For instance, a stress-management program has been shown to alter
tumor-promoting processes at the molecular level in women with
breast cancer.8
Genes responsible for cancer progression (such as
pro-inflammatory cytokines) were down-regulated while those
associated with a healthy immune response were up-regulated.9
In addition, relaxation may help:
Boost Immunity: Meditation is known to have
a significant effect on immune cells,10
and research shows relaxation exercises may boost natural killer
cells in the elderly, leading to increased resistance to tumors
and viruses.
Fertility: Research suggests women are more
likely to conceive when they’re relaxed as opposed to when
they’re stressed.11
Heart Health: Relaxation via meditation
(done once or twice daily for three months) significantly
lowered their blood pressure and psychological distress, and
also bolstered coping ability in people at increased risk of
hypertension.12
Mental Health: People who meditate note
reductions in psychological distress, depression, and anxiety.13
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS): When people
with IBS practiced relaxation meditation twice daily, their
symptoms (including bloating, belching, diarrhea, and
constipation) improved significantly.14,15
Money Is a Top Source of Stress for Americans
In case you were wondering, money tops the list of stressors to
Americans, beating out work, family responsibilities and health
concerns.16
If you have trouble relaxing, perhaps you know this all too well.
Close to three-quarters of Americans (72 percent) said they feel
stressed about money at least some of the time, and close to
one-quarter (22 percent) said they experience extreme stress about
money, according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA)
latest “Stress in America” report.
What’s more, 32 percent of Americans said their lack of money
prevents them from living a healthy lifestyle, while one in five
have skipped (or considered skipping) needed doctor’s visits due to
financial concerns.
Remember, it’s key to nip stress in the bud, because chronic
stress – whatever the cause -- disrupts your neuroendocrine and
immune systems and appears to trigger a degenerative process in your
brain that can result in
Alzheimer's disease.
In addition, when you're stressed, your body releases stress
hormones like cortisol, which prepare your body to fight or flee the
stressful event.
When stress becomes chronic, however, your immune system becomes
less sensitive to cortisol, and since inflammation is partly
regulated by this hormone, this decreased sensitivity heightens
the inflammatory response and allows inflammation to get out of
control.
According to award-winning neurobiologist Dr. Robert Sapolsky,
the following are the most common health conditions that are caused
by or worsened by stress (which, theoretically, relaxation could
help counter):
As noted in the journal PLOS One, “Millennia-old
practices evoking the RR include meditation, yoga and repetitive
prayer.”17
These are, of course, not the only options. The relaxation
response can also be elicited through tai chi, progressive muscle
relaxation, biofeedback, guided imagery and Qi Gong, for instance.
Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system,
which induces the relaxation response, but taking even 10 minutes to
sit quietly and shut out the chaos around you can also trigger it.18
And as noted by Dr. Kelly Brogan:
“…summoning up a feeling of gratitudewhile breathing in a
paced manner (typically six counts in and six counts out), can
flip heart rate variability into the most optimal patterns
associated with calm relaxation and peak mental performance.
They have validated the effects on ADHD, hypertension, and
anxiety including double blind, placebo-controlled, randomized
trials.”
If you’re feeling the effects of stress and you’re unable to
fully relax, Dr. Brogan recommends doing this:
Notice and acknowledge your discomfort.
Relax and release it no matter how urgent it feels. Let the
energy pass through you before you attempt to fix anything.
Imagine sitting back up on a high seat, in the back of your
head watching your thoughts, emotions, and behavior with a
detached compassion.
Then ground yourself. Connect to the present moment – feel
the earth under your feet, smell the air, imagine roots growing
into the earth from your spine.
EFT for Stress Relief and Relaxation
I also strongly recommend energy psychology techniques such as
the Emotional Freedom Technique
(EFT), which can be very effective for reducing anxiety and
stress – and inducing relaxation -- by correcting the bioelectrical
short-circuiting that causes your body’s reactions. You can think of
EFT as a tool for “reprogramming” your circuitry, and it works on
both real and imagined stressors. EFT is a form of psychological
acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional
acupuncture for more than 5,000 years to treat physical and
emotional ailments, but without the invasiveness of needles.
Following a 2012 review in the American Psychological
Association’s journal Review of General Psychology, EFT has
actually met the criteria for evidence-based treatments set by the
APA for a number of conditions.19
Recent research has shown that EFT significantly increases positive
emotions, such as hope and enjoyment, and decreases negative
emotional states, including anxiety.20
EFT is particularly effective for treating stress and anxiety
because it specifically targets your amygdala and hippocampus, which
are the parts of your brain that help you decide whether or not
something is a threat.
In addition to stress relief, you can use EFT for setting goals
and sticking to them, which is what the video above is focused on.
If you are seriously stressed about money, setting goals related to
your financial future might be especially pertinent to finding deep
relaxation – and easier to achieve when combined with EFT. Ideally,
choose a combination of approaches, like guided imagery, meditation,
yoga, and EFT, and do some form of them daily. Remember, the key to
relaxation’s beneficial effects is to relax regularly and as often
as you can.
Copyright 1997- 2015 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.