The documentary “Stressed” explores the historical understanding of stress, from ancient times to modern scientific discoveries, highlighting the evolution of our comprehension of the mind-body connection
Story at-a-glance
- Stress is more complex than commonly thought, encompassing physical, biochemical and mental/emotional aspects. This holistic view recognizes the interconnectedness of these forms and their equal importance in overall health
- Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) is a therapeutic approach that combines elements from cognitive behavioural psychology, traditional Chinese medicine and muscle testing to identify and release stored emotional stress
- Research shows NET’s potential in helping cancer survivors cope with emotional distress and trauma, as well as alleviating chronic low back pain and reducing inflammatory biomarkers
- Additional stress management strategies, such as exercise, mindfulness meditation and proper sleep hygiene, are included below.
When people think about stress, they often focus on the mental and emotional pressures they face in their everyday lives — the demands of their jobs, family responsibilities or personal challenges. However, this only scratches the surface of what stress truly encompasses.
In reality, stress manifests in multiple forms. There’s physical stress affecting our bodies, biochemical stress from our nutrition and environment, and the mental and emotional stress we typically recognise. Understanding this broader perspective is crucial because all these forms of stress are equally significant and interconnected.
The mind and body are not separate entities but integral parts of a unified whole. This profound concept is explored in the award-winning documentary featured above, “Stressed.” The film is produced by ONE Research Foundation, which aims to advance the understanding of mind-body therapies in health care through research and education, particularly of a method called the Neuro Emotional Technique (NET).
How We Came to Our Understanding of Stress
The documentary begins with a historical perspective on stress, tracing it back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors from 70,000 BC, who lived in a constant state of high alert to survive the threat of predators in their environment. “Even though this seems like an extremely long time ago, we actually react to stress in the environment just like these early people,” the film reveals.
Surprisingly, the term “stress” was first used in the 17th century, not in the medical field but in engineering. During this same century, René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, proposed the idea of mind-body dualism, suggesting that the mind and body were separate entities. This belief significantly influenced the initial understanding of stress as a purely mental phenomenon.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye, now known as the “father of stress research,” challenged this belief and began using the term “stress” in biological and psychological contexts. He developed the concept of General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which describes the body’s three stages of stress response — alarm, resistance and exhaustion, paving the way to our current, more integrated understanding of stress response.
“When somebody’s under a lot of stress, at least emotional stress, a whole cascade of things can be going on, from neck problems to low back problems to stomach problems to anxiety …
Stress causes almost every condition out there. And if we can just take some of that emotional pressure off their system, at least the chemistry of that emotion, their body has a better chance to heal,” explains Christine Cohn, D.C., one of the experts interviewed in the film.
Dr. Candace Pert, a neuroscientist and pharmacologist, provided further evidence supporting the mind-body connection with her discovery of opiate receptors. Her work led to the identification of neuropeptides, the chemical messengers that facilitate communication between the brain and the immune system, which solidifies the link between mental and physiological responses.
Repressed Stress Can Manifest as Diseases
The film also introduced the concept of conditioned response, a learned reaction that occurs automatically after repeated exposure to specific triggers. This concept, first studied by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, shows how our bodies and minds can be “trained” to react in certain ways to particular stimuli.
For example, if you’ve had multiple negative experiences in social situations, you might develop anxiety (the conditioned response) whenever you’re in a social setting (the stimulus), even if there’s no immediate threat. The interviewees emphasized that these conditioned responses could become deeply ingrained and affect your physical and emotional well-being.
If you don’t properly process or express the emotions tied to these responses, they can become repressed in your body. As Howard Cohn, D.C., points out in the documentary, “[W]hat you don’t express in life you’ll repress until it expresses as disease or dysfunction.”
Deb Walker, D.C., another featured expert, added: “Symptoms can show up in the form of anxiety or depression. And in modern days, people are quick to try to take a pill … Often, it’s just masking or covering up a symptom … If we can get to what is the underlying cause that keeps getting retriggered, lives can change.”
The film also highlights research conducted by the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Jefferson University, which investigated how mind-body therapeutic techniques, specifically NET, can help address unresolved emotional stress that contributes to the development and treatment of diseases.
What Is Neuro Emotional Technique?
NET is a therapeutic approach developed by Scott Walker, D.C., who also founded the ONE Research Foundation. On its website, the foundation explains that NET “is based on the concept that unresolved emotional trauma is stored in the body … Since emotional reality dramatically affects health, using NET to identify and release negatively charged emotions (neuro emotional complexes) allows for normalization of abnormal physical and behavioural patterns.”
In the film, Walker shared that he developed NET after observing that some of his patients weren’t responding to traditional chiropractic treatments, particularly those who exhibited signs of emotional tension. This belief was further reinforced when he met another chiropractor, Jennifer Lamonica, D.C., who shared cases where patients’ spinal misalignments returned when they thought about stressful events.
Walker then applied his hypothesis to a patient who had been in a car accident. Recognizing her fear from the accident as a potential emotional block, he adjusted specific spinal segments associated with the kidney meridian, which is associated with fear in traditional Chinese medicine.
To his surprise, not only did the patient’s physical symptoms improve, but she also reported that her fear about the accident had dissipated. This led Walker to develop NET as a systematic approach to addressing the mind-body connection in health.
How Does NET Differ From Other Stress Management Techniques?
Compared to methods that primarily focus on psychological or cognitive approaches to stress management, NET specifically addresses subluxations, which are misalignments or dysfunctions in the spine or other joints as a result of emotional stress. Its goal is to help the body return to balance or homeostasis.
An article in the Journal of Integrative Medicine further explains how this technique works:
“NET is defined as a multimodal stress reduction mindfulness-based intervention and was founded upon three essential concepts.
(1) Cognitive behavioural psychology: sharing aspects in common with standard CBT for traumatic stress, in terms of exposure therapy, NET seeks the reversal or extinction of classically conditioned, distressing emotional responses to trauma-related stimuli, such as stress.
(2) Traditional Chinese medicine: NET engages the energy system, in which a patient touches a pulse point that is determined to be involved in the body’s stress reaction to a particular stimulus. The links between emotions and the meridian system have been expressed in acupuncture theory for 2,000 years. Current concepts hold that tightness in the fascial system might represent acupoints and meridians in the human body.
(3) Muscle testing: This feedback technique is believed to be an indicator of altered physiological function, in which a given muscle is less capable of resisting an outside force when there is some alteration in the function of the nervous system. Specifically, Walker proposed that the muscle test responds to cognitive and emotional stimuli.”
Addressing Suppressed Emotions Can Help You Return to Joy
The basis of NET — that is, the interconnectedness between physical health and emotional well-being — resonates with the perspective in my upcoming book, “The Power of Choice.” While my previous best-sellers have focused on diet and lifestyle strategies for physical health and longevity, this new book approaches health from a different perspective — that of connection to your consciousness.
“The Power of Choice” emphasizes the importance of prioritizing Joy in your decision-making process, empowering you to make healthy choices and align with your authentic Self. I capitalize “Self” and “Joy” to underscore their deeper, transcendent nature. Self represents your unlimited, immortal consciousness, while Joy denotes a profound state of contentment that emanates from within.
By consciously acknowledging and addressing repressed emotions that may contribute to poor health, you not only embrace the power of choice but also create more space in your life to foster Joy. This process is not just about physical healing but also about reconnecting with your true Self and trusting your innate ability to heal.
As the documentary aptly puts it, ”
This is an abridged extract from the original article, Analysis by Dr Joseph Mercola August 17, 2024
Download to read the full research article (includes sources and references)
Researched by Dr Joseph Mercola. To find more articles go to https://www.mercola.com/
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