Friday, March 23, 2012

Stress No More

Stress is a debilitating condition, and as doctors and psychiatrists have, as yet, not given us the way to effectively deal with stress, I studied their Physiology textbooks and this is what they say: When the internal stability of the body gets disturbed – which happens when nutrients get depleted or when toxins build up in the body – we get stressed and the body’s cells cannot function properly, and our health suffers. And the way to avoid stress, and to ensure our health and well-being, is to maintain the body’s internal stability by consuming adequate amounts of all the nutrients and by eliminating the built-up toxins with a healthy exercise regimen. 

But of course, if we were to ensure our health and well-being with merely proper nutrition, pharmaceuticals and the medical industry would not be able to make their trillion dollar profits. Our President, Dr Abdul Kalam warns us in his book The Family and the Nation: “Crass commercialization has taken its toll on nutrition. The mass marketing efforts by food conglomerates, whose main interest is profit, compounded by misinformation by conventional healthcare institutions and their affiliates, make it difficult to differentiate between life-giving, nutritious food and substandard devitalized food.”
 

The healthcare institutions have so far kept this main fact about nutrition a secret from the public: 

Proteins, the building blocks of our bodies, make up three fourth the dry weight of every cell in the body. And proteins are nothing but chains of amino acids linked together. So amino acids are the most vital nutrients that the body requires. Also, almost all the neurotransmitters, which transmit messages in the brain, are produced from amino acids. So when any of the amino acids gets depleted, not only does our health suffer, but also our brain’s cognitive and emotional responses falter, leading to all sorts of mental disorders, and dysfunctional or corrupt behaviors.
It is only because the above vital facts have been kept hidden from the public that people are not giving due importance to the amino acids in their diets, and why so many of our students are experiencing stress and becoming drug and alcohol addicts and, even committing suicides. 


Poultry farming is a profitable business. And so, there are special ISI codes for amino acid requirements in poultry feeds – different for layers and broilers. But there are no codes for amino acid requirements in human beings. It looks as though a human life is not as valuable as that of a chicken to our healthcare authorities. 


Our normal response to stress is the fight-or-flight stress response, which is subjectively felt by us as anger or fear. In order to cope with stress, besides proper nutrition, one also needs the ability to quickly get rid of any arisen anger and fear. And psychiatrists and psychologists are not showing us the way to effectively deal with our anger and fears. In helping hundreds of addicts to overcome their alcohol and drug addictions, – I have been the all-India representative of NA, a worldwide fellowship helping drug addicts – I was fortunate to have discovered a simple Jungian psychodynamic therapy that helps people to quickly get rid of the resentments and fear. The details of this method are given in my books 12 Steps in a Day and The Lost Path, and can be used by anyone to cope with the psychological effects of stress. 


Now that you know the facts, I request you to use your good offices to see that the government takes the action to remedy the situation, and holds the medical and the mental health profession accountable for the problems people are facing due to stress. You can also begin educating yourself about the amino acids with the book Amino Revolution by Robert Erdmann or the other books available on amino acids. This book tells us which amino acids can be taken to avoid stress, anxiety, depression, and to deal with overeating, addictions and other health problems. For more information on dealing with stress, do check the Articles on our NGO’s website: www.karmayog.org/ngo/behappy