Stress Management through Tai Chi & Mediation

Beyond fight or flight, is Stress Making You Fat?

Stress isn't just something you feel in your head. It's something that trickles all throughout your body. Under stress, your body produces two hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline is like lighter fluid, and cortisol is like charcoal. The former quickly burns off the immediately available sugar in your blood, so you can fight or flee whatever is stressing you. Cortisol continues to fuel the fire, pumping more sugar into your blood so you have energy to burn. The problem is that excess sugar coursing through your blood is meant to help you flee the saber-toothed tiger or battle the charging wild boar. It's made to be burned off quickly as you either escape or attack. When the stress comes in a more modern form like a pressing deadline or a stack of unpaid bills you can't literally fight back or flee. And without that burst of physical activity, you don't have the chance to burn off that extra blood sugar. Instead, it gets stored in your belly as fat.

By David Zinczenko, Men's Health 12/04/2006

How does Southern Shaolin Academy assist individuals & corporations with managing stress? The answer is Tai Chi. Tai Chi Chuan (also known as Taiji Quan) has been regarded as a martial art, and its traditional practitioners still teach it as one. Even so, it has developed a worldwide following among many hundreds of thousands of people with little or no interest in martial training for its aforementioned benefits to health and health maintenance. Some call it a form of moving meditation, and Tai Chi theory and practice evolved in agreement with many of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Tai Chi is generally known throughout the modern world for the health benefits attributed to stress management. Tai Chi involces deep breathing exercises which helps slow down the heart rate which in turn aids in help to lower blood pressure and great for stress management.

Stress and high blood pressure: Risks increase over the long term:

“Increases in blood pressure related to distressing events and the subsequent hormonal changes can be dramatic. But once the stressor disappears, your blood pressure returns to normal. However, even temporary spikes in blood pressure — if they occur often enough — can damage your blood vessels, heart and kidneys in a way similar to persistent high blood pressure. In addition, if you react to stress by smoking, drinking too much alcohol or eating unhealthy foods, you increase your risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.” By Mayo Clinic, 08/16/2006

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Southern Shaolin Academy

5 Scotch Road

Ewing, NJ 08638

Tel: (609) 883-0303 Fax: (609) 883-0225

Email: info@daoconcepts.com