Ana Lombard: “Behind stress there is an important business”
In this interview for the newspaper La Razón, Ana Lombard talks about the following topics: You can also find the interview here .
Through the book “#PositiveStress” (Green Therapies), the author, a renowned therapist and expert in the management of work stress, teaches how it can become a positive force that helps overcome challenges and foster capabilities, to avoid slogan “I don't have time”.
-Stress is a response of the body to a series of external stimuli as a method of adaptation to circumstances. Today it has been demonized a lot. Should we learn from a young age to handle these types of situations in a healthy and positive way?
-Yeah. Through the example of contemplation it is easy to explain it. That is to say, it is about putting distance and dedramatizing the situation, because if we are overconcentrated on the problem, even if the concentration is good, we cannot give importance to the whole and we fall into obsession. This gives way to frustration, rage, anger... all those emotions, which are not negative in themselves, but are unpleasant. This already represents a way of facing situations, a way of re-educating ourselves in how I see difficulties.
-There are people who find stress a motivational lever. Are there people with innate qualities to face these situations better than others?
-It is true, and even a little unfair, that Nature has endowed some people with more endurance than others. Just as there are physically larger organisms, there are organisms that are more resistant to this response. But having said that, we must evaluate that stress motivates, it gives us greater capabilities, but we must not stay hooked on the adrenaline that is secreted in these situations.
-Hence it is also counterproductive to live permanently in stressful situations...
-After experiencing the problem, adrenaline is secreted, which would be phase one; Then, in stage two, comes the moment of action provided by the union of this substance and cortisol that have prepared the body to make adaptive decisions, at a speed. And then back to the state of calm. There are people who, if they don't experience those "high" situations, think they are less alive, they get bored. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate between a good dose of the substance and a bad one. Because you always have to return to phase three, recovery.
-Stress is a silent epidemic of the 21st century. Does it cause other diseases and disorders?
-One of them is insomnia, but not only sleep disorders, because other people suffer emotional problems, anguish, irritability; Some have skin problems, such as eczema, digestive problems...
-Breathing, that return to calm that you describe in the book “#PositiveStress”, how does it benefit?
-You have to do it from the navel, force yourself to stop and become aware that you have to fill your body with oxygen again.
-Many times, this is not done because “we have to live fast”, right?
-The truth is that behind stress there is a big business. If you don't live like "I can't live," it seems like you're not doing anything. Living stressed is rewarded, because we assume that is when things are done well and that is not the case. This situation is not the natural state of human beings.
