Christian Womanhood

Healthy Stress Management

by Jane Grafton, Managing Editor

Remember, if you learn how to maintain a healthy metabolism, your body will automatically adjust to its proper shape, and you will reach and maintain your ideal weight. Five basic principles need to be addressed in order to heal the body’s metabolism: proper nutrition; proper stress management; weaning off of toxic chemicals such as caffeine, sugar, and sugar substitutes; moderate exercise; and bioidentical hormone replacement. In this issue I want to discuss proper stress management. Two types of stress must be managed: physical and emotional.

Our bodies are in a constant state of using up and rebuilding cells. (How efficiently our bodies go through that process indicates the health of our metabolism.) All of that using up and rebuilding takes a lot of energy. Therefore, our bodies require REST!

Not getting enough sleep is a physical stress that hurts your health and leads to an unhealthy metabolism. Sleep also gives your body the rest it needs to be able to properly deal with the emotional stress you face each day. Since I addressed sleep in the December 2005 Christian Womanhood, I will simply restate that it is important to get 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.

It is not noble to rob your body of sleep night after night after night. Eventually that abuse will catch up with you, and you will pay in some way.

Every person in the world deals with emotional stress—including children and babies (from trying to communicate they are hungry or need a diaper change, to mastering rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, etc.)

Stress is defined as “the psychological strain you encounter on a day-to-day basis.” It would be ideal to be able to get rid of all stress, but that will not happen until we get to Heaven.

When we are in stressful situations, our bodies secrete a hormone called cortisol to help us cope. However, secreting too much of this hormone contributes to a hormonal imbalance in the body (and, of course, an unhealthy metabolism).

I have come to the conclusion that the amount of stress our bodies experience does not have as much to do with the source of the stress as it does with how we handle stress.

I have seen people go through unbelievable valleys and remain pretty steady while others go ballistic and worry for days that their child is going to get terribly sick or even die because he did something like put his hand in the toilet. What makes the difference? It’s all in our minds!

I think of Marlene Evans (the founder of Christian Womanhood) who fought cancer for almost 20 years—first breast and then ovarian. She faced a lot of negative news, especially being told that she had ovarian cancer, stage IV, and that she had probably 18 months to 2½ years to live. She knew that meant more chemotherapy treatments, surgery, and the like, but she kept a great attitude and lived her life influencing others for eternity until her body succumbed to the cancer.

The key? She controlled her mind. She decided what thoughts she was going to allow into her mind. I believe that one of the big reasons why she lived for more than seven years after her diagnosis rather than the short time predicted was that she decided not to place additional stress on her body with negative thinking. She did not put her head in the sand and pretend she didn’t have cancer. She did, however, find out the facts and what she could do to best fight her cancer, and then she kept her mind on things other than her cancer.

Where are you on the stress scale? If you live “stressed out” most of the time, you need to consider making changes to help heal your body. I will be giving more ideas in future articles, but I want to give you the first step in this issue:

Walk With God!

John 15:5b says, “ …for without me ye can do nothing.” We cannot deal with stress in a biblical manner if we are not daily walking with God in prayer, Bible reading, Bible memorization, praise, and so forth.

I had a wonderful blessing recently. A dear lady had purchased the book I wrote entitled Losing Weight–Gaining Control, which includes basic principles to regaining a healthy metabolism. There are also biblical principles to help ladies in their struggle with a broken metabolism. This lady wrote to tell me that though she is regaining her health and has lost nine pounds to date, the greatest blessing is that the book helped her get in the habit of reading her Bible every day. I could not have been more thrilled because the first step toward finding solutions to any problem is walking with God! The answers we need will be found in the Bible and on our knees in prayer.

Do you walk with God on a daily basis? If you do, wonderful! If you do not have a daily walk with God, begin today! If you don’t, it is probably because you don’t have a plan. There are many resources available; let me suggest two. The senior editor of Christian Womanhood, Mrs. Cindy Schaap, has a monthly planner entitled, Living on the Bright Side Journal. The second suggested Bible and prayer journal is Ready for the Day! by Loretta Walker. Both of these include Bible reading plans and prayer schedules. (Both are available through Christian Womanhood.)

Walking with God gives us a “peace which passeth all understanding.” There’s no better time than today to begin your walk with God and to begin your journey of dealing with stress in a practical, Biblical way!

Additional Resources - Feeling Great & Looking Good... For the Cause of Christ by Jane Grafton


		Healthy Stress Management by Jane Grafton, Managing Editor Remember, if you learn how to maintain a healthy metabolism, your body will automatically adjust to its proper shape, and you will reach and maintain your ideal weight. Five basic principles need to be addressed in order to heal the body’s metabolism: proper nutrition; proper stress management; weaning off of toxic chemicals such as caffeine, sugar, and sugar substitutes; moderate exercise; and bioidentical hormone replacement. In this issue I want to discuss proper stress management. Two types of stress must be managed: physical and emotional. Our bodies are in a constant state of using up and rebuilding cells. (How efficiently our bodies go through that process indicates the health of our metabolism.) All of that using up and rebuilding takes a lot of energy. Therefore, our bodies require REST! Not getting enough sleep is a physical stress that hurts your health and leads to an unhealthy metabolism. Sleep also gives your body the rest it needs to be able to properly deal with the emotional stress you face each day. Since I addressed sleep in the December 2005 Christian Womanhood, I will simply restate that it is important to get 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. It is not noble to rob your body of sleep night after night after night. Eventually that abuse will catch up with you, and you will pay in some way. Every person in the world deals with emotional stress—including children and babies (from trying to communicate they are hungry or need a diaper change, to mastering rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, etc.) Stress is defined as “the psychological strain you encounter on a day-to-day basis.” It would be ideal to be able to get rid of all stress, but that will not happen until we get to Heaven. When we are in stressful situations, our bodies secrete a hormone called cortisol to help us cope. However, secreting too much of this hormone contributes to a hormonal imbalance in the body (and, of course, an unhealthy metabolism). I have come to the conclusion that the amount of stress our bodies experience does not have as much to do with the source of the stress as it does with how we handle stress. I have seen people go through unbelievable valleys and remain pretty steady while others go ballistic and worry for days that their child is going to get terribly sick or even die because he did something like put his hand in the toilet. What makes the difference? It’s all in our minds! I think of Marlene Evans (the founder of Christian Womanhood) who fought cancer for almost 20 years—first breast and then ovarian. She faced a lot of negative news, especially being told that she had ovarian cancer, stage IV, and that she had probably 18 months to 2½ years to live. She knew that meant more chemotherapy treatments, surgery, and the like, but she kept a great attitude and lived her life influencing others for eternity until her body succumbed to the cancer. The key? She controlled her mind. She decided what thoughts she was going to allow into her mind. I believe that one of the big reasons why she lived for more than seven years after her diagnosis rather than the short time predicted was that she decided not to place additional stress on her body with negative thinking. She did not put her head in the sand and pretend she didn’t have cancer. She did, however, find out the facts and what she could do to best fight her cancer, and then she kept her mind on things other than her cancer. Where are you on the stress scale? If you live “stressed out” most of the time, you need to consider making changes to help heal your body. I will be giving more ideas in future articles, but I want to give you the first step in this issue: Walk With God! John 15:5b says, “ …for without me ye can do nothing.” We cannot deal with stress in a biblical manner if we are not daily walking with God in prayer, Bible reading, Bible memorization, praise, and so forth. I had a wonderful blessing recently. A dear lady had purchased the book I wrote entitled Losing Weight–Gaining Control, which includes basic principles to regaining a healthy metabolism. There are also biblical principles to help ladies in their struggle with a broken metabolism. This lady wrote to tell me that though she is regaining her health and has lost nine pounds to date, the greatest blessing is that the book helped her get in the habit of reading her Bible every day. I could not have been more thrilled because the first step toward finding solutions to any problem is walking with God! The answers we need will be found in the Bible and on our knees in prayer. Do you walk with God on a daily basis? If you do, wonderful! If you do not have a daily walk with God, begin today! If you don’t, it is probably because you don’t have a plan. There are many resources available; let me suggest two. The senior editor of Christian Womanhood, Mrs. Cindy Schaap, has a monthly planner entitled, Living on the Bright Side Journal. The second suggested Bible and prayer journal is Ready for the Day! by Loretta Walker. Both of these include Bible reading plans and prayer schedules. (Both are available through Christian Womanhood.) Walking with God gives us a “peace which passeth all understanding.” There’s no better time than today to begin your walk with God and to begin your journey of dealing with stress in a practical, Biblical way! Additional Resources - Feeling Great & Looking Good... For the Cause of Christ by Jane Grafton