What is stress?

What is stress? We are continuously accumulate stress in our daily lives. Our body stores it in what, in psychology, we call our subconscious.

All the daily things that we do are a form of stress!

Processing stress

People deal with the stress that we have on our daily life during our sleep. The sleep consists of two phases that alternate several times a night. For example, there are the rest phase and REM sleep phase. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. That is a term that originated because it has been seen that the eyes are constantly moving during this phase.

In the resting phase the stress in the subconscious mind is released from its bonds in the nervous system. Mental rest always leads to breaking these bonds. It is a natural mechanism of our body so we can reduce the stress in our subconscious mind. During the REM sleep phase we process the stress that has been released. We experience that as dreams. What actually happens is that the stress becomes ‘conscious’. Channels are opened in the nervous system between the consciousness layer and the subconscious layer. But because we are asleep, we experience the released stress as dreams. When it comes to bigger – more radical and deeply rooted – chunks of stress, the dreams turn into nightmares.

Making stress conscious

Stress can only be processed and resolved through the consciousness mind. That is why psychiatrists and psychologists often try to unlock the subconscious memories. They do this by talking about the memories. By doing so, they open channels to the subconscious mind. The stress then surfaces to the conscious mind. And that is how we process that stress. Our dreams also bring stress into our consciousness layer. Because of this, we experience our dreams as very lifelike.

The capacity of our subconscious mind

As long as we can dissolve all the stress – that we accumulate during the day time – at night in our sleep and dreams, we remain mentally and physically healthy. Our subconscious mind has an enormous overcapacity to store stress. This overcapacity enables the body to be able to cope with exciting and dangerous situations in our lives.

Disturbed the balance

But in our modern society there are many more stress sources than our bodies are made for. And we are confronted with those sources of stress every day. As a result, many people start to store more and more stress. They can not dissolve the stress sufficiently at night. The stress in the subconscious mind then slowly grows to a critical point. The balance between consciousness and the subconscious is then slowly but surely disturbed. The subconscious grows larger and the consciousness mind becomes smaller… In extreme cases this can lead to a burn-out.

Stress en chronische hyperventilatie

Chronic hyperventilation and stress usually go hand in hand. Many people think that they have been stressed by hyperventilation. But often the opposite is the case. For most people, they started to hyperventilate after a period of persistent psycho-social pressure. The cause of hyperventilation is twofold:

1. The patients have stored more stress for a long time than they can process at night. The ‘stock’ has become so big that the stress is pushing into the consciousness layer.
2. The stress that is pushing into the consciousness layer stimulates the respiratory center.

But not everyone starts to hyperventilate

It is only certain persons who will hyperventilate in the above situation. See a more detailed explanation in the article about the psychological profile of the patients. Many people seek de-compensation in the weekends. They take extra rest in the form of sport and relaxation. And they know how to reduce the number of stress sources. But people with a certain profile do not. They are hyperventilating as a result of not being able to de-compensate.

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