Which animal is the best stress management expert?
Flexible felines that stretch like yogis? Unconditionally loving dogs that wag their tails for sheer joy? Docile bovine grazing calmly in the field? Playful otters that wisely take several vacations a year? Each of these critters has great stress management skills, but are they experts?
Nope. The animal kingdom's stress management expert is a duck.
Nature has always provided us with marvelous wonders and models for conscious living; taking our cue from the animal kingdom is a sign of intelligence.
“In life, stress happens when you resist what arises.” Dan Millman
Stress management is a coping technique to deal with the stresses of daily life. Most stress management methods intend to equip a person with effective coping mechanisms to deal with stress.
For many people, they are unable to deal with stress and ignore it, bottle it up, or express it in inappropriate ways. Unfortunately, in most cases, this doesn’t eliminate the stress, rather it makes it worse. Learning ways to cope with stress effectively will lead to a happier, and healthier life.
Humans: smart enough to be sick
Why do humans and their primate cousins get more stress-related diseases than any other member of the animal kingdom? The answer, says Stanford neuroscientist, Robert Sapolsky, is that people, apes and monkeys are highly intelligent, social creatures with far too much spare time on their hands.
"Primates are super smart and organized just enough to devote their free time to being miserable to each other and stressing each other out," he said. "But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick."
According to Sapolsky, happiness and self-esteem are important factors in reducing stress. Yet the definition of "happiness" has less to do with material comfort than Westerners might assume, he noted.
An extraordinary finding that's been replicated over and over is that once you get past the 25 percent or so poorest countries on Earth, where the only question is survival and subsistence, there is no relationship between gross national product, per capita income, any of those things, and levels of happiness."
Surveys show that in Greece, for example, one of Western Europe's poorest countries, people are much happier than in the United States, the world's richest nation. And while Greece is ranked number 30 in life expectancy, the United States—with the biggest per capita expenditure on medical care—is only slighter higher, coming in at 29.
"The United States has the biggest discrepancy in health and longevity between our wealthiest and our poorest of any country on Earth," Sapolsky noted. "We're also ranked way up in stress-related diseases."
This is nothing to be proud of.
If we could talk to the animals, what would they say?
Robert Sapolsky, has spent more than three decades studying the physiological effects of stress on health. His pioneering work includes ongoing studies of laboratory rats and wild baboons in the African wilderness.
Water off a duck’s back
So, why a duck? What characteristics of good stress management qualifies a common pond duck as an expert…over humans, even, in dealing with stress?
There is a wonderful family-friendly campground near Emigrant Lake, called Glenyan RV Park and Campground.
My daughter and I have been there several times for our annual mother-daughter vacation, and we have lots of delightful memories cooking out in the scenic and spacious tent sites, splashing around in the shallow waters of Neil Creek with our sweet Lucy Marshmallow, visiting the child-friendly gardens, goofing around at the playground and greeting the parade of ducks as they march from the pond to the office each evening for their meal.
One year as we stood on the bridge over the duck pond watching the silly aquatic antics of the ducks, it occurred to me that a duck’s response to stress was ideal.
The ducks seemed to congregate in groups consisting of several ducks. If one of the ducks floated too closely into the ‘territory’ of another group, one of the ducks from the group would flap its wings, quacking, splashing and creating a stir; the offending duck would respond with the same sort of behavior.
The uproar only lasted for a few moments, then both ducks would swim away from one another, complete a full-body feather ruffle, shake off the sprayed water, settle down and resume their peaceful pond activities.
This is an ideal stress management technique:
1) The ducks assertively register their displeasure to the one who caused them stress.
2) The ducks express their displeasure immediately and efficiently.
3) The ducks release the stress energy through their own bodies.
4) The release allows the duck to quickly return to its peaceful state.
Embrace change – especially death
In an interview with The Associated Press last year shortly before his death, the world’s oldest man, 114-year old Walter Breuning, attributed his longevity to eating just two meals a day, working as long as he could and always embracing change -- especially death.
"We're all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die," he said.
Just ducky
My bubbly and wise friend, Renee, is famous for her standard reply when asked how she is, "Just ducky!"
Enjoy these quotes:
"All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.” Blaise Pascal
“You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” Debbie Lousignont, Day Care provider
When problems arise, when pressures mount, follow the wise rule Admiral Byrd used when his ship was locked in the ice of the Antarctic: “Give the wind and tide a chance to change.”
“An expert is a man who tells you a simple thing in a confused way in such a fashion as to make you think the confusion is your own fault.” William Castle
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments. Feel free to subscribe and share me. Namaste and blessings for all. For more info on holistic astrology, please contact me at: kimberlycarson49@yahoo.com.
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