When the mind perceives a threat or stressful situation, the body reacts by releasing stress hormones which speed up the heart rate, slow down digestion, increase the breathing rate, tense the muscles, preparing the body to fight or flee from danger. This is also called 'fight-or-flight' response because it evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. In ancient times, when we lived in the wild, this was needed for our physical survival, and after the danger was dealt with, we had the time to rest and recover from the assault of survival response on our body. However in modern times, this response can even be triggered by an approaching work deadline, an email from our bosses, even a social media post, traffic, conflicts with our friends or family, or various other seemingly stressful situations. On a regular basis, stress hormones flow into our bodies for events that pose no real threat to our physical survival causing damage to the body over time.

Researchers have studied the long-term effects of chronic stress on physical and psychological health. Over time, repeated activation of the stress response takes a toll on the body. Research suggests that chronic stress contributes to high blood pressure, promotes the formation of artery-clogging deposits, diabetes, digestive disorders, and causes brain changes that contribute to stress, anxiety, depression, and addiction. More preliminary research suggests that chronic stress may also contribute to obesity, both through direct mechanisms (causing people to eat more) or indirectly (decreasing sleep and exercise).

Being restful alleviates chronic ailments and improves your immune system and healing. It also improves mental health by reducing anxiety, stress and depression, allowing you to be happier.

Fortunately, you can learn a technique to counter the stress response with consciously activating Restful response through Inner Engineering, which empowers you to create the chemistry of health, happiness & bliss within you.