PART 1 - THE STRESSWIZE INFORMATION GUIDE

LET’S GO THROUGH PART 1 – THE STRESSWIZE INFORMATION GUIDE 

Stress > Harnessing The Power Within: Finding my calling, retiring from professional boxing, I started working in alternative learning, in a pupil referral unit for young people with emotional and challenging behaviour.  Relating to these young people, using my own life experience and creating The BoxWize Skills system in 1997,  teaching young people how to control, release and channel emotional stress and physical energy positively. I was fascinated by human behaviour, observing the invisible force of stress, I started to recognize the many negative reactions and patterns of behaviour. I was learning to see that stress is a powerful energy that can be harnessed within, how your struggles are your strengths and adversity can bring opportunity to grow. Dealing with Your Thoughts, Feelings and Emotions = Process: Stress has become a greater part of everyday life and my perspective is, that stress is learning to deal with your thoughts, feelings and emotions, processing through your energy in motion, when we experience the demands, pressures, problems, issues, challenges and the many dynamics of life’s stress.

Negative & Positive Stress: There are many myths about stress and its effects. However, the fact remains that without some stress, none of us would even get out of bed! A certain amount of stress helps us feel stimulated. Positive stress can be taking on a mental task or a physical challenge, dealing with your fears, thoughts, feelings and emotions, when experiencing anxiety, a signal for change, you can go through the process, experiencing positive stress and a sense of achievement. Negative Stress: Without a positive release and process, stress can become negative, also taking onboard the negative stressors from people around us can be consuming. Going through the difficult times and challenges of life, through experience you can learn to self-process or when sharing your problems or issues you can go through the process with somebody you trust, developing your emotional awareness and heart-mind intelligence, building resilience and character to overcome life’s challenges. When you learn to stay active and keep moving through life, managing stress, your thoughts, feelings and emotions, energy in motion – emotion, learning to grow through the process, developing your ability to respond – responsibility, improving your emotional awareness and heart-mind intelligence, you can release your inner potential, harnessing your skills for life, education, athletics and sports.

Human Biology: Stress Has Been Around Since Caveman – Stress, Fear, Reaction: Whilst hunting to survive and feed the family, the caveman would experience the potential threat of the saber tooth tiger or woolly mammoth, experiencing fear and danger, triggering the amygdala reactive part of the brain, the caveman would experience Freeze: feeling overwhelmed, powerless and shutting down, consumed and shutting down he would get eaten up in the situation. Flight: the caveman would run and get away, avoiding the stress of dealing with the situation, living to hunt another day. Fight: the caveman would use aggression but could often lose control, caught in a fight for survival. Fawn: is a common reaction in today’s world, known as people pleasing, avoiding uncomfortable conversations, hiding behind our emotions, giving our power and control to appease a person, situation or an authority. Caveman – Moving From Reaction to Response: Looking back in time, when experiencing great stress and danger, through experience the caveman would learn to stay calm and present, using strength, strategy and skills to overcome the challenge of the sabre tooth tiger or woolly mammoth. Developing their ability to respond, over time they would successfully harness the skills to live, hunt and survive. Even though in today’s world there is no sabre tooth tiger or woolly mammoth, it’s a good analogy to realize no matter how great the fear, stress and pressures are in life, we can learn to develop our ability to respond, moving from reaction to response, using our emotional awareness and heart-mind intelligence.

Experiencing Stress > Growing Up: Growing up we can experience the demands and expectations of school, the stress of finding your way, fitting in, feeling a sense of belonging. The experience of bullying, peer pressure and developing friendships. Self-identity and self-presentation, how we look, what we wear without becoming self-absorbed by the ego, the world of want, materialism and expectations. Coming in to your teens, going through puberty and managing your hormones, there’s the pressure of exams and getting results, finding purpose and a career through your education. Adopting a faith or spiritual belief, a value system can help guide us through life. Then there’s financial stress, moving in to the world of employment, accessing a vehicle, having social life, building relationships, communication technology, phones and social media. The ability to leave your home, moving onto independent living with all the expenses, just many of the moving parts and stressors on life’s emotional roller coaster ride through life.

Junk Culture > Effecting Behaviour: It’s important to get our positive energy intake, learning to eat the right foods and consume the right types of drinks, getting the essential nutrients and energy to help us to deal with the stress, demands and pressures of everyday life. There’s no doubt we are living in the most unhealthiest times, bombarded by constant advertising, in a junk culture when it comes to taking care of our personal health. Studies now show that food allergies, especially amongst young people, are affecting behavior. Dairy is linked to behavioral issues and gluten to irritability, artificial food dyes have been shown to cause hyperactivity, and artificial soft drink sweeteners such as aspartame are directly linked to anxiety and depression.

Technology: EMF’s > Vulnerability to Mind Programming and Social Conditioning : The world is moving faster and information communication technology age has taken over, becoming a powerful influence and very addictive. EMF’s – Low Energy Electromagnetic Frequencies: It’s important to be aware of the negative influence and impact of technology and EMF’s, the low energy ElectroMagnetic Frequencies all around us, with cell towers and wifi interconnecting us through our phones, devices and TV screens, the over stimulation, information overload, and the zapping effects contributing to school stress, poor concentration, frustration, angry melt downs, anxiety, with ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and prescription drugs on the rise. With the rise of violent video gaming in the late 1990’s, our children and youth are vulnerable to reactive mind programming and social conditioning more than ever before. Hollywood trauma fear based movies glorifying crime and violence, alcohol and drug abuse. Gangster rap, aggressive music, abusive lyrics and sexualization, our children and youth taken over by dysfunctional, reactive behaviour, lacking values, contributing to emotional confusion, over thinking and the inability to process through the excessive information. Leading to many of us stuck in a reactive mind loop and mindset, that can have a negative influence and powerful impact on our mental health, emotional and physical wellbeing.

NegaTology > InspireTology: Now we can see the negative influence of technology, I call NegaTology, in a time when we, our children and youth have access through InspireTology, to a powerful influence of positive role models, great teachers and leaders, inspiring athletes, coaches and mentors.

With Out A Positive Release – Stress Build Up: Switching off, without a positive release or process for fear, worry, anxiety, frustration or anger, emotional stress can build up leading us to feel tension, fatigue, disengagement, burnout, poor-concentration, loss of focus, loss of joy, experiencing many negative reactions to stress. Many of us becoming emotionally withdrawn or emotionally acting out, which can be very challenging for our mental health and physical wellbeing.

Left & Right Brain Hemisphere’s – When The Right Brain Switches Off: In 1997, coming to work in alternative learning, accessing brain gym, I was fascinated to learn about our left and right brain hemispheres. How growing up in the headucation system, conditioned what to think and how to feel in today’s world, experiencing academies, universities and institutions. Learning to understand our left and right brain hemispheres and personality traits is empowering. When the right brain that absorbs sensory information is experiencing information overload and over stimulation, along with excessive stress, fear, reactive mind programming and social conditioning, our right brain hemisphere can switch off. This can lead us to blocked pathways in the brain, poor concentration and memory, our reactive amygdala caveman part of the brain blocks the pathway to critical thinking, emotional awareness and heart-mind intelligence.  Many of us becoming stuck in our heads, more left brain dominant. Experiencing cognitive dissonance, struggle with emotions, over sensitive and uncomfortable in conversations, we can switch off, freeze, flight or fight, becoming bullish and aggressive, the self-absorbed ego taking itself serious, easily offended, when challenged to change our beliefs. Becoming left brain dominant we can experience many negative reactions to stress.

What’s Your Release: Human Technology – Switch On, Tune In! Working in alternative learning since 1997, recognizing the left and right brain hemisphere’s, developing my BoxWize Skills System, integrating brain gym, teaching the boxing fundamentals with no physical contact, how to switch both left and right stance, learning to switch on both left, right and whole brain function. Controlling, releasing and channelling emotional stress and physical energy positively, improving positive aggression and passion. Through exercise and moment, learning to cross over the left and right brain hemisphere’s, developing mind-body connection, we can learn to release and recharge, improving the ability to respond – responsibility, feeling through emotion, energy in motion, improving emotional awareness, heart-mind intelligence, positive energy, focus and skills for life.

LET’S MOVE ON TO PART 2 – THE STRESSWIZE GUIDE QUESTIONNAIRE

Part 2 – Let’s move on to The StressWize Guide Questionnaire, learning to recognize negative reactions to stress, detaching old reactive patterns of behaviour, developing the ability to respond, improving emotional awareness and heart-mind intelligence, making a positive and powerful shift in life.