Like a high octane fuel there are hormones in our body that mobilize and arouse us for action. The high octane emotions like anger and fear put some real fuel into the system including epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol, all powerful stress hormones that mobilize body and mind for action and to overcome obstacles and adversaries. The problems arise when we too often are working with those high octane fuels in our system, and in modern, civilized life we really hardly need that kind of octane anymore but we haven’t evolved beyond their continued presence. We have a whole other nervous system devoted to peace and ease and rest (the parasympathetic) and now for most of us we need to hear from it more often and feel its effects. We might call those effects Yoga or Zen.
2014-02-03