Wonderfully Made

Stressed Out - Managing Stress

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), James Marcum

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Series Code: WM

Program Code: WM000361


00:01 The following program presents principles
00:03 designed to promote good health and is not
00:04 intended to take the place of personalized
00:06 professional care. The opinions and ideas
00:09 expressed are those of the speaker.
00:11 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own
00:13 conclusions about the information presented.
00:35 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome
00:37 to Wonderfully Made. You know, David wrote:
00:40 Oh! I praise the Lord for I am fearfully
00:43 and wonderfully made. And we are,
00:45 but there are so many things that we do
00:48 to ourselves that actually can ruin our health.
00:52 And today we're gonna be talking about
00:54 something that you're gonna want to hear about.
00:57 And this is, our topic today is stress,
01:00 and how to prevent it and, how to cope
01:02 with it, how to over come it? And we have
01:04 with us an expert, he's a cardiologist from
01:08 the Chattanooga, Tennessee Heart Institute
01:12 and his name is Dr. Jim Marcum.
01:14 Jim, thank you so much for being here today,
01:17 thank you. Now, when we get started on
01:19 this topic I know that we're gonna have an
01:21 audience that is tuned in and listening because
01:25 everyone it seems is experiencing stress in
01:28 today's world, what do you think that is?
01:31 Well, that's right well there's lots of problems
01:34 that are contributing to stress.
01:36 And you know you think about well,
01:38 what is stress? You know, where is it
01:40 around me and today getting back to your
01:42 question what's causing it? Well, our lifestyles
01:45 you know, we're running we think we have to
01:47 work harder and do more. We think we have to
01:49 stay up later at night, we think we have to
01:51 pursue the almighty dollar. You know in some
01:55 parts of the world people are scrounging right now
01:58 to stay out of wars, people are having to fight
02:01 to get the food they have, there is many
02:03 different reasons that cause stress on our body.
02:06 You know as you were saying that I just had
02:09 a thought there are people that are sitting
02:11 at home that are lonely, but maybe they've lost,
02:14 I mean they don't have that fast paced lifestyle.
02:17 Maybe there's a slown down because slowed down,
02:22 yeah, because of either their age, or maybe
02:27 an illness, but that change can cause stress too,
02:30 can't it? Yes, change can cause stress,
02:33 loss of a loved one cause stress, not being happy
02:37 at your job can cause stress,
02:39 sin in your life can cause stress. Amen, amen.
02:42 The food you eat in your life can cause stress;
02:45 the things you do and don't do can cause stress.
02:48 The list goes on and on and on and I bet you
02:52 sometimes when I talk about the subject
02:53 the people just hearing of it, they start to get
02:56 stressed from hearing about stress.
02:58 And sometimes when you hear about stress
03:00 over and over and over you start to get
03:02 stressed and I'm, I'm going to apologized
03:04 I know some people at home right now are getting
03:07 stressed about it, but this is a topic we must
03:10 talk about because stress is truly a disease.
03:13 Amen. Stress leads to disease and I'm afraid
03:16 right now we don't hear enough about it,
03:18 we don't recognize it, we don't have a game plan
03:20 in dealing with stress. That's what we want to
03:22 do today with this program is get people
03:24 a game plan to think about stress as a real disease.
03:27 Now, you are a cardiologist Jim, yes and
03:30 I would like for you to explain what that is to
03:34 our audience? Well, a cardiologist is a
03:37 doctor that's trained in Internal Medicine and
03:39 specifically they trains to deal with the
03:41 diseases of the heart and blood vessels.
03:44 What got me interested in stress?
03:46 Is that stress plays a role in so many these
03:48 chronic cardiovascular diseases, it plays a role
03:51 in high blood pressure and heart attacks,
03:53 it plays a role in people's diet. Did you know
03:55 that some people just a food they eat causes
03:58 and to have stress, but it's truly something
04:01 that is you're gonna hear a lot more
04:03 about the next few years. And I guess what
04:06 really tipped me over is my own life.
04:08 I assessed you know what's going on and
04:11 I said well why don't I feel as good as I do,
04:14 you know why can I do more, why I'm not more
04:16 sharp than I should be? Well, I looked at things
04:19 and I was having a lot of stress in my own life,
04:21 so then I really got to the basics of it.
04:23 Well, that's good and I know that I probably
04:25 need to reevaluate some things as well.
04:28 Well, Jim also has a ministry called
04:31 Heartwise Ministry, and he teaches people
04:34 how to be wise about their lifestyle choices.
04:38 And because of this ministry we have questions
04:41 that have come in from all of around the world.
04:43 And we're gonna be reading some of those
04:45 questions that deal with stress today.
04:47 So, this first question is from Brenda in New York,
04:51 and here's what she writes. My friend Lorry
04:53 works at the desk next to mine, she says I'm
04:57 stressed out, how do you know if you're
05:00 stressed out? Oh! Brenda excellent question,
05:03 most people in fact don't know that they're
05:05 stressed out. One of the worst things you know
05:08 at work, if you're stressed at work and
05:10 don't even know it you could have this stress
05:13 disease for years and not even realize what
05:15 it's doing internally to your body.
05:17 There is a stress you know about the conscious
05:20 stress, but every input that your body gets
05:22 from anywhere. Every in put stored in your
05:26 brain in the subconscious. So, the subconscious
05:29 is working even when you're conscious doesn't
05:31 know about it and it can create physiologic
05:33 manifestations. So, your mind and your body
05:35 are so tightly connected and then all these
05:39 chemicals start to go that deal with the stress,
05:42 the stress hormones. Now, I wanna throw up
05:44 our first graphic today. These are some,
05:47 you know she ask if how do you know
05:49 when you might have stress. Well, some of the
05:51 common symptoms of stress could be are you
05:54 having headaches, do you have unexplained
05:57 chest pain, are your muscles tight,
05:59 are you having problem sleeping, do you have
06:02 acid that bubbles up from your stomach,
06:05 are you having high blood pressure,
06:07 are you having palpitations, or are you
06:09 shortness of breath? All of these Shelley
06:13 can be symptoms of stress, but I think this is
06:17 the best one that I have for the audience
06:19 in a person that I think having lots of symptoms,
06:21 you know, you go to the doctor and say,
06:23 oh! My chest hurts and I do a lot of tests
06:25 I can't find anything wrong. And I think well
06:28 maybe they have the disease of stress.
06:30 Well, one of the uniform symptoms is they
06:31 don't sleep well at night. So, I always asked people
06:35 do you sleep well at night? And if the
06:37 answer is no, you have to say well maybe
06:40 an addition to everything else they're having
06:41 some underlined stress. So, Brenda back to your
06:45 question, how do you know if you're stressed?
06:47 Well, do you have any of these symptoms and
06:49 secondly are you sleeping well at night?
06:53 Oh! It would be good one and it's interesting that
06:55 often people around us are the ones who recognize
06:58 it you know, my husband told me once,
07:00 honey I think you're over working you're
07:02 getting stressed out. And I said,
07:04 that's ridiculous, but I went to a doctor
07:06 and as I was talking to him he said, you're gonna
07:08 burn out your adrenal glands.
07:09 He said, you are going at high speed 24x7
07:13 and he said you're killing yourself.
07:15 So, I took it seriously. Okay, the second
07:19 question comes from Andrew in Australia and he says,
07:23 my job in Sydney requires travel four days a week,
07:27 I know this kind of schedule is not good for
07:29 my body, what does stress actually do to the body?
07:35 Andrew, that's a good question and I appreciate
07:37 I've had quite a few comments from Australia,
07:40 so I know the people in Australia are very
07:42 interested about their health, but stress
07:44 and I'm gonna step on a lot of toes here.
07:47 Especially that my friends the truck drivers,
07:49 I see lots of them they also go, the salesman,
07:52 the people that travel, the people that are
07:54 on the go a lot they frequently have
07:57 high levels of stress. And now, stress can come
08:00 from anywhere, it come from relationships,
08:02 it can come from pain, it can come from
08:05 you know the things we eat, the things we think
08:07 about change, loss of love ones, divorce is a
08:11 big cause of stress, job is a big cause of stress.
08:14 Not having good relationship with people,
08:16 but there's two types of stress that I want to
08:19 talk to Andrew about, one is the acute stress
08:22 you know the fighter flight.
08:25 Someone's threatening you know to, to kill you,
08:28 okay you're gonna get your muscles up and
08:29 you're gonna battle with them, and you're gonna
08:31 battle and battle that's the good type of stress,
08:34 that's a kind of stress you want.
08:36 But in chronic stress your body is doing that
08:38 all the time. One of the hormones that your body
08:41 makes is called epinephrine or adrenaline.
08:44 And this is the hormone that does all sorts of
08:46 things in your body. For instance, it constricts
08:49 blood vessels; it gets the body ready to fight
08:52 so all your muscles, all throughout the body
08:54 get tense, 'cause you're ready to fight a battle.
08:56 Yeah. You mobilize your food from different places
09:00 'cause you're getting ready to fight,
09:01 you're not you know, you're gonna get the food,
09:02 so that acid is in the stomach just churning
09:05 'cause you're ready to digest whatever
09:06 energy you can. Your immune system,
09:09 we don't need an immune system in this course
09:11 and we're gonna move our body
09:12 energies in order to fight. Your mind,
09:15 it gets it's just racing a millions times a minute.
09:17 Your heart starts to speed up okay, your,
09:21 the muscles around your eyes tight 'cause
09:23 you're getting ready to try the thing yourself
09:25 to stay alive. Another hormone that goes up is
09:28 called cortisol and this helps you know,
09:31 in our food process, it helps you know,
09:34 the sugars in our body and things of that nature.
09:36 Well, this hormone also changes, when these
09:39 changes occur chronically, chronically not acutely,
09:42 but over the long term your body can't deal with it.
09:45 Lets stop there for just a moment. Yeah.
09:46 Because those are words not everyone is
09:48 familiar with. Okay. But when you're talking
09:50 about the acute stress reaction that means
09:53 when it just it happens rapidly, it's a sudden
09:56 on slot of this and if it, if you require that
10:00 fight or flight that's good, but if this is
10:04 something that you are living in this condition
10:06 chronically means that if it's a chronic condition
10:09 it's ongoing and then you are wearing your
10:14 body out because there's all of these chemical
10:17 changes going on in your brain and in your body
10:20 and you may not be aware of that, but you're
10:22 really killing yourself, that's right, with stress.
10:25 And that's why I call this disease; this is really
10:27 a disease because clearly your chemical makeup
10:30 is dramatically changed from this chronic stress.
10:33 I think of a patient that I had not too long ago
10:37 and get back to Andrew's question.
10:39 He was a truck driver, he didn't sleep well
10:42 at night, he ate poor foods, he was having
10:45 some relationship problems, he had lost a
10:47 loved one with this chronic stress just
10:49 drove him crazy. His chemicals all change in
10:53 body, his blood pressure went up, he had acid
10:55 and indigestion. And, and finally when he was
10:57 able to realize he had this and worked through
11:00 this stress one step at a time his symptom
11:03 started to improve, 'cause this is a terrible
11:05 disease that we have. And so, Andrew what does
11:09 stress actually do in the body? Well, it changes
11:12 your entire chemical makeup. Not only the
11:14 chemicals that fight acute stress, but the way
11:16 you think. Have you ever been under stressful
11:18 situation? Your brain just doesn't, it works
11:20 differently it's not as logical, it's doing things
11:23 drastic things to stay alive, it's not thinking
11:26 that logical pathway that you would get in
11:28 non-stressful situation. So, you overreact
11:31 that point. Yes usually, usually good. Okay.
11:34 Well, let's go onto Marlene's question.
11:36 And Marlene is from Ohio, and she writes I know
11:39 I'm under stress, there are too many things
11:42 going on in my life to list them all,
11:45 what should I do to combat the stress?
11:49 Well, Marlene the first thing that you've done
11:51 is recognized that you have stress, and that's
11:54 very important, and the second thing that you've
11:56 done that is so good is you're seeking help.
11:59 Many people that are under stress first they
12:03 might admit they have it, but then they won't do
12:05 anything to change what's going on in their lives.
12:08 They say, oh! My job is too demanding,
12:10 I'm working two and three jobs. I'm doing
12:13 this, I'm doing that. I'm staying up at night,
12:15 but they're not willing to make a change.
12:17 And they're thinking that, you're in and you're out,
12:19 they're gonna feel great, but sooner or later
12:21 this stress is gonna take up for you.
12:23 Now, I want to talk about the way people
12:26 do deal with stress, 'cause there's different
12:27 types of ways people do. And now, everyone
12:30 has stress and you're dealing with it one way
12:32 or the other Shelley. Right. I mean you just
12:34 can't ignore it, but let's, let's throw up a
12:36 graphic, about in what ways some people
12:38 deal with stress? And see, if people in the
12:40 audience might do some of these mechanisms
12:44 in order. One is eating, do you know anyone
12:47 that eats when they're stressed out? I know,
12:49 a lot of people do. Okay, overworking, some people
12:52 just work more-and-more when they're stress,
12:53 and some people do the opposite, they say,
12:55 well I'm not gonna work at all, I'm just gonna
12:56 lay at home in bed and do nothing.
12:59 Some people were turn to drugs such as alcohol,
13:02 cigarettes, caffeine and cocaine.
13:05 Some people take medications for stress;
13:08 they'd rather take a chronic medicine like
13:10 Valium and Benzo. I know some people the way
13:12 they deal with stress is they spend money.
13:14 You know, they run up the credit card debt.
13:16 And you hate to blame every you know,
13:18 spending money on stress, but it could be
13:20 a symptom of stress. People have to deal with
13:23 stress in some way the other. When you have
13:25 stress in your life you just, you just sound say,
13:28 I've stress and not deal with it. Now, you've to
13:29 look at yourself honestly and say, well if when I
13:33 have stress how am I dealing with my stress?
13:36 And you know it occurred to me as we're
13:37 going through this list that every one of those
13:40 things, if you're eating because you're stressed
13:42 it makes you more stressed. Right.
13:44 Because you're, you start gaining weight or
13:46 you're having these problems, if you're out
13:48 spending money and running up your credit
13:50 card because you're stressed and when those
13:52 bills come in you're more stressed. And certainly,
13:55 if you're dealing or if you're using some kind
13:57 of a drug to help you or caffeine or stimulator
14:00 or something like that, it ends up
14:02 making the problem worse, doesn't it?
14:04 It does, but most people nowadays, when you
14:07 think about it they are dealing with stress
14:09 in maladaptive ways. They're literally
14:11 destroying the bodies that God wonderfully
14:14 made for them. And that's why when you
14:16 think about stress getting back to the good
14:18 ways of dealing with stress. You know,
14:21 we have to focus on I think biblical ways in
14:24 dealing with the stress. You know, casting our
14:26 burdens on someone else, not trying to take
14:29 everyone's burdens. Let's show the graphic
14:31 about some of the, the good ways to cope
14:33 with stress. One, this is I think the only true
14:38 way to deal with chronic stress is an active
14:41 spiritual life. Amen. You have to cast your
14:44 burdens on your Lord. Amen. If you look
14:47 the way when Christ dealt with stress,
14:49 He went to His Father in prayer over-and-over.
14:52 That's the way He dealt with stress. He prayed,
14:54 He cast His burdens, He got them off Him.
14:57 So, you have to have an active spiritual life
14:59 to deal with stress. Another thing that helps
15:02 stress immensely is exercise, 'cause exercise
15:05 increases all of the hormones that help
15:08 fight stress. Proper nutrition is another very,
15:12 very important way to deal with chronic stress.
15:15 And it only make sense and, if you put good
15:17 gas in your car. Right. The car is only
15:19 gonna run better. Now, we see examples of
15:22 this biblically throughout all times,
15:24 if you think back to Daniel and his friends
15:26 of another reason we have to also recognize
15:29 that we have stress and those are some of the
15:31 things that we need to talk about.
15:33 Another thing that's very important is getting
15:35 appropriate rest, getting away, changing a scenery,
15:39 getting your mind away from all those things,
15:41 letting your minds recharge are all important
15:44 things in dealing with chronic stress.
15:46 Now, let's for a few seconds talk about
15:48 some things. You bet. Anyone jump out that
15:50 you that see way of, productive
15:51 way of dealing with stress?
15:53 Well, I know that my only way really of
15:56 dealing with stress at the time is just turning
15:59 my eyes on the Lord, I need to do some more,
16:01 I need do exercise more, I definitely need to
16:04 just get away with a change of scenery,
16:06 change you know, rest more. The interesting
16:10 thing about being in ministry is that
16:13 often on the Sabbath. Oh! Yeah.
16:15 Which is the rest day I'm ministering, so it's
16:19 not and I love doing it, but that doesn't mean
16:22 it ends up being really restful for me because
16:25 there's a lot preparation time that goes in and
16:27 then you spend maybe four to six hours
16:30 speaking, it's not necessarily a day of rest.
16:32 Right. So, I can say a lot of things
16:34 I need to change. Well, you know
16:36 I agree so much with that day of rest.
16:39 You know, and God knew when He setup,
16:41 setup this world that it was gonna be stressful.
16:45 Right. You know, and God work six days
16:47 and He literally took a day off for rest
16:50 not only spiritual, spiritual rest,
16:53 but a physical rest. We could rejuvenate
16:56 our body. Now you know, you might say,
16:58 well if I'm not truly spiritual and physically
17:01 resting on that day, can I really have the
17:04 blessings of that day? I don't know it's something
17:06 to think about. Well, I do know that as far as
17:10 the priest ministering in the temple I know
17:12 I'm not breaking the Sabbath. Yes, right.
17:13 But it is something that I do realize that from
17:16 time-to-time I think about because I am
17:19 ministering on that day I should maybe take
17:21 another day off too, but there is a lot of things
17:24 that people are not doing because we are
17:27 caught up in this high tech fast paced society
17:33 and it seems to me that I don't know about you,
17:36 you may not be old enough to remember,
17:38 but I can remember when federal express and
17:41 UPS first came out and you could get something
17:45 somewhere overnight, we thought it was amazing.
17:48 And then the fax came out Jim and it first
17:51 it was like oh! We could send a document like that.
17:54 And it was so astonishing, but within just months of
17:57 getting your fax, pretty soon you're sitting
17:59 there and you're drumming you know,
18:01 I thought to myself jut drumming my fingers.
18:03 Yeah. On the counter waiting for something
18:06 because we want it now and we're getting to
18:09 aware we expect such immediate results
18:12 that we're stressed when we don't have them.
18:15 Yeah, well you know in me as far as my personal
18:18 life goes the one that, that I thought its
18:20 help me more than I thought it would be,
18:22 it would be just the process of getting away.
18:24 Yeah. You know, moving from your environment
18:26 that you're in everyday, day in and day out
18:29 and getting away whether that be you know,
18:31 just sitting alone somewhere taking a
18:34 trip of vacation. In fact, one of the ways
18:37 I treat chronic stress. You know, in addition
18:40 to the biblical ways and in addition to resting
18:42 is I tell somebody I say, Shelley you're really
18:45 stressed. And if we don't do something now
18:47 it's gonna get worst. Well, why I'm suggesting?
18:49 Is Wednesday afternoon that you take off from,
18:53 from 1 O'clock to 5 O'clock that your time,
18:57 you can do whatever you want;
18:58 no one can get to you. Now, if you chose to
18:59 work it's your choice, if you wanna lay down,
19:02 it's your choice, if you wanna read a book,
19:04 if you wanna write those are all of your choices.
19:06 And what I think this does is let your subconscious
19:09 know that no matter how hard it gets
19:12 during the week, I may have a release valve.
19:14 I have something to look forward to and I can
19:16 sort of rejuvenate my brain batteries in order
19:19 to make it to the next time which probably
19:22 is gonna be a Sabbath, when I can sort of
19:23 rejuvenate myself again. I think that getting
19:26 away mentally and knowing that that vacation is
19:29 there has helped me more than
19:31 anything in dealing with chronic stress.
19:33 You know, I was thinking there was a
19:35 young lady that I was ministering to that
19:38 she was a young mother of three, Homeschooling
19:40 all three children. 'Cause she was with
19:42 her children 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
19:46 And I gave her the advice that you gave her,
19:49 and she said, oh! But I feel like I would be a
19:51 horrible mother if I took an afternoon off
19:53 for myself. And I told her I said,
19:55 the worse mothers are those who do not spend
19:57 enough time with their children, or those who
19:59 spent too much time with your children because
20:01 you do need that break. Right. I know she loved
20:04 her, her babies, but it's something that to
20:08 constantly have that much demand on you personally
20:12 where you never have a second for
20:13 yourself that really causes a lot of stress.
20:16 That, that's a good point, I think the mothers
20:18 at home they deserve to have this.
20:21 Another point I wanted to touch on here
20:23 is nutrition. Nutrition is a treatment for
20:26 chronic stress and if you think about go,
20:29 go look at home tonight at some of the packages
20:31 you have and look at all the chemicals that are
20:33 in the packages, all the preservatives, all the
20:35 things that you put in there that you can't even
20:37 say tonight Glutaraldehyde or ethylene you know,
20:41 I saw ethylene glycol the other day, on a big
20:45 Frank can, but all these chemicals God did not
20:48 make to put in our body. You know these are not
20:51 you know they weren't in the Garden of Eden
20:53 giving us these chemicals to take.
20:54 We don't know how they affect our chemical
20:56 nature in the body. And everyone that I
20:58 told to try to get off process and extra foods
21:02 with these preservative and they have felt
21:04 better because they're eating more natural diets,
21:07 our body is able to handle these chemicals
21:10 it doesn't it helps the whole chemical balance.
21:13 And I doesn't want, one thing I want, another
21:15 thing I want to push people through is
21:17 getting adequate nutrition, especially water.
21:19 You know what you just said it just occur to me,
21:21 there are some things that we do eat that
21:24 stress our body, and if it stresses
21:26 our body it's gonna stress your mind.
21:28 You know what used to stress me is
21:30 I probably shouldn't tell on myself, but I used to
21:32 love to eat Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
21:35 And that stress me out and they were so
21:37 delicious and it was like, I could not eat just
21:40 one of them and that was what stressed me.
21:42 I would eat one and it would taste so good
21:44 I want to eat another one, and want to eat
21:46 another one. So, I was just better off
21:47 replacing that habit with a good habit and this is
21:51 stress from just not even one that just
21:53 drove me crazy. So, I'm just,
21:54 I just have to stay way from Krispy Kremes.
21:55 Alright, and you watched children in a
21:57 birthday party and some of they, if they eat,
21:59 have eaten too many sweets and you see the
22:00 stress factors on their body. Yeah. You know,
22:03 sugars in it. You know, one thing I didn't notice
22:06 on your list is coping with stress.
22:08 Now, for me music can either cause stress or
22:12 it can alleviate my stress. Yeah. I'm very,
22:16 I'm noise sensitive. So noise, if I have too
22:19 many conflicting noises around me it makes
22:23 me that's the time when I feel the most stressed.
22:27 And so, either I want it to be totally quiet or
22:30 I want something soft, something simple not
22:34 complicated in the line of music.
22:36 So, music can if it's too jive, or too much beat
22:42 it can make me feel stressed, but if it's
22:44 something slow and nice acoustical guitar
22:47 or piano solo or something that
22:49 can make me feel real calm. You know there
22:50 couple other, you know the list goes on
22:52 and I think each individual has to you know
22:54 sort of decide what treats themselves,
22:56 but I had a lot of people tell me that heat
23:00 that helps them, helps their, their treatments
23:02 of stress. Whether that be heat from
23:04 you know a water pool, some people like
23:06 massage you know as a way of relaxing
23:09 the muscles, but that's another way that some
23:12 people are dealing with some other stress
23:13 you know, your muscles are tight all the time,
23:15 if you can just sort of relax them all the time
23:17 that sort of that feeling that you get,
23:19 there's lots of you know, good positive ways,
23:22 but most people aren't thinking about ways
23:24 to actively treat stress on a
23:26 daily basis, they just let it happen.
23:28 You know this the song "Sweet Hour of Prayer,"
23:34 "Sweet Hour of Prayer." Oh! What needless
23:36 toils we bare because we don't take him to
23:39 the Lord and prayer. That for me prayer
23:43 is one of the greatest distressors because
23:46 when I can go to God and just pray earnestly
23:50 and, and really focus my eyes on the problem
23:53 solver rather than on the problem,
23:54 exactly, it really changes. Well, and that's,
23:57 that's the biggest solution to stress, and
23:59 that's why I don't see how people that don't have
24:01 a relationship with Christ can deal with stress.
24:04 In the way Christ dealt with stressed,
24:06 every time he had a stressful situation,
24:09 what did He do? He went to His Father.
24:11 He went to His Father. So, that's the true answer
24:12 to that. Amen, okay well I'm glad Marlene that you
24:16 wrote this question in. This one comes to us
24:19 from J.R. in Oklahoma and he writes, I recently
24:23 got divorced and lost my job in a matter of
24:26 three months. Bless your heart J.R.,
24:28 I saw my doctor and he put me on a nerve pill.
24:34 I must admit I feel "chilled." How do you
24:39 feel about nerve pills? Whoa! Now, would you
24:43 say nerve pills he's probably talking
24:45 about a tranquilizer? Yeah, he was probably
24:46 talking about Xanax, or Valium, or Ativan or
24:50 those many ones that are out there.
24:53 I think the true treatment of any disease
24:55 is getting at the core of it. Okay and what they
24:58 have not done is got at the core. And people
25:01 they just give a pill right away, now some people
25:04 truly do have chemical imbalances, okay true.
25:08 Some people really do need it, and some people
25:10 have anxiety disorders and stress disorders,
25:13 but I would say that's probably the minority.
25:17 The majority of people that I think deal with
25:20 chronic stress has a type of stress that it needs
25:22 to be treated in the, in the way we just
25:24 talked about. Find good coping
25:26 mechanisms distress. And I like to refer people
25:29 back I said, listen let's not jump to a medication,
25:32 okay let's take step back, find out what's
25:36 causing your stress? For instance, if it's
25:37 stressful to drive to work a certain way,
25:40 well maybe you should change the way you go
25:41 to work, if it's, if someone, a colleague at
25:44 work is just irritating you all the time.
25:47 Well, maybe you should move round that
25:49 colleague, if you are prayer life and your
25:51 religeous life it's not what it should be.
25:53 Well, maybe you should resolve some of those
25:55 conflicts. Right. If you know, you do all those
25:57 other things you can first and then after
26:00 every other thing is exalted, exhausted then
26:02 I would say, well do I really have a chemical
26:05 imbalance or have I change my chemicals enough.
26:07 And I wanna mention this study, they did a
26:09 study recently and they compared people
26:12 that who are under chronic stress and
26:14 specifically depression. And they compared them
26:17 to those that took medication, okay and
26:19 took medication for one year and they're also
26:22 compared those that did lifestyle changes and at
26:24 one year they grated the amount of depression
26:27 and stress they had. And the people that had
26:29 lifestyle changes were just as happy with their
26:32 overall level of satisfaction and they
26:34 dealt with the cause and the people that
26:36 took medications. And there certainly are
26:39 cases that there are some people, yes,
26:43 who have depression, who if such a chemical,
26:46 strong chemical imbalance that they
26:47 have to take that medication and we don't
26:49 want to give you the idea if you're one of those
26:53 people that there's anything wrong with that
26:55 as long as you're trying the lifestyle
26:56 things as well. This is in addition.
26:58 This is in addition, right so. Well, we have
27:02 got so many stress factors that are contributing
27:07 to our society and it's not just the United States,
27:11 Japan, Africa, India around the world.
27:16 You know, we look at ourselves and think we're
27:20 the ones with the problems, but some of
27:22 our problems are not those basic life
27:24 threatening issues. I think about the Middle East,
27:27 can you imagine having the stress of just
27:29 going to work and? A mother, I just think about
27:31 a mother with the children, yeah,
27:32 was that's going on over there.
27:34 But, but it's truly a worldwide problem and
27:36 it's, it's something that we need to be aware of.
27:39 And the things that I want the audience
27:42 worldwide to look at today and these are things
27:44 that I want to just leave, just two points that I
27:47 want you to take home is number one recognize
27:50 stress, if you don't get anything out recognize it,
27:53 if you're under stress. And two, develop a
27:56 game plan to deal with your stress and get
27:58 some help. Amen, well I hope you've enjoyed
28:02 our program today with Dr. Jim Marcum and if you
28:05 have stress in your life and hit your knees
28:07 and pray, turn all of your burdens
28:10 over to the Lord. Amen, thank you.


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Revised 2014-12-17