I was enjoying the practice and philosophy part of the course until lesson plan. Before I enrolled to the 200hr YTT, I was used to following instructions from the teachers. The stress came when I have to give instructions. Some of us were struggling with lesson plans like myself.
“I’m so stressed doing the lesson plan”.
“Yoga is supposed to be relaxing but why am I staying up until 2am in the morning to do a lesson plan?”
Where does it come from?
We often think of stress as another by-product of our fast paced culture. Something we encounter at work or home, or even both. Stress plays an important and negative role in numerous diseases. The culprit – cortisol: an adrenal cortex hormone implicated in anxiety and chronic depression. The cortisol itself is an instigator of the fight-or-flight response. Problems such as stress occurs when the body stays stuck in this response.
How do I managed?
The nervous system consists of 2 parts: the central nervous system(CNS) and the peripheral nervous system(PNS).
The PNS are classified by the direction of nerves propagation.
So we have the sensory neurons and the motor neurons.
The motor neurons are further classified according to the effectors they target. The somatic nervous system(SNS) and autonomic nervous system(ANS).
The ANS is divided into the sympathetic nervous system and parasysmpathetic nervous system.
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal(HPA) axis, or “stress circuit” is activated during lesson planning. Here’s how is works. When i got stuck in the sequencing, my brain signals the nervous system’s HPA axis to release stress hormones into the bloodstream. The hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone(CRH) which triggers the pituitary gland to pour adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) into the bloodstream. The pituitary gland is sending a warming to the adrenals which respond by releasing an army of hormonal compounds – epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol. Epinephrine and norepinephine cause my blood pressure to rise. The cortisol releases sugar (fuel) into my bloodstream so I can think and suppress insulin production. The HPA axis continues to communicate with the rest of my body, instructing my digestive, reproductive and immune systems to slow down and wait out the stress. In short, the sysmpathetic nervous system reduces the activities
of various “tranquil” body functions.
I’ll walk away from the laptop, look out of the window and grab a bite. Cortisol signals the hypothalamus that all is well and instructs it to stop producing CRH. I begin to calm down and my nervous system goes back to normal. The “stress circuit is switched off. The parasympathetic nervous system is active when I eat and rest.
Dorothee 200hr YogaTTC 07/14 wkend
