Stress of Life

We face stress every day of our lives, we vent our stresses to our close friends and family members and while we try to avoid it, we accept it as a normal part of our lives. But what really is stress?

Stress, at its roots, is primarily a physiological system. Our brain is made up of a series of different parts with the parts that are generally more advanced and evolved on the outside, and the generally simpler and less evolved on the inside. Two of the innermost parts are the limbic system and the brain stem. The limbic system is the part of our body the controls our natural bodily reflexes, while the brain stem controls our unconscious, metabolic functions like heart rate and breathing.

When our body encounters an event we perceive as stressful, our limbic system kicks in and starts to take control of the brain stem. Our heart rate increases, we breath more quickly, our sleep cycle is ignored, and the other parts of our brain focused on problem solving and creativity are devoted exclusively to the problem before us.

So, why does this happen?

Our brain knows that in order for us to have the highest chance of survival, we need to devote all our energy to the immediate problems. This would be very useful to ancient hunter-gatherer civilizations as people living in that time probably faced frequent attacks from predators and those with a strong stress response system would have been more likely to survive and pass on their traits to their children.  The problem we face in today’s society, however, is when our stress responses become prolonged and start cause detrimental effects to the rest of our body.

As we become more irritated, and more angry, due to our having a difficult time sleeping and our hormones being out of sync, we naturally start to take out our frustrations on those around us who are closest to us, which is almost always our family. Once our personal stress starts affecting the family, it transforms into a family stressor. Family stressors come in many forms, most commonly consisting of marital issues, death of a family member or someone close to the family, economic uncertainty, or harmful behavior from children or adults.

That being said, there have been proven ways to overcome stress. I think back to a time when my family was going through a stressful period. While my dad has had a consistent job and we have always had the money for our needs and then some, we aren’t particularly well off and live in a relatively small 4-bedroom house. Another family from our church congregation had recently gone through a traumatic experience as the father tried to kill himself in front of his family. We offered their family a place to stay in our house, but it involved trying to fit their family 7 in with our family of 7 which lasted for about six months.

While their family was great, they came from a very different background compared to ours, and it was just a difficult situation in general when you try to fit 14 people from different families into 4 bedrooms. I remember hearing my parents argue about something for the first time in a very long time, and I remembered feeling down and stressed out because our personal space had been obstructed.

However, as we learned in our class, stressful situations can lead to a stronger family. Our parents frequently let us know how important we were to them, and how important our sacrifice was, which helped us see the situation in a better light. A few weeks after I overheard my parents arguing, we had a family scripture study in which they testified to us kids about how much Christ has sacrificed for us, and how important it was that we helped everyone we could. Looking back, some of my most favorite memories were from the time we were helping that family. Ultimately my parents were able to turn a stressful situation into a period of family growth.

Intimacy in Marriage

Intimacy in marriage is probably one of the most awkward and taboo subjects to discuss, and I am lucky enough to have to write an entire blog on it!
Sarcasm aside, as we have talked about this touchy subject this past week, I have thought a lot about why it is so taboo. For one thing, we live in a culture that puts a lot of emphasis on sexual and intimate relations being private, and although I feel like this is changing a bit, it is still a deep-rooted societal norm that is shared across many of the major world cultures. Another reason this topic is so awkward to talk about it because it is very personal, and it really isn’t our place to give people specific advice on their personal marital intimacy. With those points being said, I would like to talk a bit about some of the general themes and ideas that marital intimacy affects us on a personal and cultural level.
As might be expected to someone who has a basic knowledge of the biological makeup of people, men and women are affected by martial intimacy in very different ways. There are three big hormones that are released during intimate moments, these are dopamine, serotonin, and in women oxytocin.
Dopamine is something most of us are familiar with as ‘getting a high’. It helps us feel excited and good while performing a verity of acts and is part of evolutionary development in most animals to reward us by performing acts that benefit us. Sexual reproducing is very important, and uses dopamine extensively, causing us to crave it.
Serotonin is another important hormone, which has more to do with giving us a feeling of wellbeing and contentedness. It is sometimes used to help treat extreme depression and is important in making us not only feel excited about intimate relations but also feel like they are important for our wellbeing.
Both males and females produce these two hormones during intimate or sexual acts. The hormone oxytocin, however, is only produced by females. Oxytocin is important in helping us build connection and trust with those who have shared intimate moments.
So along with these difference in hormones, males are also aroused a lot quicker and with less control, while females are aroused over a longer period of time, and their arousal is stronger based on their feelings of safety and trust. Because of this, sexual moments for one marriage partner can mean something a lot different than for the other partner.
This can present problems because a man might be able to feel as though they have a satisfying intimate relationship, while his wife may not be fully satisfied because. It also becomes a problem with the culture of casual sex that seems to be prevalent today, because while a man might be able to have sex with just anyone and not really think much about it, a woman would build up at least a small amount of trust and connection with people she is having sexual relations with. Long term, this can lead to attachment issues, causing them to put less emphasis on those trust feelings and causing them to suppress natural mental processes of connection when none exists.
I don’t pretend to be an expert in this subject, but I think as we come to better understand this taboo topic, we will be better able to understand our feelings and our partner's feelings in relationships. These reactions have developed over the long course of our evolutionary history, guided by God’s hand, and we have them for a reason. It is our duty to discover this reason and use it.

What is love?

What is love?
The question to define love is asked so often that it has almost become a cliché in today's culture. The biggest problem is that it can have so many definitions and there are many situations where we apply the word or concept of love. It is also one of our most powerful emotions and inspires acts of great courage or great stupidity. I have personally always been fascinated by the concept, and always enjoy learning more about it.
Ancient philosophers in Greece first came up with four types of love. Storge is the love of a parent to their child and is seen as nurturing and protective. Philia is the love of friendship or connection and was valued most highly in Greek society. Eros is the romantic and erotic love that we most commonly associate with people who are ‘in love’. Agape is not love for a specific person, but rather a more general love often translated into the English word charity. This theme of four loves seems to be prevalent throughout history and even though it fails to describe some forms of love, such as the love a child has for a parent or, the love a person has for objects or activities, it can be very useful in learning how to express our love.
So, all of these ideas and thoughts on love are interesting to think about, but how do they actually apply to our lives?
A good way to apply this is the Relationship Attachment Model or RAM. Displayed below, it shows how to keep a relationship safe and healthy.

The idea is that our relationships proceed from left to right. We first come to know someone, and if that goes well, we start to trust them, and then actually rely on them. The more we rely on someone the more we feel committed to them, and as an innate desire, we display that commitment through touch and intimacy.
When we look at where our love is coming from, it can often help us in all relationships, especially romantic ones. If our love is too focused on eros we will naturally start to push the relationship very quickly towards the touch, and if starts to surpass the other values, it could cause dangerous situations and spell later problems for the relationship because trust and commitment were never fully developed. It is good to follow the natural progression of relationships, keeping in mind that we shouldn’t rely on someone before we trust them, or trust someone before we know.
It seems that we should have all forms of love in our life. Having a love for all people is very important, but we shouldn’t necessarily trust everyone. In close relationships with friends, family members, and romantic partners, it is important to have that connective or ‘friendship’ love so we can build up trust, and to help our romantic relationships to grow even furthers we should have a passionate eros-like love to help build to commitment and touch.