How is tai chi a form of exercise to combat stress?
‘Stress’ is the label we use to describe the experience & phenomena of the unhealthily sustained activation of the healthy fight or flight response. The fight or flight response is nature’s way of giving us the impetus to get us out of trouble. ‘Trouble’ in this context means a perceived threat to one’s health, emotional security, material security, well-being or even life. In a complex financially-challenging world with layers of over-lapping & sometimes conflicting commitments of tight deadlines, mortgages, rising prices, metaphysical uncertainties & environmental imperatives there can be a sense of continouous threat. The fight or flight response becomes a way of lfe and this takes its toll on our health and well-being. The fight or flight response is ideally a short-lived adrenaline reaction to danger. However in the case of a perceived continued threat following the adrenaline response comes a cortisol hormone reaction. Many of us live in the presence of cortisol every day all day
