For months now, I’ve been getting unsolicited texts on my phone many times a day, an inordinate number of texts with variations on a similar theme–the URGENT need for me to heed the WARNING and donate some money so the world can be saved, at least politically, and that’s the promise… sort of.

When I was young, there was a phrase in fashion that warned about calling for help when you didn’t need it, it was “don’t cry wolf.” The lesson of this Aesop fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, was to not pretend there’s an emergency when there’s isn’t one, because when there is an emergency, no one will listen to you or believe you. Somehow all these URGENT texts are reminding me a little too much of crying wolf. 

PS No wolves were harmed during the writing of this newsletter. The author likes and appreciates wolves and hopes they continue growing in health and population with the help of conservation efforts and the Endangered Species Act. 

My problem, as a health advocate for all species, is that the stress induced by false urgency–be it in a political text or speech or from a boss or board at a place of employment–is that it puts the receiver/ worker in a sympathetic stress mode. Long term activation of the sympathetic nervous system is bad for your health and can lead to all sorts of problems, to mention a few:

• chronic heart disease
• hypertension
• kidney disease
• type II diabetes
• obesity
• metabolic syndrome
• sleep apnea
• depression
• anxiety
• ulcerative colitis

Personally, I consider it harmful for anyone to unnecessarily raise anyone’s stress levels. That said, this appears to be a rampant problem in our society. I want to draw your attention to it so that you can do what you can to mitigate external stressors in your life–because that is important for your health and happiness. 

I don’t have any naive hopes that we’re going to change society fast enough to have a positive effect on our health. That leaves it in our hands. You and I need to do what we can to be aware of what is triggering our stress response and minimizing its presence in our lives. We also need to continually focus on stress reduction, including exercise, sleep, good nutrition, and mindfulness practices. Perhaps you need to turn off notifications on your phone or email, perhaps you need to consume less news and media, perhaps you need to find a way to get into the healing arms of nature much more often than you do at present. 

Whatever it is, please put this on your “important to-do” list, because what is urgent is our need to deal with these growing stressors in our lives. One great reset for your autonomic nervous system is acupuncture. Come in for a treatment and regardless of your other issues, it will always help calm down your sympathetic nervous system and activate the healing potentials of your parasympathetic nervous system.