Enhancing Your Natural Tranquilizers
Eliminating things that destroy our natural tranquilizers helps to preserve physical and emotional well-being
When ministry and personal demands seem never-ending, many of us dream of sitting on a beach and enjoying a bit of down time. It should come as no surprise that this activity, along with many others, enhances our natural tranquilizers—chemicals in our brain that help us stay balanced physically and emotionally. In his book The Anxiety Cure,1 Archibald Hart discusses what eats away at these tranquilizers and how to enhance them.
The following things reduce our natural tranquilizers:
1. Not surprisingly, stress tops the list. Stress can mean different things to different people, but any activity that keeps the adrenaline flowing resulting in high stimulation is considered stressful. A common form of stress is busyness; a missionary friend recently admitted that her busyness seems endless.
2. Pleasure-seeking activities, over-arousal, and excitement produce large amounts of stress hormones. Even seemingly positive activities, such as video gaming, snowboarding, roller coasters riding, slowly wear away your natural tranquilizers. This makes it difficult to calm down when you need to, like when you should be sleeping. “Pleasure, like a mountain top, is only pleasurable when surrounded by valleys of tranquility, calmness, and peace,” says Hart.
3. Conflict. A friend recently confessed that there is so much conflict in his ministry, that he spends much of his time putting out fires making him feel exhausted most of the time. Conflict triggers the fight-or-flight mechanism, which generates adrenaline and causes the body to be on high alert. This erodes your peace, making you feel miserable and anxious. It’s important to find a solution or at least avoid conflict as much as possible.
4. Under-assertiveness destroys our peace since the tendency to “grin and bear it” produces internal hostility and frustration. Christians particularly struggle with assertiveness because they fear it is either selfish or aggressive. One client admitted that she didn’t even know how to say anything that might appear negative. As a consequence, she often felt that people ignored her or took advantage of her. According to Hart, a good rule of thumb is that if assertiveness brings healing rather than offense, you are being “correctly” assertive.
5. Insufficient sleep—a chronic problem in Japan—causes stress levels to rise.Sleep is one of the most important ways we can fight the damaging effects of stress and enhance our natural tranquilizers.
6. Most people who are successful in ministry tend to have type-A personalities. Type-A behaviors include always being in a hurry, having a deep sense of justice, becoming hostile quickly, and maintaining a sense of control. All these behaviors cause us to be in fight-or-flight mode, which destroys our natural tranquilizers. By giving in to your type-A behavior, you are setting yourself up for high levels of stress and premature cardiovascular disease.
Hart says that we need to incorporate the building up of natural tranquilizers into our lifestyle if we want to avoid the over-the-counter type of tranquilizers. Resting is actually one of the best prescriptions for good health, because it helps to build up these natural tranquilizers. It should be no surprise that about 2,000 years ago, Jesus offered the ultimate prescription: the rest that he alone can give. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me, and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest” (Matthew 11:28, MSG).
1. Archibald Hart, The Anxiety Cure (HarperCollins Christian Publishing, 2001).