Lions, Zebras and Stress Management
A brain health coaching and leadership essay.
Robert Sapolsky in a fascinating book entitled, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, notes that zebras have very stressful lives. There can be droughts with not enough food. There are lions lurching in the bushes. Zebras don’t get ulcers because when a lion comes out of the bush, the zebra takes off running. The zebra is either successful or not. But what the zebra does not do is stress over the event. They don’t say to themselves, “why are lions always coming after me? Why did I go to that watering hole? I knew I shouldn’t have gone there. What if that bush has a lion behind it? What if that one does? What about that one over there? They don’t do this. They just take off running when they sense a lion.
Zebras act on the information that is available to them through their eyes, ears, sense of taste and smell. They don’t worry about what might happen if they try something new. The information we take in helps us create an appropriate response, keep us safe, keep us interested and learning and developing. We take the information in via nervous system receptors in the retina of the eye, the central portion of which is called the macula. This is the part that breaks down in macular degeneration.
We take in a tremendous amount of information about our surroundings through our primary senses: touch, vision, hearing, taste, smell and intuition. There is a whole range of Information Medicine approaches used to improve your nervous system’s ability to take in, interpret and respond to the world of information around you. Often Information Medicine approaches change the way information is carried to your brain. Some examples of Information Medicine approaches are homeopathic remedies, sound and vibration therapies, matrix energetics, integrative manual therapy, colors and visual imagery therapies, and more.
Today virtual reality tools are also being used in nervous system rehabilitation with good results. Virtual reality is made up of bits of information, tricking the brain into perceiving that information, pressure, vibration as a solid reality. It is information that is presented in such a way as to convey the feeling of something different from the current reality.
Health coaching approaches use questions, choices and number scales to change the clients perspective or response to certain health issues and symptoms. It can also laterally change the way information is conveyed to the brain and how that information is interpreted.
There are many famous studies where the placebo out did the actual medication or in some cases the surgery. Placebo surgery is where they cut you open and then do nothing but sew you up again. What is a placebo? We don’t have all the data yet but for sure it is not nothing. It carries information, intention and triggers a response in the person. It is a form of information medicine because the information that makes the person thinks they are getting something of value, actually provides the value.
What kind of information and sensations are you taking in from your environment? What information is your customer taking in from you? What are they telling themselves about the way you influence their reality?
