Tonight, I'm talking about stress reduction, which is after all the entire, if you had to boil down Buddhism in a nutshell and what the Buddha was all about, he said basically all I teach is what causes stress and how to get rid of it.

The Kalama Suta, the Buddha taught, don't believe anything in the year.

Don't believe anything.

I tell you, see for yourself.

Practice tools that you get from different spiritual paths and see what works for you.

These are the tools to reduce stress that he was trying to offer.

So what is stress?

Stress occurs when a key region in our midbrain, you've probably heard of it by now, it's

an almond-shaped region called the amygdala, perceives a threat or a challenge that requires

action and initiates what some people call a startle response,

which releases jolt of adrenaline, norophenephrin, cortisol,

these hormones that allow us to confront challenges.

Our hearts beat faster, our arteries contract. Blood pressure rises.

Our sight fixates. Our hearing and our senses become more acute. Our muscles tighten.

And their muscles tighten. Not that you want to know this, but because there's a very important

region in our brains

called the basal ganglia. And what that region does is it allows our muscles to relax and

stay ready to just deal with whatever movements and every routines we have to do. But under

stress, what happens is cortisol overrides the basal ganglia and the direct

impulses from the amygdala and the motor cortex go to the muscles and they stay rigid and tight.

That's why when people are stressed, their entire bodies will lock into this kind of frozen state.

Now, adrenaline isn't harmful.

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