A Bucket List of Toxic Things Which Add to the Stress Barrel

A Re-framing of the Cumulative Impacts/Threshold Concepts of Chronic Conditions

This is a re-working, expansion, and re-imagining, of the “Cumulative Impacts” concept, covered best in the video we made with fellow substacker

Visceral Adventure

of the

Visceral Adventure

substack [perhaps V.A. can be persuaded in due course to make a video version of this current article too… :-) ].

Cumulative Impacts: The Movie

The basic concept of the Cumulative Impacts perspective, strongly related to Sela Weaver’s Threshold Theory, is that we each have a limited capacity to deal with external and internal stressors. Exposure to different stressors all add up to deplete our reserve capacity. Once the capacity is all used up, the last exposure becomes the “straw which broke the camel’s back”, and we are tipped over into a chronic condition, where symptoms become pronounced and disabling.

Another way to imagine this is that we each have a “stress barrel”, and that there are several buckets of toxic stuff that get poured into the barrel each day, which can accumulate. We reduce the level of the fill of the barrel by being in the calm, relaxed state as much as possible: the state in which the body and brain can detoxify, address inflammation, restore health, and rejuvenate. For examples, by being in good company, non-sleep deep rest, and self-care practices - see our sequel movie “Antidotes to Suffering…” also with V.A.,

The Antidote to Suffering in the Modern World

for a complete list of things which help to empty the barrel. Particularly important is each night we get a chance to empty a good portion of the contents of the barrel by getting good sleep. However, if we don’t spend enough time in the calm, relaxed state, the contents build up and if they reach the top of the stress barrel, they begin to overflow. It is at this point we get pronounced symptoms, and it becomes very hard to stop the barrel continuing to overflow: in other words, this is when we get debilitating chronic problems.

Below, in no particular order is a [partial] list of some of the buckets of toxic stuff, which all add to the stress barrel everyday. If readers can suggest more that I have missed, I will add them, if appropriate. I will also expand on some of these individually in forthcoming articles. Each of these contributes to exiling us from the calm, relaxed state.

• Lack of sleep, rest, relaxation, and calm: missed opportunities to empty some of the stress barrel, resulting in starting the day with elevated levels of the toxic soup in the barrel;

• poor nutrition: junk food, personal food sensitivities, poor hydration;

• unresolved developmental trauma: Adverse Childhood Experiences of all kinds;

• unresolved school trauma - being left in care with adults who are themselves stressed, being made to sit down and be quiet, bullying, being indoctrinated into unhelpful ideologies, constant evaluation, boarding school syndrome [yes this is a real thing];

• unresolved career trauma - workaholism, power imbalances, poor management and weak leadership, commuting;

• unresolved diagnosis trauma - being given a disease label by the medical establishment, the manner in which a diagnosis is delivered, lack of information or support, the extreme nocebo effect of being told you can only get worse, and that there is no cure or hope;

• unresolved physical trauma - injuries, accidents, postural issues;

• ongoing institutional trauma - unfairness, injustice, gas-lighting, divide and rule, curtailing of freedoms;

• infections - bacteria, viruses, prions, parasites;

• epigenetics - things in the environment which switch on genes that increase risk of a particular disease.

• microbiome - SIBO, leaky gut, antibiotics, unfriendly diet, mouth hygiene;

• posture and fascia health - constrictions, restrictions, adhesions;

• chemical sensitivities - heavy metals, environmental pollution, allergies, toxic cosmetic and cleaning products;

• pharmaceuticals - side effects, long term dependency, toxicity;

• addictions - drugs, substances, gambling, sex, punding, social media;

• unresolved relationship traumas - being on the receiving end of disdain and contempt, heartbreak, power imbalances, narcissism, co-dependency;

• chronic shame and guilt - frequently recalled and unwanted memories of things which make you cringe inside.

• disappointments - reward prediction errors, activation of the habenula part of the brain;

• chronic negative emotions - feeling hate, fear, resentment, contempt a lot of the time;

• constipation - missed opportunities to eliminate toxins;

• lack of physical exercise - adrenaline build up, physical weakness, missed opportunities to eliminate toxins through sweating.

Reader contributions:

• Electro-Magnetic Fields - 5G, dirty electricity, bluetooth, blue light at night, rubber soles.

• Lack of meaning or purpose in life.

Each of us will have a different toxic soup “recipe” in our barrel, some of us have larger or smaller stress barrels to begin with, and hence are more resilient, or more susceptible, to overflowing our barrel into chronic problems.

While some researchers, therapists, and articles will single out one component of one of these buckets, as the root cause of specific diseases, e.g. virus V is the root cause of disease X, or chemical Y is the root cause of illness X, or gene G is the root cause, or food type F is the root cause, in the stress barrel concept there are many paths to the same symptoms. There are many recipes of toxic soup in our barrel that can cause the same chronic outcomes. Indeed, this is why different researchers can all “prove” that virus V, chemical Y, or gene G, or food type F, all singularly “cause” the same disease X, because enough of any specific bucket can be the one that overflows the barrel, but in reality there are very many more ways the barrel gets filled.

Take

Lilian Sjøberg

’s of the

The HOPE shortcut

substack “Biological Stress Test” to get insight into your own Stress Type, and the pragmatic steps you can take towards becoming closer to the Calm Type, which is the ultimate aim of healing: