[Bagger Lance]

Vickie,

How about extraordinary stress which is usually an effect of extraordinary demands.

In my case, I've been placing a great deal of physical stress on my body in order to meet some mental demands, i.e. goals for the level of fitness I want to achieve. I'm going through some mid-life changes as well and men also experience physical side-effects, but not to the degree that women do. I've been supporting my wife through her hormonal changes so I have a much better appreciation for female challenges as we age. My fitness routine is directly related to helping ease the effects of aging in order to continue experiencing a higher quality of life.

So for those of us who want to break out of a pattern of homeostasis in order to increase our fitness and/or performance levels, we need to increase the stress on our system to get to a higher level. Our bodies loves homeostasis so it is mental willpower that drives the change.

In other cases, extraordinary stress is created externally such as moving to a new city, a change in our relationship with signficant others, job changes, and even particularly demanding golf tournaments that leaves us emotionally and physically spent. A healthy diet to provide the right fuel at the right time and high quality rest is very important. Assuming a person is already managing stress relatively well, the new load will be a challenge and the body will react.

I've experienced this with my fitness routine and I've had to change my habits to accomodate the new stress loads including a change of diet and rest patterns. It's very uncomfortable and difficult to bring the changes into my lifestyle. The motivation to keep going is seeing fat melt off, doubling my strength since starting, along with an increased feeling of well being and confidence levels. Having people notice the changes also helps reinforce the discipline to stay "uncomfortably stressed".

So many people give up on new goals or new life challenges because the stress is just too much to manage. Its simply too hard or uncomfortable to reach that next level of homeostasis, so the easy and pleasurable response is to give up and keep "playing to your ability" or even worse overinduldge in complacency (which is life, liberty and the pursuit of nothing), and let age plus excess calories take its toll in reducing abilities. We obviously want to encourage the opposite which is take on new goals and learn to manage the associated stress that comes with it.