ABOUT STRESS

 Everyone experiences stress at sometime in their life.   Stress can be caused by any changes in your life,   be it at home, work or the environment that we live in.  It is natural to experience stress but the problem arises when we feel we have problems coping with our stress. 

A stressor can be considered as a change or a challenge to your daily living or a sudden demand from the environment that the individual was not prepared for.  But prolonged stress turns to chronic stress.  This can cause physical, emotional and behavioural problems which can have and effect on one's daily functioning.

PHSYICAL  REACTIONS OF STRESS

The human body has an autonomic nervous system that controls your heartrate, breathing etc and uses the built in stress response, the  "fight or flight response", that helps us to deal with stressful situations.   Some physical symptoms are sleeplessness,  tension pain (maybe head and shoulders), feeling your heart racing even leading to a panic attack,  can cause high blood pressure, may cause digestive problems (even leading to ulcers),   also can weaken our immune system making us susceptible to infectious diseases.  I will cover these in-depth symptoms in future blog posts.

MENTAL  REACTIONS

Mental reactions could include panic attacks,  depression, anxiety.  These will also be covered extensively in future blog posts.

UNHEALTHY MANAGEMENT OF STRESS

People easily get involved in unhealthy ways of dealing with stress as a "quick fix" to forget the stress.  They can easily start excessive drinking (could lead to alcoholism),  smoking, using drugs, loss of appetite or over eating, gambling.   How these can harm us physically and mentally will be covered in future blog posts.

HEALTHY WAYS TO MANAGE
STRESS

Getting involved in healthy physical activities dose a world of good for boosting your mood and physical health.  Find a good exercise routine to do cardio exercise if physically fit to do so.  You can also look at some yoga routines for relaxations.  There are many meditations ailable to help with falling asleep at night as well.  During Covid 19, it may be difficult  to visit a gym, but you can easily do these at home as well.

Don't isolate yourself from the people who care about you.  This maybe difficult to do so during the pandemic but there are always social media platforms to reach out to people.

 

The famous saying "You are what you eat"  has some truth in it.  Yes if you eat unhealthy, you will feel unhealthy.  Its alwayseasy to start eating "comfort food" which maybe junk food.  This will only cause you more physical ill health, causing more worry and stress for you.  Remember to eat healthy foods and drink lots of water.  Studies have shown that dehydration increases the cortisol levels (which is the stress hormone).

If you are not able to cope with any healthy ways to manage your stress or feel you have been been using the wrong coping strategies, contacting a therapist would be another option.  Talking to a trained  professional would help you put things into perspective.

Its often how you perceive the  situation that causes you to stress rather than the actual event itself.  Follow the good management of stress ideas and try to less think of a negative ending to your stressful situation.  Instead stay in the present moment and think in the here and now and what can be done about it at present. Don't think that all endings will end up bad. We all can't live a stress free life, but we  can choose how it affects our lives.  So try out choosing the positive management of stress.