According to Medical News Today(www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145855.php), stress is a reaction produced by your body under an extreme workload. In such a scenario, we find it very hard to cope up with the burgeoning problems that haunt us, and it could also lead us to make the wrong choices. A stressful life is antithetical to happiness and success, and strong measures should be taken to avoid it in earnest!
How does our body respond under stress?
Well, there are two physiological responses that our body utilizes to counter stress: Fight or Flight. When under extreme duress, flight is the option usually opted, while under normal stressful conditions your brain would condition itself to fend off the danger by fighting it.
Furthermore, when you find yourself in circumstances that require a fast response - like an earthquake - then your heart get's pumping and you experience an immense bout of an adrenaline rush. During such a time, all your non-essential activities like the digestive function is automatically stopped by the brain, while it concentrates on strengthening your thoughts.
What are some symptoms of stress
Some symptoms pertaining to stress are easy to decipher and comprehend:
- A rise in the blood pressure
- Rapid breathing
- Slow down in digestion
- A rise in the heart rate
- A sickening feeling in the stomach, or "butterflies".
- A dry mouth
-No sleep ( Experienced by most of the people, due to heightened alertness )
These symptoms tend to show depending on how your body would react to a situation; assuming that it finds it stressful or not; depending upon the resources available. Based on the reactionary thinking that your brain does at any point, and the kind of resources available to it to counter the effects, it may segregate the situation as being stressful or otherwise.
What are the causes of stress?
The majority of the causes could be differentiated under two spectrums: Professional or Personal. These are the two variations under which you may feel stress. While professional may be work related stress; personal could be intimacy related, wherein you may have lost your sex drive or affinity towards each other.
It is important to note that one form of stress tends to carry itself to the other form. For example, if you are stressed about work related problems, you would carry it back home, and vice versa. So, if you are able to counteract the effects of one form of stress, then you would have no reason to worry about the other!
Factors that may lead to stress:
- Bereavement, the primary personal cause of stress, herein you may find it too hard to cope up with the demise of a loved one.
- Illness, when you find yourself "under the weather", or in the worst case scenario contract a disease that may need long-term care, then it would automatically lead to stress.
- Losing your job, with the kind of environment that we find ourselves in, this fear has gripped our society more than we would like.
- Relationships, when you or your partner find that they have lost the "spark" that lit up the relationship, then it's easy to blame yourself as the reason behind it. Thinking about it for long durations foments stress.
- Finance, with a constant need to acquire everything that we fancy, we tend to get lost in a whirlpool of emotions, wherein if we fail to achieve our dreams we get heavily stressed out. This is counterproductive to a happy living.
How do people react to stress?
Stress has quite a remarkable impact on your thoughts and feelings; whatever your thinking be, it may now turn self-destructive, in an attempt to alleviate your stress. A huge number of people resort to ill-conceived methods to reduce their stress, such as:
- Anger, wherein you may blame everyone else for the stress in your life, or you blame yourself completely, as in the case of a relationship.
- Deprivation, you may deprive yourself of food or could eat more that your body requires, known as "stressful eating".
- Taking to bad habits like excessive smoking or drinking.
- Withdrawal from the outside world, thanks to the notion that someone else is the reason behind this feeling!
- Drug abuse, a lot of people get hounded by the ills of drug abuse, and they may find it as a medium to reach a "parallel" world.
How could you fight off stress?
There are many ways, techniques, tricks whatever you may want to call them, to counter the effects of stress. The majority of them involves taking meticulous actions to help relieve you off any problems that you may have and devote a lot of thinking on.
- Exercise
This is the holy grail of reducing stress. Go with the saying, " A healthy mind leads to a healthy body", even though it's old and hackneyed, it works better than any other measures. Put on your favorite music ( another stress reliever!) and go for long walks or jogging sessions. You don't have to sweat it out in the gym, as being at one with nature would alleviate your stress faster than you could imagine.
- Be decisive
You have to learn when to say "yes" to something and when to say "no". If not, then you may become that rag doll who is used extensively for professional gains.
- Talk it out
Now, this is a very important point; you may feel that you aren't articulate enough, but you would never know till you have tried, isn't it? Make sure you talk with your partner about whatever that is stressing you out and giving you sleepless nights.
- Nutrition
Eating good food, something that is healthy for you, and totally shunning inimical items like fries or burgers would lead to a faster metabolism. This would help in the proper channeling of blood throughout your body, and help you fend off any unwanted thoughts.
- Let go of your bad habits
Consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs are apposite for your fight against stress. Reduce them at first, then cut them out completely, there are many changes to be seen!
Stress affects everyone, but it is left to us on how we fight and then fend it off. If you find yourself under extreme duress either professional or personal, then changing your habits would help you fight off this sinister evil.
