Stress Is Inevitable But Not Bad If You Manage Well — 9 Ways To Combat Stress
We all experience stress from time to time. Stress has become a root cause in many health problems — diabetes, heart problems, autoimmune diseases, asthma, sleeplessness, obesity, digestive issues, depression, and anxiety..the list goes on and on. What is Stress? How does it affect your health?
Stress is how the brain demands the body to react in a dangerous situation. When you are about to hit a car, or when you are about to give a speech in front of a crowd, or when you have to finish the deadline at work, you experience that feeling — your heartbeat goes up, you are slightly sweaty, you feel the blood rushing to the brain.
Not all the stress is bad.
This normal reaction of the body in response to the brain’s signal helps us to handle daily challenges. Stress is essential for human survival. It helps us to be aware of the dangerous situation. In non-dangerous situations, it can motivate people to achieve their goals. For example, when you have to take a test, the stress can motivate you to study well for the test.
When can stress become a threat to health?
While short term stress is necessary for us to survive, the long term stress can contribute to many diseases. Our body has to go through some chemical changes during the process of stress. When you are in a dangerous situation, the hypothalamus situated in the brain gets a signal from your amygdala to signal the adrenal gland to release stress hormones. The adrenal gland produces stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) to the bloodstream to activate the sympathetic nervous system.
Cortisol narrows the arteries while epinephrine increases heart rate, and together, they force the blood to pump harder and help the sympathetic nervous system get enough energy to adopt ‘flight or flight’ mode. As the stress increases, you may experience an increase in pulse, blood sugar, blood pressure, blood fat, and sweating as a result of this process. Then our parasympathetic system allows the body to go on a “rest and digest” mode so that you can sense the calmness when things are safe.
Chronic stress can accumulate the cortisol and other stress hormones in our body that follow chronic inflammation, which can disrupt almost all your body’s processes and make the pathway to many diseases. The elevated levels of epinephrine can damage the blood vessels and arteries, increase blood pressure, which can lead to heart attacks or strokes. The high cortisol level can increase the appetite, leading to weight gain and fat accumulation in our body.
How can you manage stress?
Thankfully, you can manage the stress in many ways, not get to the extreme level by doing the following things:
Engaging In Physical Activities:
Regular exercise can help to reduce stress. Moderate physical activity like a 30 minutes walk, can release endorphins, which helps to improve your mood and promote relaxation.
Practice Breathing Exercises:
Deep breathing exercises can help you calm your emotions and reduce the impact of the stress responses.
Engage In Relaxing Activities:
The activities such as listening to relaxing music, doing yoga, take a walk in nature, getting enough sleep all help to relax mind and body
Mindfulness — A Proven Way To Reduce Stress:
Practicing mindfulness is a proven way to alleviate chronic stress and anxiety. While mindfulness comes from ancient Buddhist practice, there is no religious component to this. Anyone can practice it. What is mindfulness? It’s a practice where we bring full awareness to the present. While doing this, you may experience your thoughts and emotions, but you try to bring your mind back to the present moment. You are doing this without any judgment and without fighting against those thoughts. Mindfulness can be achieved through meditation while doing meditation; you need to concentrate on your breathing, feel the sensations of your body, bring in the thoughts without judgment, and bring yourself to the present. Practicing mindfulness found to help stress, anxiety, sleep problems, eating disorders, and depression. This practice has many long-lasting positive effects. You can start with 10 minutes and gradually increase the time to 20–30 minutes a day.
Organization:
An organized, clutter-free home and work can create a peaceful environment.
Prioritize tasks :
Make a list of things you need to do and prioritize them in order of importance. Do the high- priority work first and try to focus on one thing at a time.
Don’t over commit yourself:
When you over commit yourself, as the deadline gets close by, you feel anxious and stressed. Besides that, you may not be able to finish everything on time and may get disappointed. To avoid that, check your schedule and time and differentiate “should haves” and “Must-haves” and commit to things you must finish.
It may not be easy to “no,” but it is necessary to learn to say it if you have enough tasks on your plate. Instead of saying it rudely, you may have to say it politely and gracefully and need to make them understand how much you have to finish or why you can’t accept that task. Remember, the person who is pushing you to do more things doesn’t have anything to lose, but you do.
Connect with others:
When you have stress, you tend to isolate yourself. Instead of doing that, connect with your friends and family, get emotional support from them. Spend time with them and laugh with them.
Healthy Diet:
Last but not least, Do you know what you put in your mouth influences your mood? When you are on a well-balanced diet, it can make a positive impact on your mood. Try to avoid sugar, processed food, alcohol, caffeine and include healthy foods such as whole grains, foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids, greens, and probiotics such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi.
Stress is inevitable in our life, we have to go through it from time to time. But you need to be smart enough to take appropriate steps to manage stress and take control of your health.
Referenceshttps://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/stress/index.shtml Accessed on 02/06/20https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response Accessed on 02/06/20https://www.lionsroar.com/meditation-mindfulness-july-2012/ — Accessed on 02/08/20https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5565157/ — Accessed on 02/08/20https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573577/ — Accessed on 02/08/20https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2005/11/matters — Accessed on 02/13/20
