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Dealing With Stress In Your Everyday Life

December 1, 2011
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Dealing With Stress In Your Everyday Life

by Peter Shaw

What is Stress?

Stress is a response produced by your body when you are subjected to various types of demand, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. Contrary to what most people believe, stress is not associated with the negative only since excessive positive emotions can result to stress as well. When something that takes place or is about to take place in the environment is producing stress in a person’s body, it results into the release of certain chemicals into your bloodstream.

On the positive side, these chemicals can be utilized to produce more energy or added strength. This is helpful when the cause of your stress is something physical. But when you are dealing with emotional stress, it can cause a negative effect on your body since there is no outlet for releasing that extra boost of energy and strength. Therefore, stress results to various types of emotional or physical responses because each individual’s body respond differently to the stimulus.

Types and Causes of Stress

Whether you admit it or not, stress is a part of everyday life. Whether you are at school, at the office, or just about anywhere you are forced to deal with people and the environment. Hence, the types of stress is closely associated with its cause. And because your physical body is closely connected to your emotional and mental state, you will notice some connection to their effects when you begin to experience stress. This is also the reason why it is important to combat the cause of stress since it affects several vital aspects of your body in order to function.

Here are some of the most common sources of stress that must be dealt with on an everyday basis.

Internal Stress

There are times when you constantly worry about certain events without having enough control to determine its outcome. Internal stress is also one of those kinds of stress that needs to be addressed quickly. Most of the source of stress is rooted in the person’s mind, which makes it difficult to manage and would entail more work to get rid of. Oftentimes, people suffering from internal stress subconsciously puts themselves in stressful situations or feel stressed out about things that aren’t stressful to begin with.

Survival Stress

This type of stress deals with the danger, mostly physical, that an individual is subjected to. It can be prompted by an attack made by either human or animal that could potentially hurt you in the process. Therefore, your body releases this burst of energy that you need to utilize to respond quickly about the situation at hand whether to confront it or escape from it.

Environmental Stress

This type of stress is your body’s way of responding to changes or activities in your environment that could produce stress, such as extreme levels of noise or pressure from work. As compared to the other types of stress already mentioned above, this one is a lot easier to deal with. The best way to get started combating this stress type is to determine the source. Once you have identified the source of environmental stress, find a way to avoid them.

Stress Due To Work and Fatigue

Another common type of stress and probably the most prevalent. This one though does not happen in an instant, but rather builds up over time. When you are spending too much time working or forced to deal with excessive amount of work, then it can take its toll on your body. To deal with work stress, you need to make sure you have enough rest and relaxation in between so your body can recover from the tremendous amount of work. There are relaxation methods that you can apply in order to find relief from stress.

 

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Stress and Illness

November 11, 2011
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That there is a strong link between stress and illnesses of various kinds is now commonly accepted.  Indeed, some physicians go so far as to say there is some degree of relationship between the two present in most if not all types of illness.  While this may seem to be a gross over-generalization, it is undoubtedly true that body and mind are very intimately connected, and whatever affects the one usually in some way or other affects the other.

Having said that, there are various specific conditions where the relationship to stress can be directly determined, and certain personality traits which make a person more susceptible to stress and consequently to certain illnesses.

The one which springs most readily to mind is hypertension, or high blood pressure.  A person is usually considered to be hypertensive when his blood pressure exceeds 140/90.  There are several known causes of hypertension, including

Main complications of persistent high blood pr...

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excessive salt intake, kidney disease, obesity, and oral contraceptives to name but a few.  Collectively, however, these known causes account for only about 10% of cases; the balance, known as essential hypertension, has no known cause, but proper stress management is usually recommended for such individuals.  Hypertension is associated with cerebral hemorrhages, myocardial infarction (ruptured aorta), and stroke (apoplexy).

Coronary heart disease is usually associated  with high cholesterol levels, hypertension, and cigarette smoking.  Recent research has however indicated that these factors are absent in more than 50% of new cases encountered in clinical practice.  Far more common among these cases are patients who work more than 60 hours per week, or hold down two jobs, or are subject to insecurity or some unusual other form of stress related to their employment.  In other words, stress plays an important role in causing coronary heart disease.

Muscle tension frequently accompanies stress, usually affecting the forehead, jaw or neck, and this often leads to tension headaches and backaches.  Some form of relaxation technique usually brings relief.

The role of stress in cancer is still being debated within the medical community.  There is some empirical evidence from research using mice that indicates stress as being a culprit.  However, a classical study in the 1950′s by Lawrence LeShan demonstrated that cancerous patients differed from healthy controls in certain psychological features.

  • they were usually unable to express hostility
  • frequently lost a relationship prior to the cancer diagnosis
  • unhappy parental relationship(s)
  • low self esteem
All of these features are related to some form of stress.
Many people today suffer from allergies, asthma, or hay fever, particularly the young.  There is a substantial body of evidence which suggests that all three are related to emotional factors, particularly stress.  Modern therapy for allergy sufferers (especially asthmatics) today includes relaxation techniques and breathing control exercises.
Rheumatoid arthritis is another example of a disease where sufferers have been found to have certain personality characteristics: self-sacrificing, perfectionist, masochistic, self-conscious, shy, inhibited, and in the case of female patients, nervous, moody and depressed, with a history of rejection by the mother and strict control by the father.
All are symptoms of stress.
There are many other examples, but in summary, every health protection regime should include stress management techniques, including relaxation and autogenics.