While stress in some forms can’t be said to be bad for the system as experts have identified that there are good and bad stress, there is an important need to manage stress levels as studies have found that many health problems are related to stress and stress seems to worsen or increase the risk of conditions like obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, depression, gastrointestinal problems and asthma among others.
Not all stress is necessarily bad for you, studies how people can take advantage of its benefits — sometimes called “eustress” to differentiate it from debilitating “distress.”
But while it may be deadly to the system to have high stress levels and stressors, the good news is that stress management works and while the number of health problems related to stress might be alarming, studies indicate that stress management techniques will not only make you feel better, but they might have concrete health benefits.
And while it is a fact that one might not be able to remove all the stressful things from his life, changing individual response to them helps and there is a need for e very adult to learn some basic stress relief techniques.
There are simple steps to keep stress at bay in addition to behavioural lifestyle changes; a few minutes of deep breathing can calm you and tame the physiologic stress response, start with the muscles in your jaw. On the next breath out, relax your shoulders. Move through the different areas of your body until you’re feeling calm.
Focus on the moment when you are stressed especially if you are burdened by past experiences or anxieties about the future; focus on the immediate.
Reframe the situation: Getting worked up is a natural reaction to unforeseen circumstances but it won’t help, rather than sweating and getting tense, embrace the detour and re-plan your schedule
While these stress management techniques can help in the moment, there may be need to make a few larger changes to your way of life; regular exercise is key to long-term stress management, learning some relaxation techniques, meditation, or yoga will help with stress management.
There’s a secret weapon for dealing with something unexpected. And you might be used to thinking of it as something that would undermine you, not help you shine.
Although it is common to hear about how stress can lead to heart disease, muscle pain and assorted other ailments, there’s more to it than that, at its simplest level, stress is a very basic process that occurs whenever you sense a change in demand.
Problems generally only occur when a stress reaction happens for no reason, starts too early, lingers longer than it’s supposed to, or never let up at all. In these cases, stress can disrupt your sleep, digestion, and other bodily functions, and instead of expanding your blood vessels, it tightens them and over time, that can lead to all kinds of health problems.
While some things are beyond our control and can cause chronic distress, with many other sources of stress, human reaction can make a difference. And that depends on mindset and approach to a situation.
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