We all sometimes talk about stress, and feeling stressed, usually when we feel we have too much to do and too much on our minds, or other people are making unreasonable demands on us, or we are dealing with situations that we do not have control over. Stress is a medical problem, but severe stress that continues for a long time may lead to heart problems, a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, or more severe mental health problems.
What causes stress? Situations which are recognised to be very stressful and associated with change, and lack of control over what is happening. Some of the causes of stress are happy events, but because they bring big changes or make unusual demands on you, they can still be stressful.
Although you experience it in the head, your heart is the first to react to stress. With sudden onset of stress, the muscles get tense all at once, and then release their tension when the trigger passes. Chronic stress causes the muscles in your heart to remain in a constant state of caution. When muscles stay tense for long, they can lead to other reactions in the body and even promote stress-related disorders. Both, tension, headache and migraine headaches are associated with chronic muscle tension in the shoulders, neck and head.
When you are stressed, the heart rate speeds up, muscles tighten, face turns red and there’s a general sense of uneasiness and helplessness. But stress can also seep into your cells to cause rising temperature levels, increase in the production of toxins, exposure to infections and poor cell function that can impact your health.
Also increased temperature due to stress will stress out body cells. Expose them to temperatures just three degrees above what they are used to, and the proteins in the cell begin to unravel and stop functioning.
If they unravel too much, they tangle up with each other and form a clump that can kill the cell. Environmental stress can reach deep into the cells’ interiors and alter the genetic material held within their nuclei.
Apart from the danger stress posses to our health, here are some of the mistakes we tend to make when we are stressed out.
Not getting enough sleep: Sleep is the first casualty of stress. Stress can keep you up at night, and you end up missing out on the vital eight hours of sleep that you need to rejuvenate.
No grey areas: When you are stressed out, you tend to think in extremes, i.e. either all good or all bad. You are less likely to see anything in between, which can seriously hamper your decision-making.
Concentrating only on the negative: We tend to blow things out of proportion and magnify our issues when we are stressed out. This is when you are most likely to focus on the negative than on what can be done to work out the issue.
Rash decisions: When you have a lot to juggle, it affects rational thought. When you have several things on your mind, you are unable to think clearly, so avoid making any important decisions.
People’s tolerance of stress varies. A situation that is intolerable to one person may be stimulating to another. What you feel is determined not just by events and changes in the outside world, but how you perceive and respond to them.
The important point is that you can learn to recognise your own responses to stress and develop skills to deal with it well.
You can reduce the effects of stress by being more conscious of the things that cause it, and learning to handle them better, using relaxation techniques as well as other lifestyle changes.
Daily relaxation is more than sitting in your favourite chair watching TV.
To relieve stress, relaxation should calm the tension in your mind and body. Some good forms of relaxation are meditation and walking.
Like most skills, relaxation takes practice. Many people join a class to learn and practice relaxation skills.. It’s a good skill to practice as you start or end your day. With daily practice, you will soon be able to use this skill whenever you feel stress. Deep breathing is a form of relaxation you can learn and practice at home using the following steps
Sit in a comfortable position with your feet on the floor and your hands in your lap or lie down and lose your eyes. Picture yourself in a peaceful place perhaps you are lying on the beach, walking in the mountains or floating in the clouds. Hold this scene in your mind and inhale and exhale and also focus on breathing slowly and deeply.
Continue to breathe slowly for 10 minutes or more and try to take at least five to 10 minutes every day for deep breathing or another form of relaxation.
Positive self-talk
Self-talk is one way to deal with stress. We all talk to ourselves; sometimes we talk out loud but usually we keep self-talk in our heads. Self-talk can be positive “I can do this” or “Things will work out” or negative (“I’ll never get well” or “I’m so stupid”).
Negative self-talk increases stress. Positive self-talk helps you calm down and control stress. With practice, you can learn to turn negative thoughts into positive ones.
Finding pleasure
When stress makes you feel bad, do something that makes you feel good. Doing things you enjoy is a natural way to fight off stress.
You don’t have to do a lot to find pleasure. Even if you are ill or down, you can find pleasure in simple things such as going for a drive, chatting with a friend or reading a good book.
Try to do at least one thing every day that you enjoy, even if you only do it for 15 minutes.
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