5 Facts About Stress You Need To Know

Stress is unavoidable in our fast-paced lives. We have all kinds of technology that is supposed to give us more freedom and convenience but only leaves room for more activities. Balancing life is no small task, and we all feel the pressure of mounting expectations and responsibilites as we age. Although everyone has their own way of coping, in some cases, those just aren’t enough. Many North Americans suffer from stress and anxiety disorders, while others are finding new and creative ways to deal under pressure. However, some questions and concerns remain about stress:

What exactly is stress? And what are some common triggers?

The Facts

Stress is scientifically referred to as general adaptation syndrome, which is both a psychological and physiological response to demanding or tense situations.

Stress has three stages:

• Detection: The body detects something is wrong in your outside environment.
• Adaptation: The body takes measures to fight against whatever isn’t right.
• Inability to Resolve: Your body has run out of solutions.

There is both healthy and unhealthy stress. Some stress adds the needed pressure to push us through an important deadline but there is also negative stress that can have some serious impacts on our health.

Different situations provoke different kinds of stress for different people. Work, family, and relationships are common sources of stress.

Other stressors can be intensely loud music or bright light that our instincts respond to as dangerous to our well-being. Ultimately, identifying how you react and to what can make all the difference on your physical and mental health.

How Stress Affects Your Body

Both body and mind are at risk when distress becomes a common reaction to less than relaxing circumstances. Stress increases adrenaline levels that lead to an intensifying heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. In the long run, that stress on your organs can lead to fatal strokes, ulcers, or high blood pressure.

Other studies have linked stress with stomach pain, headaches, lower back pain, and a variety of other ailments. In Japan, there is a common phenomenon of workers dying from the stress of overworking, resulting in heart attacks and strokes.

Stress and Anxiety Disorders

Stress and anxiety disorders are big warning signs that your body and your tactics for dealing with stress are not that effective and you may need to seek professional help.

An anxiety disorder is a general term for an abnormal form of fear, nervousness or anxiety that prevent a person from doing every day activities such as grocery shopping or work. They include obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, or social anxiety disorder.

One of the most common is generalized anxiety disorder, a clinical condition that affects about 2.8 per cent of adults or 4 million Americans, two-thirds of which are women. Next to depression, it’s the most common psychiatric problem in America.

It begins with run-of-the-mill worries such as financial matters that later escalate into irrational fears concerning bankruptcy, for example. Essentially, the actual problem isn’t too significant but the worry becomes gigantic and uncontrollable.

These conditions are treatable – but you will have to contact a professional psychiatrist or therapist.

Do You Have A Problem?

Since disorders of stress or anxiety affect such a great number of adults, you should know how to identify if you have a serious problem. If you are feeling irritable, tense in your muscles, restless, on edge, or having difficulty either sleeping or concentrating for several days and on many occasions for the past six months – it can be a sign.

If these symptoms are getting in the way of social, academic, or professional responsibilities, that’s another good reason to seek help from a therapist.

Sufferers of general anxiety disorder also say that their worries go round and round in circles and are almost impossible to stop – if your anxiety disappears after considering a situation rationally, you’ve found ways to successfully confront stressful situations and aren’t at risk of a anxiety disorder.

How to Deal with Stress and What to Avoid

We all have our different ways of handling high-pressure situations. For example, a little retail therapy can calm you down and give your self-esteem a kick. Just watch out for racking up huge bills that you can’t pay off. That will only cause you even more stress!

Another common reaction to stress is to eat. That morsel of chocolate seems to make the world okay for the one moment – and that’s fine but when the spoon hits the bottom of the Hagen Daaz pint, we’ve got trouble. At the end of the day, it’s important to indulge but detach your emotions from your stomach to avoid weight gain.

Effectively coping with stressful situations involves closely listening to your body. An important thing to do is to find which part of your body first feels pain when you are really stressesd out. When you start to feel these symptoms, recognize that this is a time to relax, unwind, and take action to fight it before it turns into a full-blown migraine, break down, or anxiety attack.

Knowing where your body hurts will indicate to you – almost like an alarm – that anxiety could hit. Note that signal and take time to reduce it. Also, always remember to make time for things that you enjoy. Activities like watching a movie or playing sports are important. Yoga, Tai Chi and meditation, are all excellent ways of combating anxiety. In the end, dealing with stress doesn’t need to be stressful in itself. Consider if the cause of your stress is even worth worry. Just step back, take a deep breath, and keep life simple.