Stress has become a part of life these days. Starting from a young teen to really old adults, everyone is under stress. even you can notice that really young children are suffering from stress.
Why is it so? Is it because of modern life, the era we are living in? Because it was not the case a few decades ago. Back then stress was part of only a few peoples life, but nowadays it is part of everyone’s life.
The thing that we should actually stress about is that people are ignorant about stress. Stress is considered a headache, that now it is thereafter a few hours it will be gone. This is a very wrong practice.
Stress can actually become the cause of various other mental and physical illnesses.
We need to understand one thing that, stress is not a disease, but it can become the cause of various other diseases because your body and your brain respond to various stress triggers in various different ways or rather various different negative ways. A recent medical study showed that ninety per cent of illness is stress-related. This is how dangerous stress is.
WHAT’S IN IT
What is stress?
Stress is your body’s way of preparing for danger or a situation. This happens when your body senses some sort of threat. Basically what happens during stress is that your body starts preparing itself either to fight or face the situation or to escape from the situation and reach a safer position. The situation can either be something that is going to take place in future or it can be an imagined one.
Stress is a part of life, not all stress are bad. Stress can also come when you are for example trying to win a cricket match and you have to score 20 runs and you have just one over left with you. This stress is not harmful, in fact, this can help you achieve your target by making you more active during that time. Sometimes stress can help you achieve something which seems impossible in the first place but this doesn’t mean that stress is good. Beyond a certain point, stress can be very dangerous for your body and mental health.
Reasons for stress
There can be many reasons for stress but broadly they can be classified into 5 heads:
Stress at work: Stress at work is normal as there are many situations where you feel a little stressed like having a presentation or having a meeting with a new client can make you stressful but excessive stress is harmful and it can also affect your productivity and performance. So, manage stress Carefully.
Job lost and unemployment stress: This is the most common type of stress among young adults. Job and employment are very important as it is something that helps you generate some money for a living. Losing a job can be a really stressful situation. It is normal to feel depressed and low during this situation. However the most important thing is to come up from this situation.
Financial Stress: This is an extended version of the second reason for stress. It is a situation where a person might be in a position where his/her expenses are more than his income or the person is under some debt and has a very difficult source of earnings or the person has faced some financial loss which seems difficult to be recovered and many more reasons.
This is very common during these modern times.
Grief and loss: This is a situation through which each one has to go through at least once in their lifetime. This is a situation where you can have a feeling of mixed emotions and it can actually become very difficult for you to accept the fact that you have lost someone or something that you love. It can either be due to death or separation. The only thing that can help you come out of this stress is accepting the fact and moving on.
Caregiver stress: This is basically a situation where a person ignores his or her health and personal life issues because they are deeply into taking care of some other person. It is a situation where a person is not caring about his personal emotional and sociological needs.
Effect of Stress on Health
The human body can easily face stress and recover from it. Stress can be very helpful as it can help you with dedication and motivation. During the stress, the body goes into fighter mode and releases various hormones that can help you become more productive. However when stress is regular where the person is continuously involved in it or the stress is long term stress, it can actually lead to many adverse effects on your health. Stress can cause serious effects like depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, panic attacks, sexual dysfunctions and many more.
Another harmful effect comes into place when people start using external factors to release stress like drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, medications, etc these things can help the person for short term to revive with stress and relax but however in the long term this is not a very good idea as it can create additional health problems.
Stress can be very harmful. So, manage stress is very Important.
Symptoms of the effect of stress
Symptoms of every big problem start with simple issues like headaches, fever, etc.
Similar is the case with stress before stress actually becomes a big problem you start to experience the following issues within you. However it can be considered as the warning belt. If you ignore these symptoms you should be ready to face some serious issues in future.
Warning signs of stress:
- Dizziness, feeling weak
- Aches and pains in different parts of the body
- Grinding teeth, clenched jaw
- Headaches
- Indigestion or acidity
- Increase in or loss of appetite
- Muscle tension in neck, face or shoulders
- Insomnia or other sleeping issues
- Heart Palpitations
- Cold and sweaty palms.
- Tiredness, exhaustion
- Trembling/shaking
- Weight gain or loss
- Upset stomach, diarrhoea
- Sexual difficulties
When stress becomes dangerous?
Before we actually come to managing stress, it is very important for us to understand the limit of stress beyond which it becomes harmful. Now this limit varies from person to person depending on many factors like given below:
Knowledge about the stressful situation: The more you know about the situation that is causing you to stress, the more you can help yourself in finding out the way to get out of the situation, the more you can be prepared for it.
Emotional ability: This means how well you can handle your emotions during a stressful situation. If you are good at it you can easily be calm and with calmness, you can actually think better and get out of the situation.
Attitude: Your attitude plays an important role in determining how well you can deal with a situation.
Confidence: It is the most important factor. If you are confident enough to deal with any situation it will be a very easy task for you to get out of any situation.
Support network: Support network is very important during a stressful situation. It may be possible that your friends or family may actually help you deal with such a situation.
How to Manage Stress?
The most simple and practical solution to manage your stress would be to take a break. Taking a break from your daily life routine may actually help you relax better. And when you relax better you can actually feel good and you think less about the stressful situations.
However every time it is not possible to take a break, below are some tips that can actually help you manage stress and also stay away from it.
- Exercise: Exercise is a very good option as it releases good hormones which can actually help you with stress.
- Reduce intake of alcohol, cigarettes, any other drug: Alcohol and cigarettes are very bad for your overall health for some time they can help you forget about stress but in long term, they will affect you.
- Spend more time with friends and family: No one can help you fight stress better than your own friends and family.
- Set goals and priorities: Goals are important as they can help you divert your focus from stress to something good.
- Talk to your health care provider
Conclusion
Stress is very common these days. It can help you do better with your work but when stress becomes more, it is actually very harmful.You should take stress seriously and not ignore it as it may lead to long term health issues.
Also you can read our blog on 9 life lessons that you can learn from sports