Stress

Stress can be defined as the physical and emotional strain that occurs by our response to pressure from the outside world. Common stress reactions include inability to concentrate, irritability, tension, and other various physical symptoms including headache and a fast heartbeat.

Almost everyone experiences stress at some point or other. If stress cannot be controlled it can harm your health, your relationships and even your enjoyment of life. One can reduce or manage stress by learning how stress affects the mind and body, the symptoms of stress, developing good stress-management techniques and/or seeking professional help.

Let us first look on the mental and physical symptoms caused by stress. Even though the effects of stress are different for different people these are some of the common symptoms seen in most of the people.

Mental symptoms: tension irritability feeling excessively tired anxiety insomnia

Physical symptoms: difficulty breathing a pounding heart dry mouth upset stomach frequent urination tight muscles causing pain and trembling sweating palms

The causes of stress can be different from one person to another. Not everyone experiences stress due to unpleasant situation such as losing a job or having difficulties at school or home. There are many people who experience stress while changing for some better causes also – that is expecting a new baby or buying a new house or vehicle.

Main stress causes: divorce, death of a spouse, marriage, danger, illness, news

How does it affect my health? Unrelenting stress affects your health in various ways:

Increased risk of obesity anxiety disorders depression digestive complaints heart problems migraine strokes eczema weak immune system

Stress management and stress reduction starts with becoming aware of your stressors, and recognize what you can change and learning to moderate your physical and emotional reactions to your stressors.

Here are some tips to reduce stress:

Time management: organizing your time and setting priorities help to reduce anxiety. Make a weekly or daily schedule and try to follow it. This lets you to complete your tasks in a well structured manner.

Stay away from unwanted competition if you can and focus on your good qualities and accomplishments. Try to know and accept your limits.

Always remember yourself to have fun. This helps to refresh yourself and provide you a relaxed mind so that you can concentrate more on your work.

Learn some relaxation techniques like yoga or meditation. Here are some quick relaxation techniques:

Breath in and tighten the muscles of you arms, hold, count to 10, relax and breath out. Enjoy the release of tension. Repeat for other parts of your body.
Breath deep and slowly and try to think of nothing else then your breathing. If your mind wanders, gently take it back to your breathing. Do this for several minutes.

In short, stress can be reduced or managed in several ways. The very important thing is to know the symptoms of stress in its beginning stage itself. If you feel some symptoms of stress try to practice stress reduction techniques at the earliest.