Stress Management

Stress is a natural reaction to the inability to cope with specific demands and events, but ongoing stress can affect a person’s health and well-being.

Is all stress bad?

Stress isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be healthy when it helps you avoid an accident, meet a tight deadline, or be alert amid chaos. This is because your body is equipped with a ‘fight-or-flight’ response, a physiological reaction that prepares you to either confront or flee from a threat. During this response, your heart rate and breathing increase, and your muscles tense up. But stress should be temporary. Once you’ve passed the fight-or-flight moment, your heart rate and breathing should slow down and your muscles should relax.

In a short time, your body should return to its natural state without any lasting negative effects. On the other hand, severe, frequent, or prolonged stress, also known as chronic stress, can be mentally and physically harmful. Chronic stress occurs when the body is constantly in a state of high alert, which can lead to a variety of health problems. Life being what it is, it’s not possible to eliminate stress completely. But we can learn to avoid it when possible and manage it when it’s unavoidable.

What are the causes of stress?

Some typical causes of acute or chronic stress include:

• Living through a natural or man-made disaster
• Living with chronic illness
• Surviving a life-threatening accident or illness
• Being the victim of a crime
• Experiencing familial stressors such as an abusive relationship or an unhappy marriage
• Caregiving for a loved one with a chronic illness like dementia
• Living in poverty or being homeless
• Working in a dangerous profession
• Having little work-life balance, working long hours, or having a job you hate
• Military deployment

There is no end to the things that can cause a person stress because people are as varied as they are.

What are the symptoms of stress?

Although you’re unlikely to have them all, here are some things you may experience if you’re under stress:

• Chronic pain
• Insomnia and other sleep problems
• Lower sex drive
• Digestive problems
• Eating too much or too little
• Difficulty concentrating and making decisions
• Fatigue

You might feel overwhelmed, irritable, or fearful. Some people react to stress by eating, even when not hungry. Stress headaches, or tension headaches, are due to tense muscles in the head, face, and neck. Some of the symptoms of a stress headache are:

• Mild to moderate dull head pain
• A band of pressure around your forehead
• Tenderness of the scalp and forehead

If stress becomes chronic, it can lead to several complications, including:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Lower immunity against diseases
• Muscular aches
• PTSD

Stress at work

Work can be a source of great stress for any number of reasons. This kind of stress can be occasional or chronic. Stress at work can come in the form of:

• Feeling you lack power or control over what happens.
• Feeling stuck in a job you dislike and seeing no alternatives.
• Being made to do things you don’t think you should do.
• Experiencing a conflict with a co-worker.
• Having too much asked of you, or being overworked.
• Experiencing bad traffic to and from work.

Stress seems unavoidable if you’re in a job you hate or are constantly responding to others’ demands without any control. Sometimes, quitting or fighting for a work-life balance is the right thing to do.

How is stress managed?

The goal of stress management isn’t to eliminate it completely. Not only is this impossible, but as we mentioned, stress can be healthy in some situations. To effectively manage your stress, it’s crucial to identify the things that trigger it, or your stressors. This understanding empowers you to figure out which of these stressors can be avoided. For those that can’t be avoided, you can then find ways to cope with them. By consistently managing your stress levels, you can significantly reduce your risk for stress-related diseases.

More importantly, it can enhance your daily life, making you feel better and more in control. Here are some basic ways to start managing stress:

• Maintain a healthy diet.
• Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
• Exercise regularly.
• Minimise your use of caffeine and alcohol.
• Stay socially connected so you can get and give support.
• Make time for relaxation or self-care.
• Learn to say no to requests that are too much to handle.
• Spend time with friends and family.
• Prepare for activities ahead of time (iron your clothes, do your assignments.
• Stop procrastinating.