Revitalise Your Health

This is one article in a 10 part series on how to look and feel younger naturally. This article reveals the effects of excessive stress on our health and beauty and what we can do to elimate stress from our lives.

Did you know that the stress hormone cortisol SHRINKS the hippocampus (the part of the brain responsible for memory and thinking). Stress ages us in ways we never imagined.

As well as aging the mind, stress contributes to adding pounds of fat around the waist area. Not only is this unsightly, it is also a highly dangerous health risk.

There are many ways to manage stress, here are some of the best.

Firstly, exercise. Exercise seems to be at the top of every list to do with health and that’s because it’s so important. Just thirty minutes of exercise per day helps to clear the mind and eliminate stress, as well as give the body a great workout.

Meditation has been proved to work for many to eliminate stress. Meditation helps to clear the mind of stressful thoughts. Do some searching on the internet to find out more about meditation. Read this article for help.

Relaxation also helps. Try and get hold of a progressive muscular relaxation tape. The tape guides you through each step in relaxing every single muscle in the body. It clears the mind, too. I’ve done it once and it provides a completely surreal feeling. Give it a go.

Mechanical techniques, such as stress balls are a great way to release pent up anger. They can be bought very cheap. Keep them on hand for potentially stressful situations.

The best way however to eliminate stress is to avoid situations which cause you to become stressed. Identify your stressors and avoid them. Failing that, at least learn to manage them effectively.

Stress is a killer. Avoid it, manage it, or pay the consequences.

Stress – the final frontier.  The final health frontier, that is!  Stress is unavoidable. It goes by many different names: tension, apprehension, anxiety, or that “uptight” feeling.  Whatever you call it, it’s a “built in” response that has been with us since the days of the cave men.

Medically, stress is the presence of either emotional or physical tension. Each of us has a different set of triggers for emotional stress.  Meeting a deadline at work may trigger tension in one person; speaking before a group of people may trigger an emotional response in another.

Even though stress is many times an emotional response, it produces very real physical symptoms in your body.  Your body responds to the situation as if it were in danger.  Your heart rate speeds up and you breathe faster.  This gives your body a burst of energy known in medical circles as “the fight-or-flight” syndrome. Other symptoms that your body is responding to stress include increased sweating and a sudden rush of strength.  Lesser symptoms include dilated pupils and a slowed digestive system.

Stress is a normal – and even a very useful – tool.  The increased energy your body generates when it’s under stress can be exactly what you need to meet that deadline or to heighten that reaction time under demanding circumstance.

However, stress can be harmful if your body is exposed to it too often, or for too long of a period.  Prolonged exposure to these situations can not only cause headaches, an upset stomach, and back pain – it can even disturb your sleep.

And that’s just the short-term effects.  Longer lasting effects on your body include a weakened immune system which makes it more difficult to fight off a cold or other health problems.  If you already suffer from a health condition, additional stress can worsen it.

Emotionally speaking, stress can also have detrimental effects.  If you’re under a great deal of tension, you may also find that you’re moodier than usual – with the smallest of problems setting you off – more tense than usual and you may even experience depression.

But the good news is that stress is manageable – and it’s relatively easy to control.  First, you need to identify exactly what it is that’s causing the stress in your life.  Are there work-related or school-related activities that are triggering your anxiety, financial problems at home, or are you distressed about a personal problem or a relationship?

Once you identify the stressors, then you can create a plan of dealing more effectively with them.  If you can’t change the situation, then you’ll have to discover more effective ways to cope with it.  If it’s a lifestyle that is over-scheduled with events, then you’ll want to look at ways of “unscheduling” some events.

Next, you may want to look at some stress management techniques.  The medical establishment now recognizes several methods for dealing with anxiety, including meditation and yoga.  Keep in mind that stress management has no “one-size-fits-all” cure. What works for your neighbor may be ineffective for you.  You may need to try out several solutions until you find one that helps.  Just keep searching for a solution that suits your needs, you’ll find one.

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Tagged with: anxiety • stress • stress management • stress relief