HEALTH TIPS
LIFESTYLE
STRESS
A man stressed sitting with a laptop.
Stress is another form of physical tension and frustration that causes one to be anxious within.
Stress is a normal reaction the body has when changes occur, resulting in physical, emotional and intellectual responses. Stress management training can help you deal with things in a healthier manner
What is stress?
Stress is a normal human reaction that happens to everyone. In fact, the human body is designed to experience stress and react to it. When you experience changes or challenges (stressors), your body produces physical and mental responses.
Stress responses help your body adjust to new situations. Stress can be positive, keeping us alert, motivated and ready to avoid danger. For example, if you have an important test coming up, a stress response might help your body work harder and stay awake longer. But stress becomes a problem when stressors continue without relief or periods of relaxation.
What happens to the body during stress?
The body’s autonomic nervous system controls your heart rate, breathing, vision changes and more. Its built-in stress response, the “fight-or-flight response,” helps the body face stressful situations.
When a person has long-term (chronic) stress, continued activation of the stress response causes wear and tear on the body. Physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms develop.
If you are like many people, you may feel that certain stress relief techniques don’t work for you while others work quite well.
There are reasons that the same stress relievers can work so differently for various people. Often the techniques that don’t seem to work for a particular person are ineffective for one of two reasons: either they are a poor match for the person's personality, or for the situation. For example, breathing exercises can effectively relieve stress, but may not be a powerful enough technique to be the sole coping strategy for someone experiencing caregiver stress, chronic job stress, or another type of chronically-occurring stress.
There are so many different ways to relieve stress that sometimes finding the right technique for your personality and situation may seem overwhelming, or at least like more work than you want to tackle when you're already feeling stressed. Finding stress relievers that work for you, however, can be well worth the effort in that the work you do to try different techniques that work for you can ultimately change your whole experience of stress.
Types of stress
1.Acute Stress
Acute stress is the type of stress that throws you off-balance momentarily. This is the type of stress that comes on quickly and often unexpectedly and doesn’t last too long, but requires a response and shakes you up a bit, like an argument with someone in your life, or an exam for which you don’t feel adequately prepared.
Your body's stress response is triggered with acute stress, but you can reverse it with quick relaxation techniques, and then go back to your day feeling less stressed again. These stress relievers can help you to relax and more quickly recover from acute stress.
2.Chronic Stress
Chronic stress is the type of stress that tends to occur on a regular basis.1 This type of stress may leave you feeling drained, and can lead to burnout if it’s not effectively managed. This is because, when the stress response is chronically triggered and the body is not brought back to a relaxed state before the next wave of stress hits, the body can stay triggered indefinitely.
Chronic stress can lead to a host of health issues, including cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal issues, anxiety, depression, and a variety of other conditions. This is why it is important to effectively manage chronic stress.
Managing this type of stress often requires a combination approach, with some short-term stress relievers (like those for acute stress), and some long-term stress relief habits that relieve overall stress. (Different emotion-focused coping techniques and solution-focused coping techniques are important as well.)
The following long-term habits can help you to better manage general stress that you may feel from the chronic stressors in your life.
3.Emotional Stress
The pain of emotional stress can hit harder than some other types of stress.2 For example, the stress that comes from a conflicted relationship tends to bring a greater physical reaction and a stronger sense of distress than the stress that comes from being busy at work.
Therefore, it is important to be able to manage emotional stress in effective ways. Strategies that help you to process, diffuse, and build resilience toward emotional stress can all work well, and different approaches can work in different situations.
4.Battling Burnout
Burnout is the result of the prolonged chronic stress of situations that leave people feeling a lack of control in their lives. Certain conditions of a job can create a greater risk of burnout, including not only a high level of demands, but also unclear expectations, lack of recognition for achievements, and a high level of risk of negative consequences when mistakes are made.
Once you reach a state of burnout, it is difficult to maintain motivation to work and accomplish what you need to accomplish, and you can feel chronically overwhelmed. In addition to the strategies that work well for chronic stress and emotional stress, the following strategies can help you to come back from a state of burnout—or prevent it entirely.
Physical symptoms of stress include:
✓Aches and pains.
✓Chest pain or a feeling like your heart is racing.
✓Exhaustion or trouble sleeping.
✓Headaches, dizziness or shaking.
✓High blood pressure.
✓Muscle tension or jaw clenching.
✓Stomach or digestive problems.
✓Trouble having sex.
✓Weak immune system.
Stress can lead to emotional and mental symptoms such as:
•Anxiety or irritability.
•Depression.
•Panic attacks.
•Sadness.
Often, people with chronic stress try to manage it with unhealthy behaviors, including:
√Drinking too much or too often.
√Gambling.
√Overeating or developing an eating disorder.
√Participating compulsively in sex, shopping or internet browsing.
√Smoking.
√Using drugs.
How is stress diagnosed?
Stress is subjective — not measurable with tests. Only the person experiencing it can determine whether is it present and how severe it feels. A healthcare provider may use questionnaires to understand your stress and how it affects your life.
If you have chronic stress, your healthcare provider can evaluate symptoms that result from stress. For example, high blood pressure can be diagnosed and treated.
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