In today’s times, stress has been an inseparable factor of most of our lives. This is because of the fast paced environment, hard to deal relationships whether it is personal or professional and some other reasons , well you might’ve definitely experienced a tension headache once in a while!
In this blog we’ve carefully penned down for you about, “How To Manage Stress?” Whatever be the reason of your constant lingering thoughts in mind and that throbbing pain because of overthinking , we’re here to help you sort it out – atleast in a way that can be helpful for you if you try! So without further ado, let’s begin!
- What is Stress actually?
- How Can You Manage Your Stress?
- What Do People Usually Do To Manage their Stress?
- What Are The Associated Factors That Leads To Stress? (Habits, lifestyle, medications etc)
- Some Facts About Stress
- Pharmacist’s advise
What Is “Stress” Actually?
Stress is our body’s immune response to deal with any pressurizing , hard or scary situation. For eg: You are walking in a forest with your friends and all of a sudden a ferocious beast appears, your fight and flight system will be activated releasing adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol to your muscles to give you a quick rush and an energy boost, that will help you encounter the situation. This was a normal stressful condition. Yeah right, stress can be normal too? You might be wondering how silly it sounds, but it surely isn’t !
Stress becomes troublesome once it exceeds the normal , and becomes the part of your everyday life. The chronic stress turns your whole life upside down by giving you physical ailments and mental diseases such as anxiety, depression, lower immunity , Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and others you might have not even heard of! So is there something that can be done about it? Yes, of course! In the next heading you’ll be reading about that too.
How Can You Manage Your Stress?
You just read that our body’s stress response is a normal phenomena to deal with difficult threatening situations, but as anything that exceeds the limit becomes harmful for our health – and so is stress! It is therefore necessary that one knows how can they manage their stress and direct it towards more productive outcomes. Stress management has been gaining immense importance as healthcare experts have worked a great deal to jot down effective techniques for fighting off stress. Let’s read some of them below.
Eating Healthy and Balanced Diet
To protect and ensure your wellbeing, you must eat balanced nutritious food that will provide your brain and body with essential vitamins and minerals.
Cut Down Alcohol and Smoking
Even though you might think that these things will alleviate your symptoms of pain and stress, but it’s a misleading and wrong practice. Usage of alcohol, illegal drugs or smoking can only worsen your matters , eventually prolonging the stress instead of reducing it.
Exercises
Working out some simple fitness exercises can help a lot in fighting with stress. Getting some fresh air meanwhile walking or doing a simple yoga or meditation will help you relax your tensed muscles.
Have a Restful Sleep
It is mandatory to wake up fresh and with a light mind and relaxed body, to get a good night’s sleep. Seek help if you’re facing insomnia or sleeping problems from your GP.
Read
Reading good books will indulge your mind into a world of consciousness and bright thoughts. It will help you to forget your stress for some time.
Practice Journaling
It is said that putting down what you feel or letting out your thoughts on a paper helps you declutter your mind and let go off useless stress . Drink a cup of hot coffee and practice journaling.
Try CBT
CBT or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a significant tool to tackle your stressful emotions, negative thoughts and behaviour. It works by opening up other perspectives about your assumptions which aren’t true, allows you to identify your repetitive negative thoughts and reframe it positively and some relaxation techniques such as deep breathing etc. Talk to your therapist about getting support.
Body Scan Meditation
This activity practices mindfulness and allows you to slowly relax all of your body’s tensed muscles. It will help you feel better and let you sleep better.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness can be incorporated into daily life anywhere, anytime. Pay attention to details ,notice textures and smells around you. Live in the moment instead of getting worried for future or troubled by your past. Learn to accept and deal politely with yourself. Focus on slow and deep breathing.
Yoga And Meditation
Yoga and meditation allows your body to eliminate stress by following slow rhythmic breathing, muscle relaxation , simple stretching exercises or walking
What Do People Usually Do To Manage Their Stress?
It’s a common habit seen and practiced by people that they have found an easy shortcut way to deal and fight with their stress. It seems to them that they’re working effectively to let go off their stress but it isn’t so. People usually take out their emotions on others by shouting or behaving negatively, showing anger, throwing stuff, or harming themselves in extreme situations. Some people also prefer smoking cigarettes as many as they can to ‘forget’ their worries, drink alcohol to ‘ erase their pains ‘ and take illegal drugs to ‘ wipe away their tears , bring happiness and peace to their minds’. But what they don’t know is these stuff lead to long-term consequences of building up stress and directing it towards getting more illnesses.
What Are The Associated Factors That Leads To Stress?
Stress can be triggered by many factors in your life. Some which you might be doing intentionally and some that might be unintended but cause you harm.
1. Major life changes or upheavals such as divorce, facing relationship problems, moving house, bereavement, work pressure
2. Relationships can cause a great level of stress and anxiety. If you’re not feeling comfort with your partner, have heated arguments or disagreements, can lead to you having behavioral issues and get stressed, anxious or depressive.
3. Workload stress can majorly contribute to deteriorating mental health.
4. Academic pressure or worries about your career and studies.
5. Past traumatic childhood
6. State of physical illness that lingers chronically
7. Financial crisis or facing debts can put one in worrisome thoughts and even have proved to suicidal cases. This eventually leads to depression and anxiety.
8. Inadequate diet or unhealthy life choices such as sedentary lifestyle can make you prone to getting stress and affects your physical and emotional wellbeing too.
9. Drinking, smoking or taking drugs can also contribute to alleviate your stress symptoms.
Facts About Stress
Stress can cause you skin problems such as outburst of acne.
As stress is known to weaken your immune system, it will cause your more health problems and prone to get sick more often.
Stomach problems such as IBS, constipation and diarrhoea may be related directly to your stress.
Stress can lead you to forget things more often, hard to make decisions, indecisive thoughts and more of brain problems.
A research has shown that each year about 5 million deaths are accounted due to anxiety and depression. Constant worried state or chronic stress can reduce your life expectancy.
Stress worsens your allergic symptoms.
Your sex drive will also be affected by your stress and it is known that chronic stress leads to decrease in testosterone levels and sperm count in males.
Stress will also affect your periods cycle leading to missed periods, getting painful periods or irregular or heavy bleeding.
Pharmacist’s advice
We would recommend you to get necessary required help and support from a psychologist or psychiatrist according to your situation. Talk out about your feelings to a loved one or a close friend. Follow our outlined stress management techniques. Eat a healthy diet, practice meditation and try to let go of your negative thoughts by channelling it to more productive and helpful mindfulness and doing what you love, whatever your hobbies are. It might be practicing yoga, taking some time out for yourself, eating your favourite food, spending time with your dear ones, playing games, reading good books, dancing in your own room , etc.
If you have any questions or need guidance, don’t hesitate to visit or reach out to us for support.
Feel free to share your thoughts about this blog in the comment section below.
if there’s a specific topic you’d like us to cover in our next blog or have any suggestions, you can share your feedback with us. We’ll be happy to provide content that meets your needs.
Leave a Reply