Stress is a part of everybody’s life, it’s with us throughout our days and months, but can we be sure that we understand what exactly it is and how it works?
Once we possess the knowledge, we can go our way without letting stress hamper us to a grave extent.
Can we afford to disregard stress? Definitely no, doctors say unanimously. First of all, stress is apt to aggravate all other health conditions, including cardiac issues and even Alzheimer’s. Those who succeeded in keeping their stress down can count on a longer life.
To overcome stress, begin with avoiding common mistakes and misunderstandings about it:
Stress can be wished or ignored away
There are people who put the very idea of stress out of their minds. This approach is wrong; it attains nothing but can result in potential danger to the health and worsen a number of issues like cardiac diseases, reproductive and gastrointestinal problems, excessive weight, bad sleep, cognitive disabilities, and changing mood. Attempting to keep stress down is like raising some water in hands – it will trickle down quite soon.
Everybody feels the same when under stress
Not on your life! Every person gets knuckled under differently. As pressure grows, some sort of people get wearied out, while others around are braced up.
Stress can only do you harm
It may seem that the absence of stress is tantamount to health and peace of mind, but actually it’s not so. Stress, if in moderate amount, adds to life’s equilibrium. The thing is to learn to manage stress. Well-managed stress makes us satisfied and efficacious. If it gets out of control, it interferes with life and gets worse.
Stress is all around, always a menace you can’t escape
Yes, you can run against stress wherever you go, but there are ways to get from under pressure. When snowed under a lot of work, pick out simpler tasks, accomplish them, then move on to more complex problems. It would mean that you got the better hand, because people under stress usually fail to prioritize properly.
Stress can be put down by exercising willpower
Other people may deign to advise to brace yourself up or to take it in your stride, but this is silly advice: it is not what you can ignore and just walk on. You need good defensive techniques and special stress-coping habits to really manage the condition.
Stress is imaginary
A widespread myth about stress says that stress is as bad as it affects your way of thinking: it gets you down as long as you allow it to. But in fact it can either aggravate mental issues, or, on the other hand, come as the result of a mental issue – usually depression or acute anxiety lead to stress.
More than that, stress is certain to tell on the overall health. It can generate multiple diseases, some of which don’t seem to have anything to do with stress and might not even be identified as such by medicos. Conditions like sore throat, vertigo, bloating, muscle aches, and even cardiac and nervous dysfunctions can be brought about or exacerbated by stress.
The best ways to combat stress are known to everybody
The widest-known techniques of conquering stress can be found in popular magazines that offer lots of advice, but there is no guarantee they will work for all people and produce the same result. Treatment should really be squared with the particular person’s lifestyle, situations, relationships, and altered to suit the current condition. Also, self-help manuals and articles can do the trick, since the person himself may feel what will work best for him.
Self-care can deal with stress effectively
Nowadays self-care is a popular addition to a lifestyle that can set the mood and the state of mind right by simple expedients of relaxing in a bath or enjoying a well-timed massage.
These pieces of advice come in useful when you need a good time-out, but they don’t work as a long-run treatment against periodic stressouts. To be really good, self-care measures must have to do with personal values. For this, all of us have to know what are our prime inner drivers, what things matter in our lives. So it is not always relaxation that serves our purpose, but volunteering or active sports that can be tiring but bring meaning into our routine motions and increase our feeling of self-worth.
You always see it when a person is laboring under stress
Accumulating stress can reveal itself in many different symptoms. We can easily notice it when somebody withdraws from society, displays mood swings or speaks slower or faster than usual. But when a person gets overwhelmed with anxiety, or downtrodden with depression, we may miss these signs. The American Institute of Stress reminds on its website that stress can express itself in more than 50 symptoms that embrace not only behavior but also emotions and physique. Your family member can be stressed out even when he or she looks apparently fine.
Stress requires tackling only when symptoms get worse
Stress can begin with giving headaches and stomachaches, which can be early signs that stress is setting in – you would do well to take heed and take measures. These comparatively slight troubles can evolve into heart attacks or other major manifestations, and unless you forestall the progress, you may find it is too late to do anything. Before it comes to pass, alter your lifestyle, introduce exercising, reconsider your eating habits and so on rather than suffer and spend money on medication.