Stress Management Strategies: Why Do We Have Stress?
Stress impacts all of us at one point or another. The stress
response is a normal function of your body when you feel threatened or
overstimulated in a certain situation. Your body reacts to these situations in
ways that are meant to protect you or to help you to react effectively. If you
see a dog rushing towards you, your stress response will be triggered to give
you the chance for a fight or flight reaction: you’ll be able to very quickly
have a burst of adrenaline and cortisol, a few of the stress hormones which
make you more alert and able to react. You can then quickly make a decision
about how to handle the threatening experience. Your senses become sharper.
Your heart rate increases and blood pressure rises so more blood can reach your
muscles and brain. Your breathing rate increases and your muscles tighten. Your
mental focus and alertness increase as well. All of these responses are geared
to help you survive the threatening situation. You can quickly decide on an
escape route and have the ability to run away faster than you normally would be
able to (flight), or you could ward off the attack if you think it doesn’t seem
too threatening (fight).
Having more stress in these situations is a good thing. It
helps you to deal with the situation at hand in a focused and effective way.
This is true when you have other potential dangers that are
less immediate than the danger of being physically attacked. The stress
response kicks in when you know that you have to perform well at an exam for
your studies, or at an important presentation at work. You have the same
hormonal release so that you can really focus your energies on delivering at
your peak performance in these challenging times.
But sometimes, we face stress in ways that actually make us
less productive. The stress response is very taxing on your body, and it was
designed to only work for immediate threats with rest in-between. If you are
very stressed a lot of the time, your body has no time to recover. Your muscles
might remain tense and you could be drained and sore at the end of the day.
Your heart rate and blood pressure could be elevated all the time, putting a
lot of pressure on your heart and body and leading to strain. If you keep
worrying about work or other stressful parts of your life even when you go
home, you might still feel the pressure from the fight or flight response and
you could withdraw in personal relationships or even pick fights with your
loved ones.
It’s important to remember that the body and mind are always
trying to get out of stressful situations. That’s why we have the stress
response. We don’t want to feel threatened all the time, so our bodies prime
themselves for us to escape those threats. That means that if you carry a lot
of stress and have a bad relationship with your stress, you might try to get
rid of the negative feelings without changing the cause of those feelings. This could mean that you try to numb
yourself with food, alcohol, drugs, television, or other things that distract
you from your stress. Becoming dependent on these things will not give you less
stress. They will only cause you more problems in the long run.
There is also the danger of burnout. This is when you feel
exhausted and depleted because of chronic stress. You start to lose interest in
work and other parts of your life, and you might develop other psychological
problems as a result. In fact, burnout is almost
identical to clinical depression in its symptoms. When you carry too much
stress and have a bad relationship with stress in your life, burnout becomes a
major risk, and you put your mental health in danger.
When it all starts feeling a bit too much in life and you
realize that stress is starting to hold you back rather than serve its natural
function, you might need to consider some serious lifestyle changes. You might
have to shift the way you think about stress, and avoid as many stressful
situations as you can.
There is no need to be constantly stressed out. Many people
who are incredibly successful and extremely busy don’t have excess stress and
don’t take their stress home with them. They’ve learned how to manage their
stress and they don’t take on any more stress than they need to.
Make a commitment to your own physical and psychological
health to change the way you deal with stress in your life. It might be very
difficult to make some of the adjustments suggested in this book, but it could
mean all the difference to leading a fuller and happier life.
Being in control of your life and having realistic expectations
about your day-to-day challenges are the keys to stress management, which is perhaps
the most important ingredient to living a happy, healthy and rewarding life.
Marilu Henner