Stress Management and Creating Balance

The World Health Organization calls stress "the health epidemic of the 21st century." Stress resulting in illness is the causative factor underlying more than 70% of all visits to the family doctor, medical doctors suggest. What is stress? We all talk about it but what does 'stress' mean and how does it affect our bodies?

Dr. Hans Selye, who first noted and described the concept of stress, defines stress as "the non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it." Stress is neither good nor bad. The effect of the stress is not determined by the stress itself, rather it is determined by how we handle the stress.

Effects of Stress

1. "Emergency Response" The emergency response mechanism activates with a physiological change when people believe they are in physical or mortal danger. Pupils dilate, blood pressure increases, and the production of stress hormones increase. The body prepares within seconds to respond, which is known as the 'fight or flight' syndrome. The adrenal glands pour out adrenaline and the production of other hormones is increased by the quickly reacting pituitary-adrenal-cortical system of the brain.

This is a healthy, adaptive response to immediate danger but if continually activated, this emergency response may cause a constantly higher-than-normal level of hormone production that can eventually cause physical wear-and-tear on the body. Health problems related to this constant high level of response include hypertension, headaches, ulcers, heart disease, and increased vulnerability to diabetes and colitis.

2. "General Adaptation Syndrome" In studies, Selye came to believe that diseases of adaptation such as hypertension could be produced by abnormal or excessive reaction to stress. The body would increase its supply of hormones in order to be ready for action to stress. Over a prolonged period of time, excessive stress leads to distress and the accompanying physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health problems.

Contributing factors to distress include a) your attitude to life and b) your mood (optimistic or pessimistic). Both help to create the atmosphere that assists your defence system in repairing small wounds, bruises, and infections. This is also the system that tries to destroy strange cells such as those of cancer, including leukaemia.

In mastering stress, you have to figure out what you are doing that contributes to your problem/challenge and change it. The four categories of change include: change your behaviour, change your thinking, change your lifestyle choices, and/or change the situations you are in. Symptoms of overstress include fatigue, aches and pains, anxiety, problems sleeping, depression, and lack of joy in your life

Practical Steps to Stress Management and Creating Balance

1. Make your life regular like 'clock work.' Go to bed and get up at the same time each day.

2. Give yourself a break today.

3. Say 'No' more often when other people want your time. This includes social engagements, the family dinner on Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.

4. Postpone making any changes in your living environment if you have been coping with undue stress. Change of any kind is stressful and limiting it until later is a good strategy if you are under a lot of pressure.

5. Reduce the number of hours you spend at work or school. If you are a work-a-holic or school-a-holic you need to reduce the energy drain on your body. TAKE SOME TIME OFF.

6. Nutritional eating habits and eating small meals helps to keep your blood sugar stabilised. Many people reach for something high in sugar content when feeling stressed which compounds the problem. Eat more vegetables.

7. Rest your mind, as mind activities alleviate stress. These mind activities include reading, working on a craft, listening to music, playing a musical instrument, meditation, self-relaxation, dancing, and biofeedback.

8. Have a worry time if you must worry. When you find yourself worrying over a problem, set aside a time (I suggest to my students 7:30pm on Tuesday night) and then put off worrying until that time. Chances are you will not even remember what you were stressing yourself about.

9. Book time for yourself. In your daily or weekly schedule book time first for yourself and then the other activities you are involved in. Don't let anything, except an emergency, usurp your commitment to yourself.

10. Have a massage or another form of self-care activity.

Gwen Nyhus Stewart, B.S.W., M.G., H.T., is an educator, freelance writer, garden consultant, and author of the book The Healing Garden: A Place Of Peace - Gardening For The Soil, Gardening For The Soul. She owns the website Gwen's Healing Garden where you will find lots of free information about gardening for the soil and gardening for the soul. To find out more about the book and subscribe to her free Newsletter visit http://www.gwenshealinggarden.ca

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Stress Management and Mastery: What We Can Learn from 9 Trapped Miners
Think back a few years to the nine coal miners trapped in a Pennsylvania mine and their rescuers.Do you remember that story?I thought the miners were goners.

Stress Management and Mastery: Frustration or Fascination
"Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. You will learn more being fascinated by life than you will by being frustrated by it.

Stress Management: How to Avoid the Ruts and Holes of Life
Have you ever noticed how we keep falling into the same holes and ruts in life? We know something doesn't work and yet we keep doing the same things over and over again.Have you ever wondered why we do this? And more importantly, how do we stop doing it, how do we stop "digging"? And how do we get out?As I've studied and searched over the years for ways to help people get the changes they want, quickly, gently and effectively, I've stumbled across a poem that seems to capture well the process of change.

Panic Is No Laughing Matter
Burt Reynolds revealed his vulnerable side when he realized he was being steered into marriage. One day while browsing the furniture department with his would-be bride, he suddenly collapsed onto a bed and doubled into the protective fetal form.

Stress Mangement and Mastery: How to Defeat Sunday Night Syndrome
Picture the following scene:It's Sunday evening, the weekend is winding down and you're beginning to think about the work week ahead. What are your feelings?Do you find yourself excited and challenged, looking forward to another week of doing something you love? The most fortunate among us get to feel that way on a regular basis.

Through Stress Comes Kindness
In these times when companies are constantly down-sizing and right-sizing there is always a lot of stress. The stress comes first from the rumors that it may happen, then the actual doomsday when it happens, and then the aftermath of finding out how the company is going to operate.

20 Ways to Shift Worry Into Attractive Energy
Worry, big or small blocks positive vibrations from entering your realm. The longer the behavior, the deeper the roots, the harder to override.

Life Happens
Shit happens. I know this to be a fact, because I read it on a t-shirt.

Improving Self Esteem with Affirmations and Therapeutic Relaxation Music
Positive self-esteem is very important for our general health and wellness as human beings. Having positive self-esteem is also important for promoting any type of healing, whether physical, emotional or spiritual.

Quiet Mind; A Powerful Tool That Gives You More Time, Creativity, And Productivity And Takes Just 10
The National Center for health statistics reported that in 1997, doctors made two million diagnoses of "Acute reaction to stress" when patients were seen for check-ups or complaints of headaches, stomach problems, immune system disturbances and some heart problems. These were usually a direct result of chronic stress and overwhelm, patients were trying to do it all with no time just for themselves, the resulting complaints were making it harder to get things done and causing lasting health problems.

Stop Yourself Reacting To Other People When They Push Your Buttons
We all know what it feels like to have our buttons pushed. Something happens, that seems to take us over, every muscle in our body tightens up and we turn into somebody no one wants to be around.

Seven Steps to Reducing Stress and Reclaiming Your Life at Work
According to the StressPulse survey by ComPsych Corporation completed at the end of 2003 and is still valid today:· Employees in the category of high stress have increased by 15% · More than 29% of employees come to work five or more times a year when they are too stressed or distracted to be effective · 63% have high levels of stress with extreme fatigue or feeling out of control · 32% have constant but manageable stress levels · 43% lose one or more hours per day in productivity due to stressThe Definition of BurnoutAt some point in your career you will experience burnout. No matter how much you enjoy your job there will come a time when you just do not feel like doing it anymore.

Stress And How To Avoid It
Everyone knows that stress isn't good - that it can get on top of us and effect our wellbeing. What most people don't realise is that stress can effect much more than just our mood or mental state.

How To Stop Computers Stressing You Out
Of all the forms of stress in today's world, computer stress is the one that is on the rise the fastest. Computers are wonderful machines, but they can also stress out workers by their sometimes confusing demands, their constant presence and their simple inability to work properly.

Balancing Acts: Keeping Work and Life in Equilibrium
In the fast-paced world that we live in today, it seems as though it's hard to find enough time to do everything that needs to be done. Days at work are long, but too often don't seem to be long enough? we bring home what we can't finish and end up creating highly stressful situations for those around us.

Stress Managment and Mastery: Progress vs. Perfection
David Bowie once sang, "Ch-ch-changes, tryin' to face the strain."And though working on changes in our lives can be difficult at times, it really doesn't have to be such a strain.

5 Stepst to Stress-Guard Your Family
Part 1: Recognize the importance of family stress managementJoe and Emily live in Southern California with their three young children. Both work and must commute 2 hours daily on busy freeways, often not getting home until 7:30 PM, exhausted and depleted.

Are You Taking Notice? What Are Your Warning Signs Stress Is Building Up?
Many people recognise the warning signs that stress may be just around the corner. The trouble is that most of us rarely listen to them.

[Emotional Health] Are You Feeling In Control?
When it is all said and done, do you feel like you stay on an even keel emotionally most of the time? Here is a story about how easy it is to lose one's emotional balance.Recently, I was coming home from an evening business meeting in Tokyo.

Stress & Self Esteem: Raising One by Lowering the Other
In our article about Exercise & Stress, we looked at the way these two factors form a self-reinforcing cycle that can work for us. With stress and self-esteem, however, the relationship is negative - both in the technical sense of the words (i.