Things You Should Know About Stress
Everyone feels stressed from time to time, but what is stress? How does it affect your overall health? And what can you do to manage your stress?
Stress is how the brain and body respond to any demand. Any type of challengesuch as performance at work or school, a significant life change, or a traumatic eventcan be stressful.
Stress can affect your health. It is important to pay attention to how you deal with minor and major stressors, so you know when to seek help.
Here are five things you should know about stress.
The Prevalence Of Stress
Stress is everywhere and, as shown in , it has been on the rise over the last several years. Each of us is acquainted with stresssome are more familiar than others. In many ways, stress feels like a load you just cant carrya feeling you experience when, for example, you have to drive somewhere in a crippling blizzard, when you wake up late the morning of an important job interview, when you run out of money before the next pay period, and before taking an important exam for which you realize you are not fully prepared.
Nearly half of U.S. adults indicated that their stress levels have increased over the last five years .
Stress is an experience that evokes a variety of responses, including those that are physiological , cognitive , and behavioral . Although stress can be positive at times, it can have deleterious health implications, contributing to the onset and progression of a variety of physical illnesses and diseases .
The charts above, adapted from Cohen & Janicki-Deverts , depict the mean stress level scores among different demographic groups during the years 1983, 2006, and 2009. Across categories of sex, age, race, education level, employment status, and income, stress levels generally show a marked increase over this quarter-century time span.
Why Does Stress Affect Me Physically
You might find that your first clues about being stressed are physical signs, such as tiredness, headaches or an upset stomach.
There could be many reasons for this, as when we feel stressed we often find it hard to sleep or eat well, and poor diet and lack of sleep can both affect our physical health. This in turn can make us feel more stressed emotionally.
Also, when we feel anxious, our bodies release hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. . If you’re often stressed then you’re probably producing high levels of these hormones, which can make you feel physically unwell and could affect your health in the longer term.
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How To Effectively Create And Maintain A Healthy Mental Outlook To Keep Stress At A Minimum
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To start our discussion on how to effectively create and maintain a healthy mental outlook to keep stress at a minimum, with the increase of the possibility of contracting major ailments such as chronic and degenerative diseases, people are intensely searching for the therapy that may help them maintain a healthy mental outlook to keep stress at a minimum. When we experience physical symptoms of any ailment, we try as quickly as possible to find the right medicinal resources to soothe ourselves and to restore our health. We approach a variety of health professionals especially if it is a severe illness. Sophisticated equipment becomes available to us in order to find a cure. However, we fail to understand that health does not only encompass the physical dimension but also our mental and social well being. True health mental outlook depends on you.
Nevertheless, I would wish to mention in this article on how to effectively create and maintain a healthy mental outlook to keep stress at a minimum, stress can also be caused by some nagging concerns about your job, health, finances, or family members. Talking about whats on your mind to people you trust, like friends, family, or co-workers makes you feel f good just to get your feelings out into the open. Do not be so proud to admit when you need assistance. You can get moral or emotional support from people who you trust.
Stress And Your Health
Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.
Stress is your body’s reaction to a challenge or demand. In short bursts, stress can be positive, such as when it helps you avoid danger or meet a deadline. But when stress lasts for a long time, it may harm your health.
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Remote Work And Stress
Many of us imagine that remote work is stress-free and a ticket to freedom and independence. However, this is not necessarily true for many people.
Management researchers say that people who are ideal for remote work are those with high emotional autonomy and stability. In other words, people who manage work stress well.
A team of researchers from Baylor University tried to identify what type of people were ideal for working from home. Remote work means working away from the office. Working at home, for example, is the main type of remote work.
Study leader, Prof. Sara Perry, had the following advice for managers who are selecting people for remote work:
I would suggest managers look at employee behaviors, rather than for personality traits, per se. For example, if someone does not handle stress well in the office, they are not likely to handle it well at home either.
If someone gets overwhelmed easily or reacts in big ways to requests or issues in the office, they are likely less well positioned to work remotely and handle that responsibility and stress.
It appears, therefore, that knowing how to manage work stress matters more than where you work. If you have good stress management skills, you will fare well not only in the office but also at home.
Healthy Strategies And Ways On How To Manage Stress Healthy Ways To Control Stress
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There are other healthy and safe ways to manage stress. These strategies to manage stress in a healthy and safe way require you to either change the situation or change your reaction towards the situation.
For instance, the first healthy way on how to manage stress is to avoid the stressor. Generally, there are four choices you could make when you want to control stress in a healthy way. You can choose to avoid a situation that causes you to stress, alter or change the situation to fit your ability, adapt to the situation, or accept the situation and learn to live with it. These are the four main strategies of stress management or ways on how to manage stress.
From the above four strategies or ways on how to manage stress, it should be clear that not all of them can be applicable al the time. Your choice of these four steps is fully dependant on the stressor. In a situation where the stressor is beyond your control such as suffering from a disease such as cancer, you cannot change or avoid the situation all you can do is adapt or accept the situation. The best way to handle situations that are above your ability is by accepting. I have been through a similar situation and I can assure you that accepting a situation gives you a sigh of relief and it feels as if a burden so heavy has fallen off your shoulders.
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How Is Stress Diagnosed
Stress is subjective not measurable with tests. Only the person experiencing it can determine whether it’s 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.
Unhealthy Ways And Strategies On How To Control Stress And Manage Stress
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Most people end up using unhealthy strategies of managing stress. These strategies may temporarily reduce stress but they cause more damage to your body in the long run. These unhealthy strategies include:
- Withdrawing from friends, family and activities
- Using pills or drugs to relax
- Sleeping too much
- Procrastinating
- Taking out your stress on other people, pets or things
To identify some of the unhealthy strategies used to manage stress, you need to consider the fact that any strategy that does not improve your emotional and physical health is an unhealthy strategy of managing stress. Some of these strategies cause your addiction and dependence on the process. Strategies such as smoking and taking alcohol may be harmful to your body and may cause addiction. I do not want to convince anyone to go for the above ways or strategies on how to manage stress or control stress. I prefer only the healthy ways on how to control stress.
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Stress And Strain Basic Concept
Take a body, and apply some external force on it. What will happen? Will the body be same after the application of force or its size or shape will be changed?
Yes! Its size or shape will be different from the original body, basically there will be a deformation. Its length or diameter may be changed.
- If external force is more, then naturally deformation will be more.
- If external force is less, deformation will be less.
It is understood that the deformation depends on the force. But how this deformation happens and why?
Lets try to understand!
Each body is consisting myriads of molecules and there are cohesive forces in between. When we apply external force on the body, the body will try to resist this external force by its own cohesive forces. This force is internal and acts as a resisting force to the external force.
Now, when we talk about resisting for per unit area or deformation with respect to the original dimension, stress and strain come into the subject.
Why Stress Is It Important
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Stress is a way in which our bodies react to pressure or change. Stress affects the way in which our bodies work. In these harsh economic times, stress is at an alarming level and many of us find it difficult to avoid stress. Stress comes from all angles, work, school, family, relationships and many other things.
Stress is important for the growth of the human spirit. It is when we are under certain pressure that we attain some virtues such as bravely and courage to face challenges. Nevertheless, when stress goes to the extreme, it can take a toll on our health and wellbeing. It may seem hard to avoid stress however, there is so much you can do to control stress.
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How To Understand And Identify Stress Understanding And Identifying Stressors
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Understanding and identifying stressors or how to understand and identify stress is very important although it could be challenging for many people. For you to be able to solve a problem, you need to first identify the problem so as to look for the best solution to the problem this is why you need to learn on understanding and identifying stress or how to understand and identify stress. We all experience stress due to many reasons. For you to have a better understanding of stress or know more on understanding and identifying stressors or how to understand and identify stress you need to identify the stressors. Stressors can be classified into twelve categories:
Not All Stress Is Bad
In a dangerous situation, stress signals the body to prepare to face a threat or flee to safety. In these situations, your pulse quickens, you breathe faster, your muscles tense, and your brain uses more oxygen and increases activityall functions aimed at survival and in response to stress. In non-life-threatening situations, stress can motivate people, such as when they need to take a test or interview for a new job.
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How Can I Reduce Stress At Work
One special atmosphere where many people feel it is at work.
Stress at work may be the outcome of being required or demanded to do too much or work really long hours. It can more, however, be the consequence of not being given sufficient work, or not holding a clear enough knowledge of what is demanded. The source problem is often the perception of not being in control.
What Is Work Stress Definition And Examples
Work stress is stress related to a workers job, i.e., stress people have in the workplace. It is often triggered by unexpected responsibilities. Employees have to deal with pressures that do not align with their skills, knowledge, and expectations. Their ability to cope subsequently suffers.
When workers feel that they are not getting enough support, work stress can get worse. Having little or no control over work processes may also intensify the effects of this type of stress.
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Prevention And Resilience Building
Decreasing stressful behaviors is a part of prevention. Some of the common strategies and techniques are: self-monitoring, tailoring, material reinforcement, social reinforcement, social support, self-contracting, contracting with significant other, shaping, reminders, self-help groups, and professional help.
Although many techniques have traditionally been developed to deal with the consequences of stress, considerable research has also been conducted on the prevention of stress, a subject closely related to psychological resilience-building. A number of self-help approaches to stress-prevention and resilience-building have been developed, drawing mainly on the theory and practice of cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Biofeedback may also play a role in stress management. A randomized study by Sutarto et al. assessed the effect of resonant breathing biofeedback among manufacturing operators depression, anxiety and stress significantly decreased.
Theory Of Simple Bending
In the below Fig. 6, a part of the beam is subjected to simple bending. Consider a small length dx of this beam. Now consider two-section AB and CD, which are normal to the axis of the beam N-N.
Because of bending force, the bending moment will induce, as result dx will deform as in above Fig. 6 seen.
This deformed fig clear that all the layer of beam, which were originally same before deformation, do not remain same in length any more.
Let the top layer is named as AC will deform to AC shape. This deformed layer has become shortened in its length.
Take bottom layer as BD deformed to BD. This layer is longer than the original layer BD. So we can say that from fig, some of the layers have been shortened while some elongated between the top and bottom layers. Some layers neither shortened nor elongated, they are neutral in position and known as a neutral layer or neutral surface.
Fig. 5 has section N- N, the line of intersection of neutral layer on the cross-section of beam known as the neutral axis. The layer above N N axis or N N axis becomes shortened and below this axis elongated.
The above layer of N-N axis become decreased due to compressive stress. The increase in the layer below N N axis is due to the application of tensile stress.
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What Makes Us Stressed
Many things that can lead to stress: bereavement, divorce or separation, losing a job or unexpected money problems. Work-related stress can also have a negative impact on your mental health. People affected by work-related stress lose an average of 24 days of work due to ill health.
Even positive life changes, such as moving to a bigger house, gaining a job promotion or going on holiday can be sources of stress. If you feel stressed in these situations you may struggle to understand why or be unwilling to share your feelings with others.
What Is Stress The Definition Of Stress
Everyone talks about stress, no one takes time to say what is stress in its real sense. Now you have a chance to know what is stress. Of course, the term stress is so common in todays world nevertheless very few of us really know what is stress.
Before we look at what is stress, most of us associate stress with headaches, back pains and other symptoms. What we fail to understand is that headaches and back pains or even lack of sleep could be caused by other bodies disorders other than stress. You may fail to have any of these symptoms but still be suffering from stress, so what is stress? Stress is a feeling that occurs when our bodies react to particular events such as environmental demands or pressure. Its the bodys way of rising to a challenge and preparing to meet a tough situation with focus, strength, stamina, and heightened alertness. This is actually what is stress and not what many people assume what stress is.
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Going on with this discussion on what is stress, whenever the human body experiences stress, the body responds activating the nervous system and specific hormones. The adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones are responsible for speeding up of the heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure and metabolism of the body. These reactions are referred to as stress response and adjust back to normal when the stress factor comes to an end. Stress factors are events that provoke stress.
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Is Stress A Mental Health Problem
Being under pressure is a normal part of life. It can help you take action, feel more energised and get results. But if you often become overwhelmed by stress, these feelings could start to be a problem for you.
Stress isn’t a psychiatric diagnosis, but it’s closely linked to your mental health in two important ways:
- Stress can cause mental health problems, and make existing problems worse. For example, if you often struggle to manage feelings of stress, you might develop a mental health problem like anxiety or depression.
- Mental health problems can cause stress. You might find coping with the day-to-day symptoms of your mental health problem, as well as potentially needing to manage medication, heath care appointments or treatments, can become extra sources of stress.
This can start to feel like a vicious circle, and it might be hard to see where stress ends and your mental health problem begins.
” I feel like I’m on the verge of a breakdown.”
