9 steps towards less stress
| Health tips: How to stress less | | | Dear Reader,
For some people, this time of year can be very stressful. You catch yourself clenching your fists or your jaw. Your tense muscles are causing your neck or shoulders to hurt. Your stomach is upset. You have a headache. You have trouble sleeping. You eat when you’re not hungry. You skip exercise. Your temper is short, even with the people you love the most.
These are just some examples of common — but unhealthy — reactions to stress. Do any of these scenarios sound like you? | How stress affects your body Your body is hard-wired to respond to stress in ways that don’t fit the types of stress faced by most people today. This reaction, known as the fight-or-flight response, happens naturally without thinking about it. Your body automatically pumps up your heart rate, increases blood flow to the muscles you need, and shuts off blood flow to less vital body functions.
In most cases, once your stress — what your body thinks is a threat — has passed, everything in your body returns to normal. But some people always feel stressed, which means that this fight-or-flight response is always turned on. If your fight-or-flight response is always turned on, over time too much exposure to cortisol and other stress hormones can increase your risk of: |
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| Anxiety Depression Digestive problems Headaches |
| Heart disease Sleep problems Weight gain Memory and concentration impairment |
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| Steps toward less stress To start, take an honest look at how you naturally react to stress. Do you eat unhealthy foods? Lash out at others in anger? Get headaches or stomachaches? Reactions like these — as well as those at the beginning of this section — will help you see opportunities where you can improve how you respond to stress. From there, use these self-management strategies to improve how you manage stress. Practice self-care. Make healthy food choices and get regular exercise and enough good-quality sleep. Scale back when you can. Take a close look at your daily, weekly and monthly schedule and find meetings, activities, dinners or chores that you can cut back on or delegate to someone else. Try relaxation techniques. Yoga, deep breathing and meditation are all examples. It doesn’t matter which relaxation technique you choose. What matters is refocusing your attention to something calming and increasing awareness of your body. Take time for hobbies. Reading a book or listening to music — things that you don’t get competitive or more stressed out about. When you engage in something enjoyable, it can soothe and calm your mind. Connect with others. Keep in touch with supportive, caring people in your social circle. Nurture your spirituality. Cultivating your spirituality can help you uncover what’s most meaningful in your life, realize that you aren’t responsible for everything in life, feel a sense of connection to something larger than yourself, and even expand your social network. Keep your sense of humor. Laughter really is good medicine — it can help you when you’re facing stress, but it also offers long-term benefits. Volunteer in your community. When you help others by devoting time to a cause you care about, you may find that you’re helping yourself, too. Get professional help when needed. If your stress management efforts aren’t helpful enough, see your doctor. Although stress usually doesn’t get better on its own, you can actively take steps to manage stress in a way that allows you to live your life without stress controlling it. |
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A holistic approach
| | Today, certain health conditions are not always best served by conventional medicine. Learn the ins and outs of integrative medicine. | | Get this resource |
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