Cocoon Yourself From the Health Effects of Stress

Although it’s tempting to believe that people with more money/less work/more time/less responsibility/more help/less health problems/more children/less children/more space/less bills etc. have less stress in their lives than you do, the challenge of handling stress is something that affects almost everyone. And unfortunately, it’s really beginning to take a toll on our health. Almost 80 percent of all visits to primary health care providers are attributed to stress-related causes.

If stress is unavoidable and is something that everyone has to deal with at one time or another, than why is it that the human body seems to do such a terrible job of coping with it? It’s because the human mechanism for dealing with change hasn’t – well – changed very much, at least not over the last few thousand years.  And so, when faced with danger, your brain and body launches into a set of automated responses that may very well have done an excellent job of saving your prehistoric ancestors from angry bears and pursuing tigers, but don’t seem to be as effective at saving you from your angry boss and pursuing credit card bills.

Fighting Modern-day Stress with Outdated Weaponry

Humans have built-in mechanisms that respond to stress by releasing a flurry of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones prepare the body for “fight or flight” by increasing blood flow, blood pressure, heart rate and respiration while shutting down the digestion system, immune system, thermal balance and other “non-priority” systems in the body in preparation for a fight-to-the-death or wild run for cover.

Our built-in stress mechanism was designed to work well for surviving occasional danger, ramping the body up to channel your energy so that you can give it all you’ve got during an athletic event or competition. However, these days, most sources of stress don’t arise from sudden physical threats – they involve long-term exposure to emotional and psychological threats instead.

The continuous activation of these physical responses in the face of heavy traffic, work deadlines, bills, child care responsibilities and other chronic stressors that we experience several times a day and over a steady length of time, starts to overtax our system and, eventually, to do real damage to our health.

You can’t control the stressful people, environments or circumstances that arise in your life (and trying to do so can bring on even more stress). However, you can control the way you manage those stressful situations. Help alleviate the negative effects of chronic stress with these proven techniques and coping strategies to help you protect your health and sense of happiness, calm and overall life satisfaction.

5 Healthy Ways to Manage Stress Better

1.    Laugh More

Research has shown that the act of laughing can have a powerful effect on your health. Not only does a good, deep laughing session help you feel a whole lot better, but studies have shown that simple laughter is associated with decreased production of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as improved immune function, resistance to disease and pain tolerance.

2.    Blame Something Else

Psychological analyses have categorized people as “pessimists” or “optimists” based on the way they perceive the same circumstances. When things go wrong, pessimists tend to blame themselves and to thus view negative circumstances as coming from an internal source and being more permanent. This makes pessimists more prone to negative health effects from chronic stress. Optimists, on the other hand, are more likely to explain bad events as due to temporary external causes. This leads to more confidence and helps optimists utilize their natural stress response in the way that it was designed to be used —  to channel energy towards active planning, problem solving and productive responses to eliminate the stress triggers. The result is better overall health, shorter recovery times after illness or surgery, and more life happiness.

If you find that your knee-jerk thoughts, emotions and reactions to a stressful situation tends to be more pessimistic, become mindful of these thoughts and feelings. Take a moment of silence to breathe deeply and clear your mind. Write down what is bothering you, and then create a list of several practical and feasible approaches you can take to solve the problem. Focusing your energy on problem solving rather than self-blame helps to calm your stress response while also giving you a more positive outlook and, hopefully, a way to eliminate the stress trigger all together.

3.    Exercise

Exercise has been shown to have several stress busting effects. Intense exercise burns stress-inducing cortisol while also triggering morphine-like hormones in your body that make you feel amazing and help to dampen pain. An exercise session also provides you with a temporary distraction from a stressful situation, allowing you to come back to it later more clear-headed and ready to tackle it from more relaxed and calm perspective. And by improving sleep quality, exercise helps your body recoup and repair from damage caused by chronic stress, strengthening both your body and your mind so that you can deal with the stressful situations that come your way in a more steady and healthful manner.

4.    Express Yourself

People often have difficulty expressing their anger in healthy and manageable ways. Instead of being diffused, anger often ends up getting bottled up inside where it builds and amplifies into a state of chronic stress, anxiety, growing disquiet and progressively more serious health problems.

It’s important to nip a strongly negative emotion in the bud by trying to deeply understand what’s causing it in the first place. When you are angry, take a few deep breaths and write down what you believe to be the source of that anger. Also write down other feelings that accompany the anger, such as lack of power, guilt, confusion, or etc. Read and reread what you wrote down until you can read it calmly, and aim to determine the true root of that anger, beyond just the current situation, so that you can try and resolve your feelings. Discuss these things with a close friend or therapist. Expressing your feelings in calm, rational and thought-out ways help you disassociate from the overwhelming strength of them, which tends to blind people. Exploring your stressful feelings out loud with a friend or professional helps you determine what causes them, and how to eliminate them from your life.

5.    Imagine NOT Being Stressed

Using imagery to relax is a terrific technique to reduce stress and work through day-to-day challenges. It’s simple, low-tech and effective – all you need is your imagination and a few quit moments to yourself.

Begin by closing your eyes and taking deep, measured breaths. Then, in your mind’s eye, conjure up a beautiful place where you feel calm, peaceful, tranquil and restful. This place can be an actual place where you’ve experienced such feelings, or it can be a place that you’ve completely made up yourself – what’s important is that seeing this place in your mind makes you feel good, calm and at peace. Focus on bringing all the elements of the scene to life for yourself – the colors, sounds, smells, sensations, etc. Try and “stay in the scene” for at least 5 minutes without distraction, practicing this for a few minutes each day. This will allow you to get better and better at entering your “happy place” at will, whenever you are starting to feel overwhelmed with stress. Stay in your happy space and take a mental breather from the rest of the world for at least 5 minutes, and then return to it feeling calmer, more clear-headed and ready to approach it with renewed strength and energy, solving your own problems instead of allowing them to overtake you.