stress, a huge stone in the path of your success | how to fix it

What Is Stress?

Stress is a physical response to what is going on around you. Stress can also be created by your thoughts, frustration and anger. It helps you to survive in difficult situations. It puts your brain in fight or flight mode when it seems a dangerous situation by releasing some complex hormones and chemicals (such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine) in your brain. And there is a third type, called freeze mode. In this mode the energy stimulated by threat gets locked into the nervous system and we freeze. (1)

What Is The Difference Between Anxiety And Stress?

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Stress is a sudden response to any situation in order to tackle it. It helps you to avoid danger and meet a deadline. But if stress lasts long for a longer period of time then it can prove to be harmful for your body, this is called anxiety(2). Anxiety is a stress that remains with you if the stressor is gone. (3)

How Stress Protects You From Dangerous Situations?

These hormones or chemical substances prepare your body for action in a dangerous situation. This leads to faster response to any action going on around you by diverting the flow of blood towards muscles of the body and cuts-off the unusual supply of blood towards digestion. (4)

What Temporary Changes Occur During Stress To Your Body?

During stress, releases of complex hormones do many changes in the body such as increases the heart rate, increases the rate of heart breathing, boosts the supply of energy to muscles and improves the quality of attention by hindering the thinking part which might become a barrier in doing actions and also minimize the functions of the brain. (5)

How Many Types Of Stress?

Majorly, stress is only of two types ; one is called acute stress and other is called chronic stress.

Acute Stress : 

That stress which lives for a shorter period of time, called acute stress. This is very common and good for you to handle new situations in your life. You might be facing it in every exciting situation or in every new turn in your life. Reason behind the acute stress might be fighting with someone, when you slam on the brakes, your work pressure and something like these factors. (6)

Chronic Stress :

That stress which lives for a longer period of time, called chronic stress. This might be because of money problems, having problems with your marriage life, or unhappy life and any kind of situation which is going on for about a week or more. You can become so used to it that you don't feel it as a problem in your life. If you are not able to manage your stress then it can create a lot of health problems in your life. (7)

What Are The Negative Effects Of Stress?

Stress releases hormones which makes you more alert and prepares you for dangerous situations. Makes your muscles more tense and increases the pulse rate. This is good for you if your body stay in this state when danger is in front of you but if this state remains for longer period of time then it causes health problems :

• diabetes
• heart diseases
• obesity(8)
• skin problems such as acne, eczema (skin become inflamed, itchy, red, cracked, and rough).
• menstrual problems
• high blood pressure

The reverse is also true, if you have serious health issues then it can cause stress, may be chronic or may be acute. (9)(10)

What Are The Signs Showing That You Are Suffering From Stress?

Sometimes stress helps you to be motivated. We all face minute stress everyday but they are limited to a small time span. Therefore sometimes people fail to recognize stress as a serious problem as he considered it same as the normal stress. But this stress if not cured, then can create serious health problems. I will give you some situations and signs that helps you to recognize that you are suffering from stress or not :

• you school or work life performance is suffering
• you are over using smoking or alcohol
• you are suffering from unknown fears and anxiety
• your routine of eating and sleeping is not fixes or facing difficulty to follow your routine
• you are thinking about hurting yourself and thinking about to attempt suicide
• you are struggling to follow your daily responsibilities
• facing difficulty to concentrate
• you are not willing to talk with your friends or family
• making bad decision
• having anger and irritability
• intrusive thoughts and constant worry

if you have some above mentioned signs then you should consult with the doctor. (11)

How To Overcome Stress?

The only way to overcome stress is to control the amount of stress hormones in your brain. For this there are lots of methods to do this :

Do Exercise 

Exercise helps to reduce the amount of stress hormones in your brain and relaxes your body. Even 5 minutes of exercise can contribute towards your overall health and fitness(12). With this, it helps to concentrate, reduce fatigue, improves alertness, and enhances the level of mood which helps to overcome your stress. (13)

Meditation

We feel stress mostly because of intrusive thoughts often going on in our mind. Meditation keeps your brain in the present moment and stops the unwanted thoughts. Especially, vipassana(14) meditation helps you to experience the state of mindfulness. There are different types of meditation which helps you to stay positive. After doing this type of meditation you will experience the world with different eyes. You will show your love and love every person in your life. It will also take away the feeling of harming others.

Make A Well Managed Routine

A good routine helps you to manage your responsibilities and your professional life. You will feel less pressure from your professional life by completing your work on time. And you can spend time with your family which provides dopamine to your brain, motivates you to work hard and reduces the chances of stress in life.

Always Compliment About Yourself

Whenever you achieve something, never forget to compliment yourself which will help you to elevate your mood and boost your self-esteem. Never try to be hard on yourself. If you lose something then it is ok. Even failure has more value than winning something because a loser knows something special that a winner does not know.

Avoid Smoking And The Consumption Of Alcohol 

Before this you might be believing that alcohol and smoking helps to reduce stress but in the long term, this can be the reason for your stress. The reason behind this is that smoking narrows your blood vessels and creates a hindrance in the flow of blood, the result is that it increases respiration rate and the heart has to do more efforts in pumping blood and increases the blood pressure (B.P.) which ultimately affects the functioning of the brain.

Increases The Consumption Of Water

Water(15-how to get max. benefits) helps to reduce the concentration of blood. The result is, the heart faces less difficulty in pumping the blood and controls the blood pressure which contributes in the dysfunctioning of the brain. 

Spend Time In Good Environment

This good environment includes positive people, nature's beauty, funny shows and all other things that can help you to lift your mood up. Whenever we interact with our basic nature, it gives us pleasure. We are deeply connected with nature, that's why spending time with natural beauty makes us feel good. Funny shows and positive people help our mind to stay away from negative thoughts which is the basic reason for stress.

I hope, you found it to be helpful.

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