Understanding Stress
What’s Causing Your Stress?
The causes of stress range from major life changes such as a birth or death, to daily frustrations such as a difficult commute. Each of the different causes of stress can have a slightly different effect on your mind and body. Of course, the effect of the external stressor is also mediated by your internal characteristics such as attitude, belief system, mood, and level of openness.
What You Really Need To Do About Stress
The first step in reducing stress is identifying the events, conditions, people, and beliefs that are associated with stress. Start by making a list of the most obvious, common stressors. Are you experiencing a major change in your life, a chronic illness, marital discord, or financial issues? Next, consider more subtle stressors such as poor sleep, a difficult daily commute, and phobias that interfere with your job or social life. If you have a hard time making your list, read about causes of stress, then examine your life to determine which ones apply to you.
What Too Much Stress Will Do To your Body
On a biological level, stress signals the release of a cocktail of chemicals and hormones in the brain. This causes your body's heart rate to increase and the blood pressure to rise. In essence, your body is going into "fight or flight" mode because your mind perceives a threat of some sort. Then your lungs and your heart work harder during the times when you are uptight which makes you prone to stroke and heart attack.
Other physical manifestations would include: the feeling of dryness in the mouth which will make it difficult for the person to talk and swallow. It can also cause difficulty in digestion which may cause stomach cramps and nausea.
Your skin is also affected because a hormone called Cortisol is produced in excessive amounts. What this hormone does is it accelerates the skin aging process dramatically. It will make your skin look dull and it may even lead to other skin irritations like rashes, eczema and acne. You may have noticed that when you are anxious out your skin becomes clammy and cold and sometimes it can go the other way around as you may experience hot flashes as well.
Too much tension can also affect your immune system. This means your body is more prone to sickness and disease. And when you do become ill, it takes longer to recover.
Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?
Good Stress vs Bad Stress
Not all stress is bad. In fact we all need a certain amount of stress in order to perform to our best ability. In every kind of stress, you're dealing with a certain level of uncertainty. But with “good stress”, the outcome isn't expected to be "get away or die." It’s more of a feeling of nervousness, anticipation or excitement rather than dread.