The Effects of Stress and the best ways to Control Stress

Are you usually feeling stressed? Managing stress is a thing you do on a regular basis, though when it begins to have a negative effect on your mind and body, this would mean you might be distressed.

What many people don't know is that stress really is a state of being that negatively impacts your body. The effects of stress have a heavier impact on our body system than most of us recognize.

Facts About Stress and Your Body

There are some upsetting information about the toll that stress takes on our bodies. When you take a look at each of these facts it is hard to deny that we all should understand how to deal with stress more effectively. A few of these facts include:

43% of all men and women have health problems linked to stress

75-90% of all doctor visits are stress-related

82% of employees are at least slightly stressed in the workplace

Seven Ways By which Your Body is Effected By Stress

There are two kinds of stress. The helpful stress is referred to as eustress but we usually only hear about harmful stress generally known as chronic stress or distress.

Chronic stress slowly effects your health at first, you may not even become aware of the symptoms at all. And if you are not able to manage stress, the symptoms will get worse yet.

Six ways stress effects your body.

1. Depression. When you are stressed, it is extremely common for people to become depressed. There are only so many chemicals in the brain to help somebody manage stress, and once they are spent, thats it. This can result in the individual becoming very depressed within a short period of time.

2. Anxiety. Individuals who cant manage stress could have uncontrollable levels of anxiety. Anxiety and depression generally go with each other, and this can cause many different changes inside the physiological operating of the whole body.

3. Heart disease. Stress is very closely linked to heart attacks and death associated with cardiovascular disease. If you don't deal with stress, the body breaks down quickly and the heart will often be impaired.

4. Diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing epidemics in the world and both mental and physical stress can cause rapid fluctuations in blood sugar levels. The long-term results associated with this include heart disease, blindness, liver problems, kidney disease, and more.

5. Hair loss. If your hair is receding prematurely don't blame genetics, just carefully examine how you cope with stress in your life and then determine if there are things you can do to deal with it more efficiently.

6. Obesity. We regularly manage stress by ingesting unhealthy, fattening foods. Plus, stress prohibits the control of vital chemicals which are needed to break down fat, resulted in weight problems.

As you can see, stress can influence your health in many different ways. Stress is very serious and should be dealt with as soon as possible.

Now that we have covered the many effects of stress, lets go through a number of techniques we can handle stress.

1. The best way to handle stress is to get enough rest and sleep. Your body needs time to recover from stressful activities. Adults will need to attempt to get 7-9 hours of sleep.

2. In case you feel overwhelmed at whatever you are doing, go on a walk and let your mind relax. I know of many people that never take breaks if they are carrying out work, even if they are very stressed. A lot of people think that the most efficient way of getting work done is to just buckle down for 5 hours straight.

This simply doesn't work because after the first hour your brain will get fatigued and function at a much slower rate. Have a 5 minute break almost every hour so your brain has time to rest, and you will get your work done faster.

3. Learn how to manage your time and provide yourself time to get things finished. Aside from the select few, many of us are procrastinators so time management can be one of the hardest things to undertake. Nonetheless, if we can plan our schedule better, we will have more enjoyable days. Get yourself a calendar and at the begging of the month mark down all the important events coming up so you have time to get it accomplished. Find a daily planner or a smaller notebook and in the morning write down all the thins you have to perform that day. I have also found that crossing out a completed task can give you a feeling of accomplishment.

4. Exercise as often as possible by bicycling, walking, hiking, jogging, or working out at the gym. Your whole body can cope with stress better when it is fit. When I get stressed I choose to lift weights because when someone lifts weights the brain releases endorphins, which act as pain killers and generates a natural feel good sensation, which not only relieves stress but lifts our mood. Also, the feeling of your muscles about to burst because they are swelled up feels great too, or possibly thats just me.

5. Eat healthy, well-balanced food items. You can never go wrong with unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat. Make an effort to avoid highly processed meals because they are generally on the unhealthy side.

I hope these pointers will help you learn to manage your stress. Remember, every one of us could use a break now and again so don't be hesitant to take one and slow your day down. It will help you more than you may think.