Entries Tagged 'What Is Stress' ↓

We might not know it but stress can actually do more damage to your body than most people think. Most people take advantage of their body’s limit and push it to extreme just to get the job done, while thinking that their body will adapt to the stress they impose upon it.

But truth to tell, our body have a certain capacity in which it can function; exceed those capacities and you will end up in one of the rooms of the hospital waiting for your body to recover. Stress can affect you in many ways – physical, mental and emotional functions are disrupted gaining you the inability to function properly whether social, personal or career work.

Stress effects on your body

There is a certain degree in which stress can affect your body. A stressed person will complain of headaches and body pains here and there. If left unchecked, this will lead to migraine and muscle tension that will eventually lead to stiffness.

Major changes will affect the biochemical functions of your body. This involves diarrhea, constipation, nausea and dizziness. You will find it hard to sleep at nights even if you feel week and needs rest. People usually resort to medications to counter this effect, but will only give temporary remedy.

To those who suffer from a weak heart, most often they will complain of chest pains and rapid heartbeat – the usual signs and symptoms that will eventually lead to stroke or cardiac arrest.  Note however that different physical manifestations of stress can be seen for different people, it all depends on your body’s capacity.

Behavioral problems related to stress

Aside from physical manifestations of stress in your body, you might also notice some behavioral changes while under the throes of stress. Changes in sleeping patterns, lack of sleep or inability to sleep during normal slumber hours is usually the initial reactions to stress – these are usually caused by heightened emotional and mental functions which is more into the negative aspect rather than positive.

Self-pity and isolation is caused by the depressed mental state of the person when certain problems crop up in their every day life. Irritability and anger will start when the person is bereft of his or her natural ability to rationalize which is usually the case when stressed or being burdened by heavy problems.

How to cope

There are different techniques that a person can employ to avoid these manifestations of stress in their life. The first technique, and the most important one, is learning how to relax when stress pays you a visit. You an employ techniques like meditation, breathing exercises, aromatherapy, or music therapy to induce a state of relaxation to your mind. Once you have achieved this step, you can proceed on how to deal with stress that affects your body.

Since most of your physiological functions are imbalanced due to stress, you can start by pampering your body through various massages offered by health spas within your neighborhood. Loosen those tight muscles to relieve assorted aches and pains and increasing your flexibility.

Physical exercise can also help develop cardiovascular functions and strengthening your heart to avoid stroke or rapid heart rate. Also, you need to keep a close lookout on your diet, make sure you avoid taking in junk foods and fast foods that will elevate harmful chemicals in your body.

Try to stick with fruits and vegetables and take in herbal supplements to help rejuvenate your body.

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If you really think about it, we all suffer from the same stressors and pressures on a day to day basis, yet some people do not seem to be affected by it while others become irritable, snap at their children and lie awake at night worrying over things.

Why is that? Why is it that some people can just seem to cruise through life without seeming to feel the heat (damn them!) while others can hardly cope?

The secret is that stress is not due to things that happen to us ? we all have to cope with demanding jobs, demanding and unreasonable bosses, lack of time, too little money! It is how we each, individually react to these things, these stressors, that make the difference. Some people are just more prone to stress than others. Whether these reactions are naturally born in or whether we learn them when we grow up is a good question, but the fact remains that different personality types react differently to stressors.

It is a well known fact that there are Type A and Type B personalities, where Type A personalities are driven, tend to become workaholics, and end up having heart attacks and nervous breakdowns, whereas Type B personalities are much more calm and collected and seem to take things in their stride without too much fuss and bother. What is not so well known however, is that the majority of people are Type A personalities, which mean that most of us tend to be too stressed for our own good!

What makes this personality type so much more susceptible to stress is exactly the fact that they are driven to perform. This often make them place undue pressure on themselves by taking on more and more responsibilities, or under-estimating the amount of time or effort a task will take, or over-estimating their own abilities. This inevitably lead to too little time, inability to complete tasks through juggling too many tasks at the same time, leading to irritability, inability to make decisions, suffering from anxiety, insomnia and feeling constantly tired.

But other personality traits can also lead to stress reactions. If you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality profile (take the online test on www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp) you will know that people tend to have four major aspects to their personalities. These four axes have two dimensions each on the opposite end of the scale, and the four aspects, combined with two sides to the scale give 16 different personality types. http://www.e-mbti.com/

The four aspects are:
Where you draw your energy from and where you spend your energy. If you are on the Introversion side (I) of the scale, you draw your energy from within and you tend to focus on your inner thoughts and ideas. If you tend to the Extroversion side (E), you focus on other people and things.

How you perceive things or take in information to base decisions on: This is either Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). This indicate how a person prefers to receive data from the environment around him ? either through his senses, or through Intuition (”gut feel”)

How you make decisions : The two scales are based on Feeling (F) ? using your emotions when you make decisions, or Thinking (T), using rational thought, or logic, to make decisions

How you relate to the world around you and order your life: The two scales here are Judging (P) and Perceiving (P). If you tend towards the Judging side, you will typically like your world to be ordered and controlled. If you tend towards the Perceiving side, you would be more adaptable and flexible.

Please note that these are sliding scales. Each person has aspects of both sides of each scale present, in other words, you would never get someone who is fully Introverted or fully Extroverted ? somebody like this would definitely be classified as psychotic or insane. But most people have a definite preference for the one mode above the other.

It is clear to see now how some personality types might be more inclined to react stressed to certain situations where the opposite type might not find the same situation stressful at all.

Take the example of an Introvert who has to go a party where he does not know anyone AND make a speech in front of a completely foreign group of people. The Introverted person will probably suffer from severe stress and anxiety when confronted with this situation whereas the Extroverted type person would relish in the attention and the opportunity to meet new people.

Another source of possible stress can occur where people whose lifestyle tend to be more Judging, has to confront a change in plans or a change in lifestyle. These types of people like to have order in their lives, they like to plan ahead and they rather tend to be ‘control freaks’. For these people, a sudden change in plan such as holiday plans that have to be suddenly aborted, a flight that has been delayed, or a change in circumstances such as moving house is incredibly stressful.

How does this affect you? It is really a case of “know thyself”.

Most Type A personality types would not admit that they ARE personality type A, or that they are workaholics. If you know that you are more inclined to be a personality type A you can be aware of the fact that you are also inclined to take on too much work and tend to over commit yourself.

If you are aware of your Myers-Brig personality profile you will realize WHY you feel so stressed if you have to deal with a lot of people, or if you are a ‘J’, why you feel so anxious and irritable if plans suddenly have to change and you can consciously try and either avoid these types of situations or consciously try and deal with them through applying some stress management techniques.

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Imagine that you live in a cave - no running water, no electricity. It is just you, your family group, the fire that you constantly have to keep burning and the sabre-tooth tigers outside, prowling and waiting to pounce if you go out alone.

Every day you have to scrounge for food, go and hunt down that bison, kill it, skin it, cut up the meat, haul it back to the cave. And if you don’t do the same thing tomorrow, you and your family might very well starve to death soon.

Sounds stressful?
Strangely enough, it was probably much less stressful than our modern lives. The problem was that the human body was engineered to bring up a fight or flight response to situations such as those experienced by the cave dweller. The central nervous system would cook up a cocktail of hormones and release these into the blood stream in the matter of seconds. These hormones would basically consist of a combination of adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol. These hormones enable your body to go into an enhanced state of arousal to enable it to deal with the sabre-tooth tiger as well as hunting the bison.

Now, this is very important. After the hunter has killed the bison, or evaded the tiger, the brain realizes that the source of the threat has been removed and it switches back to a state of relaxation. The hormones that have been released into the blood stream are ‘used up’ through the activity of fight or flight that caused them to be released in the first place.

The stress reaction is not as direct and immediate as the fight-or-flight reaction, but the central nervous system releases the same hormones into the blood stream and to the organs, but the effect is slower and longer term. The problem with our modern life is that we seem to be more and more in a state of stress-induced arousal and less and less in a state where we return to relaxation, since we do not have an outlet to get rid of those hormones in our blood. We cannot thump the girl behind the airline counter who told us that the flight has been delayed, we cannot tell the irritating and demanding customer to go stuff himself since our livelihoods and our jobs depend on us being polite. So in effect, those hormones have nowhere to go and slosh around in our bloodstream forever, so to speak, building up and building up and eventually causing stress-related illnesses and conditions.

In effect, we have unlearned how to relax!

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Not all stress is bad for you. The fact of the matter is that life would be extremely boring if there was no stress. Stress is the frisson that adds excitement to life ? think of the thrills that some people actively search out such as jumping off high bridges or climbing mountains.

Stress, in the right quantities can propel us forward and make us complete tasks and reach goals. The secret is to maintain a balance ? as is the case with all things in life!

The problem is that certain types of personalities just does not seem to know where to stop ? instead of maintaining just enough stress levels to make life interesting and be motivated to reach goals and perform at your peak, they just don’t seem to know where to stop! They would take on more and more tasks and responsibilities and in the end be so overworked and burnt-out that they start suffering from health problems and other mental disorders.

Are you too stressed for your own good? Take our stress test here to see where your level of stress is at!
http://www.managing-stress.org/stress-tests/how-stressed-are-you/

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Our ancient forefathers had to deal with poor sanitation, violent attacks upon their person, diseases for which there were no cures, in fact, everything that makes the modern man or woman shudder right down to the points of their little Gucci shoes.

The fact of the matter is that modern man and modern woman have to deal with stresses that were not really known to ancient or even not-so-ancient man. The stress that we have to deal with today are much more related to psychological factors than physical factors.

Stress in the modern world is primarily related to our self esteem and our sense of self-worth, and less with physical discomfort and threats. Up to about 60 to 80 years ago, work was seen as a necessary evil to provide for the basic necessities of life. People did not stress about their work and their careers (or at least, if they did, we don't really know about it!).

But in the past couple of years, work has increasingly started to be seen as a way to personal fulfillment. Job satisfaction gives a sense of purpose and meaning to live.

But this also means then that a large proportion of stress arises from work related stressors. We have to deal with a constant bombardment of information, forcing decisions upon us on a daily basis that tap our energies and cause us stress (which type of coffee to choose from a bewildering array of choices while the queue mounts up behind you, grumbling all the while), whether we really think so or not. Work relationships can add to workplace stress, as well as the one culprit that probably contributes the most to stress ? work overload.

New technology is forcing us to have to learn more and more, and to react faster to new developments almost on a daily basis.

More women now work than ever before, yet, the amount of responsibilities that they have in the home have not reduced correspondingly. This adds to a lack of time to relax and get rid of those bad stress hormones!

The problem is that people who are under stress does not perform well in the workplace. They make bad decisions and their health ultimately deteriorates. Workplace stress is therefore one of the biggest problems today faced by both the individual as well as the employer and it is endemic of the modern lifestyle and the information age that we live in.

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Causes of stress are primarily related to CHANGE – change in our working environment, change brought about by death or separation, change in our health, change in our daily living routines – and if one think of the rate of change that we have to deal with in our modern world in comparison with the rate of change up to about 100 years ago, we can realize why stress is so much more prevalent and recognized as a modern disease.

Please note that even positive change can be seen as being stressful – in other words, changes such as getting married, entering a new job, learning a new skill – all positive changes, you will agree, even these changes are stressful. Normally you have a mental map of how the world works, and you have learned certain life-skills to learn how to cope with the world ‘as-it-is’. When a change occurs, you have to learn new life-skills and even worse, break down your current mental map and rebuild a new one to help you cope with the change in your world.

Now, if we look at the rate of change that we have to cope with in modern life versus the rate of change that our forebears had to deal with, we can come to understand the amount of stress that we are really under.

Let’s look at the following four factors of the modern world contributing to stress
1. The rate of change that we have to deal with
2. Technological stress
3. Information overload
4. Interruption overload

1. The rate of change.
There are quite a few references to the fact that the rate at which change is happening in the world has increased dramatically.

Alvin Toffler, in his book Future Shock, said that future shock is a personal perception of “too much change in too short a period of time”. He went on to write another book about “The Third Wave” – where the ‘waves’ can be seen as periods of human activity – how the world works. As you can see, the time span in which the Information Age is measured is in decades where previous waves were measured in hundreds and thousands of years – this is an indication of the rate of change that we have to deal with.

 
2. Technostress.
A type of stress associated with this increasing rate of change is known as Technostress.

Wikipedia identifies technostress as the inability and associated stress that goes along with adapting to change in the technological world. It is the type of stress (loss of self-esteem!) that you experience when you cannot program your DVD player and your grandson has to do it for you. That is the old-fashioned example. A more modern, updated version would be the loss of self-esteem that you experience when you have to use your cell-phone and you cannot understand all the options.

3. Information overload
Hand in hand with the increasing rate of change is the increasing amounts of information that we have to process.

One just has to look at the following quote:

“Did you know that more new information has been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous 5,000? A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than average people in seventeenth century England were likely to come across in their lifetime. The amount of information available in the world has doubled in the last five years, and it keeps doubling.”

(Source: “Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know,” by John C. Maxwell. Nelson Books, 2002. ISBN: 0785264191)

All of this information that must be processed ads to our levels of stress, since it increases the decisions that we have to make, as well as informing us about the increasing amount of change in the world that we have to deal with.

4. This can lead to Interruption overload
In an article written in the Financial Times in August 2006, spoke about the concept of Interruption Overload. Due to the invasive use of technology such as email, cell-phones, blackberries, Instant Messaging and other instant communication devices, it is easier and easier to communicate – but these communications are often intrusive and impinge on an individual’s time and concentration. People are constantly being interrupted in the tasks that they are doing. It is estimated that it takes about 15 minutes to re-immerse yourself in the task that you were busy with before the interruption. All these mini-changes that you have to deal with, the extra pieces of information, the additional decisions, can add to stress if you feel that you cannot cope with it any more.

The bottom line is that our forebears had to deal with surviving the saber tooth tiger, we have to deal with surviving the computer mouse.

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Stress is often called a modern disease since it seems as if it is a disease or malady particularly applicable to today’s lifestyle.

One needs to question whether people in older times also were not subjected to stress. After all, a few years ago people did not have access to the level of modern medicine that we have today and illnesses such as Tuberculosis and further back, other illnesses such as plagues, caused great hardship, death and surely stress? Similarly, people had much less access to physical comforts (indoor plumbing comes to mind…) and the world also went through various major wars. Surely that should have contributed to stress for people living in those times?

The biggest difference between those times and today though is that up to the beginning of the last century people tended to live quite physically active lives – the majority of people tended to work at physical labor, and the lifestyle in general was more physical (no TV!). This tended to alleviate the physical symptoms of stress.

What I mean by that is that stress has a large physical component to it. The human body has been engineered to react physically to danger – the so-called ‘fight or flight’ reaction. This reaction is brought about by the central nervous system and is not something that we have any conscious control over – much like breathing! The reaction prepares us physically to react to dangerous situations by making sure that we have more adrenalin in our bloodstream so that we can run or fight, our heart would beat faster, our muscles would fill with blood, we would start to breath faster.

Stress reactions are also controlled by the central nervous system, and although not as extreme as the fight-or-flight reaction, it has a more insidious effect since our modern life-style does not permit a physical reaction to the stressor – you can hardly punch your boss in the face if he irritates you!

This means that while there are a lot of stressors that could cause physical stress reactions – much the same type of physical reactions as the one brought about by the fight-or-flight reaction just to a lesser degree, the problem is that our bodies have much less of a physical outlet to get rid of these effects. We have much more sedentary life-styles than in previous years. The physical effects of these stressors (factors which cause us stress) therefore build up in our bodies and eventually manifest themselves over the long term in the form of physical and mental ailments – heart disease, digestive problems, tension headaches, insomnia, loss of weight, susceptibility to colds and flu and a general weak immune system.

But without stress, on the other hand, life would be extremely boring! We need a certain amount of stress in our lives in order to function properly. Stress is what makes us perform at our best, stress adds spice to life! It is how we each individually react to stressors that make the difference. Stress can therefore be defined as the state that we are in when the demands that are made upon us exceed our ability to cope – and this differs from person to person.

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