Stress
Featured Article
Stress is all around us. It's become normal part of daily life. But over time, its effects can become taxing, both mentally and physically. Stress becomes a problem when you feel overwhelmed by its challenges. And though it may be difficult to define, that doesn't mean it's all in your head. Researchers have found that significant biological changes take place in the body during periods of stress. And extended periods of stress can cause destructive changes in the body, such as depression and a suppressed immune system, which can eventually lead to heart disease, cancer, and stroke. So if you are feeling stressed out, its time to get some relief. Learn about stress: how to identify it, and how to find relief.
The Truth About Stress
Stress is defined by the dictionary as, “mental or physical tension or strain.” Although this is a simple definition, it seems to have enormous ramifications, especially in this day and time. A search through the Internet on the word yields hundreds of stress-related sites which include therapies, books, tapes, self-help techniques, and more, all designed to help alleviate stress.
How to Prevent Suicide
Recent studies have shown the correlation between suicide and serotonin deficiency in the brain. Moreover, the presence of significant stress has far-reaching consequences especially if such stressor, such as legal entanglements, results in profound hopelessness and depression. Frequently, when there is no immediate resolution to the problem, suicide becomes an attractive escape.
How Stress Effects Neurotransmitters
The brain uses feel-good transmitters called endorphins when managing daily stress. When the brain requires larger amounts of endorphins to handle increased stress, the ratio of many of the other transmitters, one to another, becomes upset creating a chemical imbalance. We begin to feel stress more acutely — a sense of urgency and anxiety creates even more stress. As a result, harmful chemicals are released in our bodies that may do damage, causing more stress. This vicious cycle is called the “stress cycle.” Emotional fatigue might result and be experienced and felt as depression.
Stress Management
How well do you handle stress? Some people go for a long walk, while others take solace in talking over a stressful situation with close friends. No matter how hard we try, there will always be stressful events that find their way into our lives. It’s how we manage stress that determines whether it will be a minor nuisance or a major disorder. Here’s what you need to know about stress and some management techniques you can use to tame it.
Stress and Depression are Killing Us!
The financial impact from stress related illnesses is alleged to be in the Billions of Dollars with devastating effects on business and healthcare costs. But there is still a larger issue for chronic fatigue or depression sufferers. The social safety nets aren’t there. In fact, chronic depression is still politically and socially misunderstood and society has very little empathy-appetite for it.
The Stress Test
Stress happens. It’s a perfectly normal part of daily life. But it’s how we react to and manage stress that really dictates how great a toll it takes on our lives. Overwhelming amounts of stress can eventually lead to back pain, headaches, raised blood pressure, indigestion, sweating, palpitations, irritability, and anxiety. It can also contribute to the development of certain diseases such as cold sores, ulcers, and heart disease. Are you feeling stressed out? Take the following test to see if stress is causing you problems and if so, read on to learn how to manage the stress in your life.
How Stressed-Out Are YOU?
Are you feeling stressed out? Too many things to do, too little time? One more thing added to the To-Do list and you feel like you’ll explode? Whoa there, no exploding allowed! You can handle it-just listen in. Listen? To what? To your self-talk. Not yourself talk, but your SELF-TALK. Listen in to the demands you’re making of your time, but more importantly listen in to how you’re saying them and what you’re saying.
Stress and Disease: New Perspectives
For thousands of years, people believed that stress made you sick. Up until the nineteenth century, the idea that the passions and emotions were intimately linked to disease held sway, and people were told by their doctors to go to spas or seaside resorts when they were ill. Gradually these ideas lost favor as more concrete causes and cures were found for illness after illness. But in the last decade, scientists like Dr. Esther Sternberg, director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program at NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), have been rediscovering the links between the brain and the immune system.
Stress and Deprivation
During the same few decades which saw great advances in the understanding of placebos, psychosomatic medicine also underwent significant changes, both in the research and clinical field and in the wider area of popular interest. The most important changes centered on the virtual abandonment of ideas about the role of unconscious emotions, early childhood experiences, and personality peculiarities–all derived from psychoanalysis. These ideas were replaced by a focus on manifest emotions, current life situations, and the socio-environmental circumstances in which disease occurred.
Stress and General Adaptation Syndrome
Stress is everywhere. From taking a test to dealing with the loss of a loved one, stress is impossible to avoid. It can be acute, such as the stress that occurs in the face of immediate danger, or it can be chronic when a person is dealing with a long-term stressful situation. An endocrinologist named Dr. Hans Selye outlined a three stage model of the body’s response to stress. He called his model the General Adaptation Syndrome. Understanding these three stages will give you a better idea as to the symptoms that occur with stress and how to manage them.
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