Coping with Stress to Empower Yourself

Self Growth by Knowing and Coping with Stress Have you ever wondered how this word - "Stress" come from? The word stress is actually acquired from physics and engineering where it has a specific meaning. It is a force of adequate magnitude to distort or deform. In related to human, Stress has the same meaning: It involves physical and emotional reaction to pressure from his environment and from within his inner self. Basically, there are 2 main types of Stress. The first one is the stress involved in loss of a loved one, or a job and those where self esteem is at stake. The other is the stress involved in threats to the individual's status, goals, health and security. Stress is always being interpreted as a Negative emotion and it got this bad name because it has become an unavoidable part of life and can cause people to become agitated. There are tons of factors that can cause stress including changes, both good and bad, personal problems, physical difficulties, illnesses and many more. Some common sources of stress are namely death of spouse or cloase friends, divorce, sexual difficulties, retrenchment (out of job), failed examinations, tough working conditions and etc. In one's life, there are a changing set of stresses in each different stages of his life. For example, in the early stage, the child has to cope with demands of parents and schools, not forgetting the problem of boy and girl relationships in the later stage. Following that, they will be stressed by their academic results and after graduated, they will worry over career choices. Then it comes marriage problem and even children issue. Stress can result in illnessr Why stress is harmful to one's health? It can lead to illness like ulcers, migraine, headaches, depression, high blood pressure, stroke and even heart attack. If an individual is constantly faced with stress, it can weaken the body's immune system that can result to less effectiveness in battling infections. In a long term stress, it forces the heart and lungs to work overtime and keep blood pressure above normal level. All these will contribute to strokes and heart attack to one. Anxiety, also caused by stress is the feeling of apprehension, tension or uneasiness one faced when expecting danger. We all faced anxiety to perform difficult tasks well, but too much can be harmful. Anxiety disorders consists of the most common group of mental illness, including phobias and panic attacks. One of the common example related to anxiety disorder that one faced is insomnia, difficulty in sleeping. The best thing we can do to cope with stress or stressful situations in our daily life is obvious and very important: remember the 4 DO's and 2 DON'Ts. 4 Do's are namely 1) eat a balanced diet, 2) get enough sleep, 3) exercise every day and 4) take time to do what you enjoy and happy with. 2 BIG Don'ts are 1) Do not smoke or rely on drugs to overcome stress and 2) To live a relaxed and stressless life by learning relaxation, mediation and behaviour modification techniques. Give your stress wings and let it fly away. ~Terri Guillemets