Stress(How Do I Manage and Cope With My Stress)

When we do not successfully make adjustments or changes in life events and transitions we often find ourselves experiencing a number of unpleasant side effects or signs and symptoms of stress.

Day-to-day living can be stressful in even the best of times. Every one express es stress from time to time. Our everyday responsibilities like work and family to serious life events such as new diagnosis of sickness, war, or the death of a loved one can trigger stress. Stress is a normal human reaction that happens to everyone. In fact, the human body is designed to experience stress and react to it which can be in a neutral, positive or negative way.

Due to the overabundance of stress in our modern lives,we usually think of stress as a negative experience, but from a biological perspective, stress can be a neutral, negative, or positive experience. Stress can be positive, keeping us alert, motivated and ready to avoid danger. For example, if you have an important examination as a student coming up, a stress response might help your body work harder and stay awake longer, but stress becomes negative or a problem when stressors continue without relief or periods of relaxation.

Stress is an individual response to change in circumstance or to a threatening situation. Stress can be related to an external and internal factors. External factors include the physical environment, including your job, relationships with others, your home, and all the situations, challenges, difficulties, and expectations confronted with on a daily basis. Internal factors determines how the body ability respond to and deal with the external stress-inducing factors. Human being is known with its unique ability of being an adaptive creature on the planet because of the evolution of the its brain. The adaptability is largely due to the changes and stressors that we have faced and mastered. Not everyone responds to stressors in the same way because of differences in perception, what might be stressful for one individual may not be necessarily stressful for another.

Stress can cause many types of physical and emotional symptoms. Sometimes, you may not realize these symptoms are caused by stress.

Physical Symptoms of Stress

• Fatigue

• Pounding heart

• Sweating

• Constipation

• Restlessness

• Difficulty Sleeping

• Muscle Tension

Emotional Symptoms of Stress

• Frustration

• Depression

• Mood Swings

• Fear

• Anxiety

• Quick to Anger

• Worrying

Stress is a normal human reaction that happens to everyone, in fact, the human body and lifestyle is designed to experience stress and react to it. People do find it difficult to manage and cope with stress during and stress is part of human life. This festive period we are likely to encounter two or more stresses.

How do I Manage my Stress

You cannot eliminate all your stress, rather stress management technique s are designed to keep stress levels within an optimal range.

These days it's hard not to get overwhelmed once in a while. Shuffling works, family and other commitments, you can become too stressed out and busy. Stress need to be managed. Here are some ways to manage stress

• Physical Activity and Exercise; Considerable evidence has accumulated indicating that regular physical exercise is associated with numerous physical and psychological heath benefits. Although, Exercise is technically a stressor itself requiring the body to adapt to the demands of the activity, regular physical exercise can help to reduce the body's reactivity to other stressors.

• Relaxation, Mindfulness, and Meditation; These are often thought to be the antidote to stress.When stressed or muscle get tensed relax and Meditate.

• Healthy Eating; Eating a regular, good,well-balance diet will help you feel better in general. Meals should be full of vegetables, fruits, and protein for energy. Eating a good food or favorite meal during stress can also help you to control mood.

• Take a Break or Adequate Sleep;

When faced with stress you need to plan on some real downtime to give your mind time off from stress. There are situations or circumstances that can result into stress but to avoid accumulated stress a break from such situations like listening to music or watching favorite movies and so on or Adequate Sleep can help to manage and cope with such stressors.

• Laughter, Self-Expression, and Social Support; It has long been said that, "laughter is the best medicine". Indeed, we know that laughter produces many positive physiological and psychological changes in the body. Laughter also reduces blood pressure and blood sugar levels, increases blood flow, and improve energy levels. Humor provides a psychological distance from the negative current state and enables us to replace our negative feelings with more positive ones.

• Cognitive Restructuring; Often, we presume that the events that we experience have a direct effect on our emotions. It is the meaning or interpretation given to an event that leads to emotion not the event itself. For example interpreting a poor grade to a meaning that you are not very intelligent,or that you will never succeed in school no matter how hard you try or not brilliant, you will likely experience a depressed mood. In contrast, if you interpret the grade as a fluke or a wake-up call you have needed to enhance or improve your motivation for school, your mood will likely be much less negative.