STRESS: THE HIDDEN KILLER

By Reydon Stanford

                Everyone has stress.  It's a blatant reality that comes with the territory of living in our world.  No matter how strong a person is, continued stress will always end up the victor in a long-term battle. The problem with stress is that without a process for dealing with it and venting it...it can begin to take a serious toll upon our emotions, our relationships, our health and other important aspects of our lives.  Again, everyone has stress, but not everyone deals with it in the same way.  Some people simply do their best to ‘cope' with stress while others search out and find what is causing their stress and eliminate it to the best of their ability.

                Stress comes because the human brain spends most of it's time trying to solve the problems facing us, and will OVERWORK itself to do so. When the brain is not finding a solution to the problems before it, it simply keeps trying, spending valuable energy and immune system, without relief.  When we continually try to "think through" our issues, rather than becoming pro-active in solving them, (at least the ones in our control), our mind just keeps stressing.  Like a guitar string being stretched  tighter and tighter, it will eventually break...and our emotions will eventually snap, leaving us with a multitude of problems.

                Failure to deal with stress in healthy ways can cause emotional problems, physical problems, psychological problems, relationship problems and work-related problems, bringing a person to the brink of ruin.  In worst case scenerios, continued stress can lead to death through numerous illnesses. High blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and other serious illnesses have been directly linked to uncontrolled stress.

                So what exactly causes stress?  In my opinion it is the result of the mind becoming overwhelmed with the high expectations we place upon ourselves and that others place upon us as well.  As we attempt to fulfill the enormous amount of tasks placed before us, (whether real or perceived), we often run into situations where we simply do not know how to achieve or accomplish the task, or simply do not have the strength to do so.  When this happens, our mind works increasingly harder, oftentimes in circles, trying to guide us in the tasks, with little or no success.  Under these prolonged conditions the mind begins to tire and our ability to mentally and emotionally handle the load becomes less and less until we feel the painful results of stress.  It is much like a computer where someone keeps opening programs.  The computer gets slower and slower until it finally freezes.  It simply cannot perform the amount of tasks it is being asked to perform.

SYMPTOMS OF STRESS

Feelings of nagging anxiousness

Feelings of depression ("My life will never chance.")

Chronic Fatigue

Weight Gain/ Unhealthy Weight Loss

Nightmares

Fearful thoughts

Fantasizing about ‘Leaving it all behind.'

Frequent irritability

Frequent feelings of anger and resentment

Easily upset

Feeling agitated by excess noise, smells (strong perfumes, etc.), touch

Tendency to shut down emotionally

Disconnecting from relationships

Desire to sleep but sleep seems restless

Self-Medicating (over-eating, drinking too much, smoking, drug abuse, sex addictions, pornography addiction, etc.) 

REMEDIES:

Decide to enter into a "proactive" role rather than a "reactive" role.

Decide to fight stress rather than trying to simply cope with it.

Make time for serious rest. 

Perform breathing exercises: (Feet flat on the floor (control), hands on lap, shoulders relaxed.  Breath in deeply through the nose and release it slowly through the mouth like blowing it through a straw.)

Make yourself stop fretting!  Remember, becoming proactive has a much better chance of curing the problem.  Fretting (worry) does absolutely nothing to improve the situation.  Worry only serves to deplete your energy further.

Get away mentally and physically.  Frequent "mind rest" can be achieved by watching movies, reading books, etc.  Take a few days away from the stresses of life whenever possible by taking a weekend trip.

Take better care of your physical health through proper diet, physical activity and vitamin suppliments.

Seek counseling from someone who can help you look for proactive ways to deal with the things that are stressing you out.  Having such counsel can be very productive and helpful.

Allow faith to bring you an inner peace.

Learn you limits and stay within them.

Note:  Almost all addictions are the result of people bound by stress trying to self-medicate in order to deal with the stress.  However, in most of these cases we are NOT dealing with the stress but merely masking it.  Although self-medicating may seem to ease the stress temporarily, the stress is still playing havoc upon the body.  As noted earlier...many diseases as well as premature aging are all associated with uncontrolled stress.