How Much Do You Know About Stress ?
What is Stress? Stress is the way you react physically, mentally, and emotionally to various conditions, changes, and demands in your life.
Stress is part and parcel of common life events, both large and small. It comes with all of life’s daily hassles as well as with crises and life-changing events. Unless you can regularly release the tension that comes with stress, your risk for physical and mental illness may increase.
What stress does to the body? At the first sign of alarm, chemicals released by the pituitary and adrenal glands and the nerve endings automatically trigger these physical reactions to stress. These include:
• Your heart rate increases to move blood to your muscles and brain.
• Your blood pressure goes up.
• You start to breathe more rapidly.
• Your digestion slows down.
• You start to perspire more heavily.
• Your pupils dilate.
• You feel a rush of strength
Your body is tense, alert, and ready for action and will stay this way until you feel that the danger has passed. Then your brain signals an “all clear” to your body, and your body stops producing the chemicals that caused the physical reaction and gradually returns to normal.
Problems with stress occur when your brain fails to give the “all clear” signal. If the alarm state lasts too long, you begin to suffer from the consequences of chronic stress.
By changing the way you respond to stressful situations and finding ways to regularly relieve the tension caused by stress, you can decrease your risk for stress-related health problem.
