Reducing Stress In Your Life Is Important To Your Health

Although our ancestors certainly suffered stress in our modern world it seems to be growing at an alarming rate. That’s because modern life is high pressure. In fact some days you feel like you’re in a pressure cooker. Reducing stress in your life is important to your overall health.

Stress can be caused by a lot of things, not enough money, too much pressure, to many urgent things that need to be done, too little sleep, outside influences, combined with no time to relax.

Few of us get the recommended amount of sleep, many of us don’t get a chance to eat properly and when we do eat at home we often eat the wrong foods. Most of us drink too much coffee, and although not as many as in the past some of us still smoke, and only a few of us get the exercise we should. Add unhealthy lifestyles with too many responsibilities, too many deadlines, the add noise pollution and chemical pollution and we’re like a volcano that’s ready to let loose any minute.

Is this your life in a nut shell? Our own lives can cause enough stress then we seem to be constantly bombarded with terrible news from around the globe whether it be natural disasters, war, or a host of other tragedies. Add the fact that we are helpless to do anything about these tragedies and we’ve got the making for additional anxiety and stress.

So what is stress? Your body has an internal mechanism that’s called flight of fight that’s designed to keep you safe in the event of a threat. It’s designed to help you survive.

Our brain decides when we are facing a threat and produces extra chemicals quickly that are sent immediately to the bloodstream. These chemicals are designed to make us more alert, and physically stronger so that we can either face the danger or flee from it quickly.

In a real situation of danger you’ll find your breath quickens and becomes deeper so that you can take in more oxygen. You’ll feel your heart pounding in your chest. If you were to take your blood pressure at this point it would be much higher than normal and so would the levels of glucose in your body. Remember glucose is fuel. This fight or flight response was very important in ancient times.

The problem is in our modern world most of our stress is not physical but rather psychological and it is not short term but goes on for long periods of time. For example your boss is always on your case, or you have a co-worker that never pulls their weight leaving you with a larger workload or perhaps you’ve lost your job and face making your mortgage payment on no income.

Stress short term can actually be good for you because it will energize you and keep you alert. But if the threat continuously comes and goes such as with a boss that’s always on your case, your brain sees the threat as continuous so it releases a chemical called cortisol which keeps your body in a constant state of high alert.

But our body’s weren’t designed to be under continuous high alert status and internal systems begin to break down affecting both our body and mind.

There are some things you can do to reduce stress. You can meditate or use prayer if it comforts you. You can spend time with the people you love. You can look for a new job or re-evaluate your life style to reduce the level of stress. Exercise is also a good stress reducer. And don’t forget to take time for yourself. Even 15 minutes to yourself can revitalize you and reduce stress. Talking about the stress with a trusted friend or family member can also help. Be sure to eat right and get enough rest. Lack of sleep only adds to the body’s stress levels.

It is important that you recognize when stress is present in your life and take steps to reduce that stress. If you do not your mind, body, and spirit will all suffer!

Aura Mirchandani is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory.