Stress is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a ‘bad’ thing. With­out this bril­liant abil­i­ty to feel stress, hu­mankind wouldn’t have sur­vived. Our cave­men an­ces­tors, for ex­am­ple, used the on­set of stress to alert them to a po­ten­tial dan­ger, such as a sabre-toothed tiger.

Stress is pri­mar­i­ly a phys­i­cal re­sponse

When stressed, the body thinks it is un­der at­tack and switch­es to ‘fight or flight’ mode, re­leas­ing a com­plex mix of hor­mones and chem­i­cals such as adren­a­line, cor­ti­sol and nor­ep­i­neph­rine to pre­pare the body for phys­i­cal ac­tion. This caus­es a num­ber of re­ac­tions, from blood be­ing di­vert­ed to mus­cles to shut­ting down un­nec­es­sary bod­i­ly func­tions such as di­ges­tion.

Through the re­lease of hor­mones such as adren­a­line, cor­ti­sol and nor­ep­i­neph­rine, the cave­man gained a rush of en­er­gy, which pre­pared him to ei­ther fight the tiger or run away. That heart pound­ing, fast breath­ing sen­sa­tion is the adren­a­line; as well as a boost of en­er­gy, it en­ables us to fo­cus our at­ten­tion so we can quick­ly re­spond to the sit­u­a­tion.

Stress in the mod­ern world

In this hy­per­con­nect­ed world, the ‘fight or flight’ mode can still help us sur­vive dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions, such as re­act­ing swift­ly to a per­son run­ning in front of our car by slam­ming on the brakes or meet­ing de­mand­ing dead­lines or cop­ing with dai­ly health chal­lenges.

The RE­AL chal­lenge is when our body goes in­to a state of stress in in­ap­pro­pri­ate sit­u­a­tions. When blood flow is go­ing on­ly to the most im­por­tant mus­cles need­ed to fight or flee, brain func­tion is min­imised. This can lead to an in­abil­i­ty to ‘think straight’; a state that is a great hin­drance in both our work and home lives. If we are kept in a state of stress for long pe­ri­ods, it can be detri­men­tal to our health. The re­sults of hav­ing el­e­vat­ed cor­ti­sol lev­els can be an in­crease in sug­ar and blood pres­sure lev­els, a de­crease in li­bido, even a com­pro­mised im­mune sys­tem.

Biofeed­back

Biofeed­back helps a per­son learn stress re­duc­tion skills by pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion about mus­cle ten­sion, heart rate, and oth­er vi­tal signs as a per­son at­tempts to re­lax. It is used to gain con­trol over cer­tain bod­i­ly func­tions that cause ten­sion and phys­i­cal pain.

Biofeed­back can be used to help you learn how your body re­sponds in stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, and how to cope bet­ter. If a headache, such as a mi­graine, be­gins slow­ly, many peo­ple can use biofeed­back to stop the at­tack be­fore it be­comes full- blown.

How can we han­dle stress in healthy ways?

Lengthy ex­po­sure to stress may lead to men­tal health dif­fi­cul­ties (for ex­am­ple, anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion) or in­creased phys­i­cal health prob­lems. While no one can avoid all stress, you can work to han­dle it in healthy ways that in­crease your po­ten­tial to re­cov­er, pay­ing at­ten­tion to your over­all health and well­be­ing.

Let’s ex­plore these so­lu­tions in to­day’s edi­tion of Health Plus.

Well­ness hacks for re­duc­ing stress

• ↓Re­duc­ing the trig­gers of stress. De­ter­mine what needs to be done now and what can wait a lit­tle bit.

• ↓Set pri­or­i­ties and bound­aries. Learn to turn down new tasks that may overex­tend or over­whelm you.

• ↓Take time to cul­ti­vate your re­la­tion­ships with loved ones.

• ↓Burn off steam. Keep your heart healthy with reg­u­lar ex­er­cise.

• ↓Try out re­lax­ation tech­niques such as yo­ga, deep breath­ing, or med­i­ta­tion.

• ↓Make sleep a pri­or­i­ty. Aim for sev­en to eight hours per night.

• ↓Stress­ful habits can lead to un­healthy in­dul­gences of overeat­ing, ex­ces­sive drink­ing and/or smok­ing. Be­ing mind­ful of these habits can help curb them.

For more in­for­ma­tion,

https://www.stress.org.uk/

https://my.cleve­land­clin­ic.org/health/ar­ti­cles/8133-stress-10-ways-to-ease-stress