Stress. Enemy of my healthy state!

Aloha!

I have been thinking about writing an article on stress as it is the root-cause of many illnesses such as heart diseases, depression, sleeping disorders, and more. I can tell you for sure that watching my stress level has been as important as watching my sodium intake while I was healing from Meniere’s symptoms. So now is the time I guess. Here I begin!

We all seem to be aware of it, but what is stress? I found this in Wikipedia:

“Stress is a biological term which refers to the consequences of the failure of a human or animal body to respond appropriately to emotional and physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined”

So you do not need to have actual problems to be stressed, even the imaginary ones would suffice to stress you out. Nice start! Maybe it is all about someone’s personality. You know the ones that stress about everything and the ones that do not care about anything in the world. Maybe stress factors we get ourselves exposed to are just factors, most stress comes from within!

But hold on! How about the external factors: not only life and death situations but also busy schedule, an argument with a friend, a traffic jam, lose of a loved one, recession in the economy, a mountain of bills or even a politician’s non-sense speech may all contribute to your stress level.

The bad thing is sometimes we do not even know if we are stressed. So what are some common symptoms?
Moodiness, short temper, isolation, depression, eating more or less, sleeping too much or too little, memory problems, inability to concentrate, and more…
I usually loose my appetite when I am under a lot of stress. Everybody’s response is different of course.
There are several things I do to keep stress under control so that this sneaky beast does not get me sick:

I control my thoughts as much as possible. When I realize that some thought has bothered me, I ask myself if there is anything within my power to resolve the problem. If there is, I immediately make a plan to start implementing it. Well I do my best on this. If the problem seems bigger than I can tackle or is due to someone else, I tell myself to “let it go” or “let it go for now”.

Majority of the stress causes is in relationships. Louise Hay mentions in one of her books that the most effective way of dealing with problematic people is to take them out of your life. Hoping that they will get better or circumstances will change is usually futile. I have seen this in my own life several times. Easy to say, hard to do sometimes, but it is what it is.

Also having people that love you and people that you love is a great stress reducer! So contact those people you haven’t for a long time. Ignore all the excuses and past resentments (if you can) and establish, re-establish, strengthen your relationships. After all we are all social animals.

Another cause of stress is financial and most financial problems stem from lack of planning and living with day-to-day mentality. In other words people save and invest insufficient amounts for their future and spend what they earn to satisfy their needs right away. Availability of loans and credits makes the situation more difficult for many. So if you are stressed due to financial problems, it is cliché but true that just identify your detrimental habits and change these habits one by one. I will not delve into this right now, but there are many books on financial planning. If you are not willing to educate yourself via books, seminars, schedule a free appointment with a financial planner from companies like Primerica, Edward Jones, etc. You will hear some sale pitch but you might also get educated if you meet a decent financial planner.

How about your relaxation? Do you have a method of relaxation? Here are some tips on that: walking in an area that pleases you (in forest, at the beach, at a pretty shopping area, etc.), getting a massage (what are girl/boy friends for?!), playing team games (like football, soccer which should be called football in the States, baseball, etc.), punching bags/pillows, singing/whistling loud (I get a lot of kick out of this), making love (or you call it shagging or sex, it is still good), getting rid of old clothes, furniture, remodeling/fixing the house/car, so on and so forth…

For now the last but not the least my philosophical look into life easies my stress with life’s challenges. As Steve Jobs puts it nicely at his famous speech at UC graduation ceremony; “We will all die, so we are all naked”. Whatever we make and do will vanish with us in the end. Well mostly, unless you are in the 1% that succeeds in making the earth a happier place to live for others. If you are or strive to be in that 1%, then little bit of stress might be worth it. If you do not care to be in that 1%, you will live it, you will enjoy it, and then things will be over soon so why stress about it? Just enjoy each day. Every day is full of changes, surprises, little and big beauties… And stay healthy so that you can enjoy them. As great Ottoman Emperor, Kanuni Sultan Suleiman said “Olmaya cihanda devlet bir nefes sihhat gibi!”. In English, “there is nothing in the world like a breath of health”.

Salute to you all!

Umit


References:
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm

Please also watch Steve Jobs’ inspirational speech at YouTube. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA