Stress and Your Happiness Level

It has been known that stress could have a direct impact on your health condition, such that it could put you at risk of developing certain illnesses such as high blood pressure, stroke, or serious heart problems. But the most significant impact of stress is something that is felt in your everyday life – your ability to stay happy and energized. Since stress is a fact of life, it does not mean that you have to completely accept it as something that you cannot change or have no control of.

This is due to a domino effect that stress creates in one’s life. If you are able to overcome stress, you can live healthy. If you live healthy, then you can stay happy. This is not as easy as it appears though. You need to follow a three-step plan: identifying your stressors, finding a stress management technique that works for you, and then adapting that into your life.

Identifying Your Stressors
The cause of stress in one person is different from the other. Hence, you need to take the time to look into what it might be that is causing you tremendous amount of stress in a daily basis. Could it be that you are loading yourself more work than you can handle? Are you stressed by the intense level of competition for academic excellence at school? Is your health condition causing you too much worry? 

Identifying your priorities in life could also reveal what your stressors are. But you can never skip this step when trying to realize proper stress management in your life. You cannot find a solution if you do not know the source of the problem.
Find a Stress Management Technique That Works For You 

Once you find out what the problem is, you can now look into different stress management techniques that can work for addressing that problem. Since there are different stressors for each individual, there are also unique ways of addressing the issue.

Some people find it would be good to set aside time for themselves, such as pampering, or doing things that they enjoy. For a few others, they like to stay indoors and enjoy a moment of solitude, such that they can be away from the hustle and bustle of the outside world to find inner peace. Whichever approach works for you, it is all up for you to discover. Experiment with using various stress management techniques first and then see which ones offer the best results.

Tips to Lead a Stress-Free Life

If you cannot think of any activity or ideas to overcome stress, here are some activities you can incorporate into your stress management regiment to stay happy and healthy: 

Create a relaxing environment that would facilitate in a relaxing body and mind. You can sit on a lounger in your patio while enjoying fresh air, listen to some soothing music, or light up scented candles in your room. 

You can travel and have a vacation for a few days. If you’re too busy, do this over the weekend. Use the opportunity to rejuvenate yourself and not think about anything that might cause you stress, such as work or financial problems at home.

Explore nature and the wild outdoors. A lot of people find being close to nature to be very relaxing. If you are one of those, here’s your time to do so.

Identifying Symptoms of Stress

When it comes to stress management, self-help is just as effective. But you cannot take steps to combatting signs of stress if you cannot recognize the symptoms for this condition. Hence, you must start by identifying the symptoms of stress. Some of the most common ones include the following:

• Muscle pain or tension • Headaches • Sweating and dizziness • Bowel problems • Nausea • Tensed feeling all over your body • Feeling of irritability • Memory failure • Insomnia 

In addition to the above symptoms, one could also develop severe problems resulting from stress such as asthma, high blood pressure, and other problems of the heart. 

Stress Management Methods

Your ability to manage stress could make the difference in your life. It would also enable you to overcome the physical, emotional, and mental impact of too much stress and worry in life. It is not enough that you come to identify the symptoms of stress. You need to act on it and make an effort to correct them!

Below are practical stress management methods you can employ.

Problem Identification and Finding Solution 

In any problem, you need to start by identifying the source of the problem. Without this knowledge, there is no way for you to identify the best solution. According to experts, identifying the problem means half of the battle is won. It enables you to regain control over the situation and better understand your condition.

Avoiding Source of Stress

Once you have identified the main source of your stress, your best approach is to avoid them or steer clear off them. For example, if a certain type of environment or being around a particular group of people is causing you stress or making you feel unhealthy, then it would be best for you to take them out of the equation in your life. Instead, re-focus your attention toward something more useful and substantial while drawing out positive vibes out of it.

Control Your Emotions

Learn how to take charge over your feelings. Identification of the source of stress will enable you to achieve this. You need to inspire yourself to think only positive thoughts and constantly reassure yourself that it is you who is in control of your emotions and avoid it from overpowering you instead. You can divert your problems into other more significant activities, such as engaging in sports, hobbies, or going on a vacation. There is no reason to dwell on things that is causing you to harbor ill or negative feelings.

Live Healthy! 

The most obvious yet challenging step towards stress management is to adapt a healthy lifestyle. How do you do this? You need to start with your body. Since this is the first one affected by stress, you need to begin with taking care of your body. Make sure that you are well rested such that you can enable your mind and body to rejuvenate itself. Avoid drinking or smoking since these are unhealthy solutions to stress; in fact, it will only make things worse!

In order to figure out if you are stressed, it is necessary to know the symptoms of stress. Fortunately, these are usually fairly obvious, making stress easy to diagnose. However, it is never a bad idea to make sure that you know the symptoms of stress if you are not sure. In fact, some people are so stressed all the time that they never notice the difference. So, if you show some of the following symptoms, you may want to slow down and let yourself unwind.

One of the most obvious symptoms of stress is, of course, constant worrying. In fact, that is, in many ways, stress itself. Being perpetually concerned about money, work, lay offs, your kids, your health, or anything at all is a sure sign of stress. This can also be called anxiety, and it is not good for you. Worry is sometimes unavoidable, but consistent worrying is a problem that can produce health problems.

As well, one of the most obvious symptoms of stress is the headache. Everyone knows that too much stress can cause your head to pound as though it was being attacked by a jackhammer but not many people know that too much stress can cause headaches when you relax. In fact, if you are under constant stress all week and you finally relax on, let’s say, Saturday, you are going to have a wicked headache the one day you are relaxing. If you find that you have consistent headaches on the weekends, the cause is probably stress.

Another symptom of stress is high blood pressure, caused by constricting blood vessels. When stress occurs, the circulatory system tightens the arteries and speeds up the heart. This is one of the scarier symptoms of stress because high blood pressure can be very dangerous. In fact, consistent stress can cause an increase in risk for heart attacks and stroke. You want to avoid this, so try to avoid stress.

As well, stress can also cause ulcers. There is some research showing that ulcers are actually caused by infection and stress weakens the immune system. Thus, the bacteria that causes ulcers is allowed to run unchecked and bleeding in the stomach and esophagus can occur. Though you may not end up with ulcers, stress can also make you more susceptible to colds and flu, which will leave your body in a much worse state that it was in previously. Nobody wants to get sick, but stress can make you more vulnerable to illness.

Included in the list of symptoms of stress are memory problems. If you find yourself struggling to recall facts that you know you made a point to put into your head, you may be under stress. These memory problems are caused by the body shutting down the memory pathways when stress gets to be too much. Though immediate and sudden stress can cause your memory to heighten — such as during a car accident — prolonged stress actually makes your memory worse. When you find yourself having memory problems, you may want to relax in order to reduce stress.

Other symptoms of stress include sleep problems. These sleep problems may run anywhere from nightmares to sleepwalking to sleep apnea. As well, insomnia can result from too much stress, as can hypersomnia — being excessively tired all the time. Most people do not know this, but the brain is very active during sleep. It is the time when your brain is allowed to sort through all the things that have been consuming it and stress can upset your mind in sleep just as it can when you are awake. Thus, your brain is trying to deal with everything that was bothering it during the day and it cannot keep up.

Thus, stress can cause you all manner of problems when your mind is finally allowed to, in a way, sort through the file folders and try to find solutions. Unfortunately, this can lead to some very strange results. Sleepwalking is the scariest for those who have experienced it, because the find themselves in a strange place when they wake up. However, sleep apnea can have the most dangerous consequences, as it causes you to stop breathing while you sleep. Many people suffering from sleep apnea can wake up one hundred to two hundred times during the night, which means your body is not getting the sleep it needs.

Finally, stress can also cause a swelling of the joints, which can cause severe pain in people with arthritis. Since arthritic people have swollen joints anyway, the excessive swelling caused by stress can lead to some very painful attacks. If your arthritis is causing you a lot of problems, or you find that your joints are sore all the time, stress may be the cause.

Stress is not just a mental problem. In fact, many of the symptoms of stress are distinct, physical issues that can be anywhere from difficult to life threatening. If you find that you have any of the symptoms listed above, stress may the cause. Check with your doctor to see what he or she thinks, then determine the next course of action. Symptoms of stress can cause serious health problems down the road, so try to keep stress down and keep your body healthy.

About The Author

Trevor Dumbleton is the owner of http://www.LowerYourStress.com/, a categorized resource directory for everything to do with stress.

This article was posted on February 06, 2005