Stress is basically your body’s response to meet the demands of certain situations such as rushing a deadline or finishing an urgent task by releasing stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Short bouts of stress are a regular part of everyday life, but when they become more prolonged and become chronic, they can significantly affect one’s mental, physical, emotional, and psychological health. Chronic stress can be caused by many situations such as life problems, high-pressure jobs, exposure to loud noises, and getting stuck in traffic — basically everything ‘stressful’ that we’re exposed to in our day to day lives.
How Does It Affect You
Chronic stress brings about a plethora of health issues such as irritability, the feeling of helplessness, fatigue, low self-esteem, frequent illnesses (due to a weaker immune system), difficulty sleeping, hypertension, muscle tissue damage, and difficulty in focusing among many other things. This is why it’s important for you to find ways to manage and reduce chronic stress, and here are a few tips to get you started:
Identify Your Triggers and Deal With Them
In order to avoid getting constantly stressed out, you should figure out what’s causing the stress. Make a list: it could be your difficult or high-stakes job, being unhappy in your relationship or living arrangement, having too little time for yourself, and other factors. Approach each stressor individually and see which ones you can cut out, avoid, ignore, or develop coping mechanisms to. For example, if you’re constantly stressed out about getting stuck in traffic, find ways to avoid the traffic by going earlier or using a different mode of transportation; if you’re stressed out about having a cramped apartment, try to make some adjustments — get rid of the clutter and re-arrange items. The bottom line here is that you have to identify and address each stressor.
Breathing Exercises
There are a lot of stress relief breathing exercises that can help you out with reducing stress while also giving yourself time to relax and compose yourself. So, if you’re stuck in traffic or in the middle of a busy work schedule, try to find a few minutes to do some breathing exercises to reduce stress, clear your mind, and allow you to better focus on the task at hand.
Exercise
Exercise is one of the best ways to deal with chronic stress as it won’t only help you manage your chronic stress but can enhance your overall health and wellness. Doing exercises also promote the release of endorphins which can make you feel good and significantly reduce stress. So find the time to jog and exercise whenever you can, in fact, there are even exercise apps and guides to help you stretch and exercise while at work.
Meditate Regularly
Meditation has a lot of benefits, one of which is stress reduction. One of the best advantages of meditation is that you can do it almost anywhere and it can take only a few minutes to put you in a calm state. Plus, there are many meditation techniques and guides that you can take advantage of to help you out which suits your style or schedule. There are also establishments in Birmingham that offer guided meditation to better assist you in dealing with stress as well as other issues you might have such as anxiety, phobias, and even trauma.
Conclusion
There’s no question that chronic stress is bad for you, which is why it’s important for you to understand it, figure out what causes it, and find ways to manage it so that you can avoid suffering from chronic stress and the myriad of complications it brings.
