Are You Managing Stress OR is it Managing You?

by | Feb 1, 2023 | Blog

Stress impacts your fiscal and physical health. You need to have a strategy to keep stress levels in check. 70% – 90% of all primary care visits to health care facilities are stress-related, according to the American Institute of Stress. The first step to managing stress is learning to recognize high stress levels and to raise the level of awareness in yourself and others to the dangerous stress reactions we have when we adapt to high stress levels.

Adaptation is not real. We may think that we have adapted to our high stress lives, but in reality it is manifesting itself in other areas of our lives. It may attack our bodies in the form of high blood pressure, higher levels of cholesterol, heart disease, and even back pain or headaches. So what can we do about it? How can we tell that we are living high stress lives if we don’t feel that we are? We usually don’t know how high our stress levels are until we have made a dramatic change in our lives. We look back one day and wonder how we lived through it without severe ramifications.

Everyone needs some stress to be active and productive. But too much stress can be harmful. There are different types of stress – good and bad. There is stress that is caused by happy or pleasant events. These can be things like the birth of a child (or grandchild), your child’s wedding, starting your own business (or hitting the $1,000,000 mark), getting the promotion you always wanted, or even hitting the lottery. There are certain amounts of stress that each of these situations puts on your mind, your body, your schedule, and on your relationships.

There is also stress that is caused by unhappy events. These can range from not getting chosen to work on a project you had your heart set on to losing a loved one to a fight with cancer. Most times you don’t have control over the events that take place, but you do have control over how you deal with them.

Importance of Balancing Your Life

 

What are your daily priorities? Most often it’s a tough decision. It’s tough because you are often deciding between what is most important or what is the best of the good things you have to do today. Remember that it’s okay to say no. Don’t say yes right away. It’s okay to reply to a request with something like this, “I am really very busy, but let me think about your request and see if it fits with my schedule and priorities”. This sets the stage for a possible “no”. You only have so many hours in a day, don’t place too many stressful events into those hours that you become burnt out or debilitated to the point that you aren’t accomplishing even the simplest tasks. When we achieve balance in the four areas of our lives, spiritual, emotional, physical and social, we create synergy within. This synergy creates the excitement we see in young children and in a few adults who have found balance and understand its importance. That synergy becomes a fire within us that fosters the dynamics to do it all! The “all” being those things we have found to be truly important in our lives. That is to say we don’t go around doing everything and creating more stress. Little by little we create those things in our lives that we desire and manage the stress in a more productive manner. Above all, remember to take the time to take care of yourself. You need to come first so that you will have the energy and commitment to do everything else you want to do. As we age be aware of how much stress you are carrying. Constant carrying of that stress could be aging your body even faster. Go for a walk. Try meditation. Seek a counselor if needed. Do as much as you possibly can to reduce stress and don’t turn to food as a source of comfort as that will cause a different stress in the not so distant future.

Tune in as I dive deeper into things you can be doing to combat menopausal changes that interfere with your best life!

Sign up here to get updates for new posts!


More Recent Posts:

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This