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Managing Stress Everyday

By Richard Kuhns

There are several basic elements to managing stress everyday:

1. Physical factors

2. Nutritional Stress

3. Climatic Stress

4. Emotional Stress

Physical factors:

Whenever we are stressed to meet deadlines, deal with interpersonal relationships that are tenuous–children mis behaving, supervisors making demands, and so on–the fight or flight part of our nervous system gets involved. We are impacted much the same way as if we were being physically threatened and it happens whenever our ego is threatened.

When we speak of the fight or flight we usually think of one reacting to a physical threat such as the saber tooth tigers with which our ancestors had to deal. However, the fight or flight (the sympathetic nervous system is activated any time our egos are threatened as in our financial position, family status, work status, personal status.

When the fight or flight is activated, our breathing becomes tense and upper chest, we brace and our muscles tighten, our blood flow to the extremities is hampered, stomach stops digestion, heart rate increases, sweat glad activity is activated, circulation to our extremities is reduced…

The essence is that our body is made ready to either fight or run from a threat. However, for the majority of threats running or fighting is not a practical solution. For instance, your supervisor gives you constructive criticism. You wouldn’t fight him or get up and run away from his critique, would you? Yet your body has you ready to do this.

And what’s even more interesting, you are holding onto physical tension and unaware of it. It’s not a super high level of tension, but none the less, when you hold onto it you:

1. Become acclimated to higher levels of tension as being normal so it’s not uncommon to simply notice that your shoulders are hunched up and tight, or that your jaw is clenched, or…

2. The tension builds to the point where you experience a stress related problem such as headaches, indigestion, hypertension…

Nutritional Stress Factors:

Eating a highly refined diet which is high in sugar and refined grains such as you’ll find in pastries, cookies, cake, pretzels… contribute to hypoglycemia. This type of diet causes a rapid rise in blood sugar and after years of this abuse, the pancreas eventually over produces insulin causing a rapid decrease in blood sugar. Symptoms are nervousness, irritability, depression, anxiety to name a few. The adrenal glands also gets involved further stressing the body by activating the sympathetic nervous system. Essentially with poor nutrition your responses to stress are magnified.

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April 30, 2008 | Category: Stress Management 

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