Understand the basics of Stress Management

Well, let us discuss some basics of stress and managing it and will discuss more by coming weeks.

'What does stress mean?'

Understand before start managing stress:

• Stress cannot be eliminated; stress can only be managed

• Stress is not due to stressors themselves but due to our reaction to stressors

• 'Stress management' does not imply controlling pressure but controlling our response to pressure

• 'Stress Management' involves a whole new way of thinking

Some 'Stress inducing behaviors':

• Body related (Uncontrolled eating, obesity, Unhealthy habits like smoking, drug abuse, alcoholism) etc

• Mind related (irrational beliefs, attitudes and values and negative thinking and emotions)

• Behavioural elements (like poor time management, resistance to change, non-assertiveness, no goals, no motivation etc)

              --- Charles Swindoll

It is found that 85% of us are under stress and 50% of them 'developing depression'.  

Stress inducing

As we see stress is one of the very important factors affects our 'personal and professional life' and directly affecting our relationships and productivity. Many of our NGO friends are working for promoting so called “Health Seeking Behaviour” which is not really the term exactly mean. Since the term ‘health’ includes physical, mental and social well being, very least awareness and practice prevails among us on “Mental Health Seeking Behavior”. Only around 15% of people seeking remedies for their stress and many of them end with poor or no result. It is essential to understand stress cannot be eliminated and only be managed and achievable through changing our lifestyle from complex to simple.  

Stress

Depression among the youth has increased from 2% to 12% in the last five years. 

Some statistics - source: Url: http://www.aasra.info/articlesandstatistics.html


Globally 3 out of every 5 visits to the doctor are for 'stress related problems'. 76% people under stress say they have sleeping disorders and 58% suffer headaches. Laughing helps ease stress. And laughing 100 times equals 10 minutes of working out on a rowing machine or 15 minutes of cycling. 85% of people under stress tend to have strained relations with family and friends. 70% of people under stress say they have become short-tempered. A 'NIMHANS' study says 36 % techies in Bangalore show signs of psychiatric disorder. 

Stress is an internal response to stimuli or pressures that challenge an organism's ability to adapt or cope.

It is simply a fact of nature - forces from the inside or outside world affecting the individual. The individual responds to stress in ways that affect the individual as well as their environment. Because of the overabundance of stress in our modern lives, we usually think of stress as a negative experience, but from a biological point of view, stress can be a neutral, negative, or positive experience.Stress impacts all the systems of body:

Next post:

'Negative stress Vs Positive stress' (Eustress) - you can click here  and read and followed by Managing stress:

“life is 10 per cent what happens to me and 90 per cent how I react to it.”


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