Saturday, June 28, 2008

How Stress Negatively Impacts Health

Strangely enough, life is as complicated today as it is simple! Though our everyday tasks have been made easier, thanks to numerous electronic and other gadgets, factors like stress and tension are on the steady rise. Traveling during rush hour traffic, stress in the office environment, tending to mundane household problems, children's needs and so on, can actually add to your mental load. The result? Too much accumulated tensions that actually take their toll on your general health.

Is stress really THAT harmful to health?

The answer is yes. Any kind of worry can have alarmingly negative side effects on both your mind and body. The worst thing here is that you may not realize it immediately, as some of them tend to impact you much later in your life. The most common symptoms of this type of PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are heightened pulse rate and blood pressure. In fact, irrespective of whether we realize it or not, many of our health problems can be directly related to the impact of various kinds of worries and tensions present in our lives. Now let us try and understand how exactly stress can adversely affect our lives:

General health
Some chronic conditions like high blood pressure and high blood sugar, which are also potentially life-taking, are usually linked to overweight and a bad lifestyle. But there is one thing you have to know here - these problems arise due to stress as well! Why, mental tension may well be the main contributor for this condition.

Hormones
Stress and tension is actually capable of attacking the hormonal system of the body. Adrenaline is a major hormone that controls the body's response to danger. When the body senses lurking danger, this hormone sets it running into full action, pumping blood faster, activating the brain to work sharper and so on. Of course, adrenaline comes of great use when necessary. But if one is expected to respond this way every single day, it can prove to be fatal. High blood pressure is always related to heart attacks, seizures, strokes and other dangerous conditions.

Mental health
As we all know, the direct impact of stress is on the mind. During periods of trouble, we forget to remain happy and positive, lose our patience, get crabby and snappy at all and sundry! In extreme cases, chronic worry can cause tremendous mood swings, severely damaging all our relationships, be they personal or professional. Hence, the mental impact can actually end up getting a lot more serious than the physical aspect.

Now that you know how truly dangerous stress can get on your health, you need to take measures to safeguard yourself from it. Be aware of how you feel, learn to get in touch with yourself by way of meditation, yoga and so on and most of all, smile, in the knowledge that 'this too shall pass'!

Click here for interesting information on stress management, tension reduction and much more.

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