STRESS: Your Inevitable Companion For Life

Your mobile rings late night… OR You hear a door knock late in the night...

You receive a notice from the Income Tax dept..

Your Spouse or Children are out and didn't respond to your call…

You are in a rush and find your car has a flat tire…

You are suddenly asked to make a public presentation (Vote of thanks etc.)

You are driving pleasantly and suddenly a rash motorbike rider overtakes with a sharp cut…

Have you ever been gone through these situations..?

Now, remember how do you feel at such situations...That exact feeling is a STRESS...

Stress is an integral & inevitable feeling accompanying you through Life. It is our involuntary response to the unfavourable, undesirable circumstances. In fact, it's a kind of a thermometer that indicates the level of your mental disturbances, or your emotional discomforts every now & then. Every situation, every thought, every action creates some amount of stress. And it gets relieved too through your routine acts & responses to these unfavourable, undesirable circumstances.  

Is Stress Good Or Bad?

In general, stress is often quoted in a negative connotation but as a matter of fact, stress is also good. Stress is good to the amount which is essential when it comes in the form of survival instinct as in the case when you run away from a growling dog in the street, take medical advice on first notice of an unusual health changes or through the impulse of performance improvement when a sportsman took tireless efforts to achieve his marks, when a music composer restlessly run after instruments to explore a perfect tune or through the urge of preserving relationship when a parent notice the widening communication gap with his children, when the spouse is concerned about the workload of his partner. In all these regards, the stress is definitely good as it alarms for positive action against the probable threats through unwelcomed circumstances.

To advice to be calm or relax on the said circumstances could lead you to a dog bite, a medical hazard, failure in achieving goals, or difficulty in sustaining a relationship.

As said earlier, stress just comes and goes in a cycle of 24 hrs, and handled & relieved through our voluntary or involuntary responses. But at times it leaves behind its traces. Like, there may be unsettled emotional issues in relationship or ignorance towards financial mismanagement or even coping with the changing trends in technology and lifestyles and such left behind traces keep on getting accumulated, to form consistent stress, a Bad Stress or a Chronic one. These left behind traces of stress need to be taken care of as these may prove fatal over a longer duration leading you to neurosis or psychotic breakdown. In other words, consistent stress is a gateway to Physical & Mental illnesses.

Symptoms:

Sweating and disturbed breath is the most common and immediate symptoms that indicate stress due to a sudden change in surroundings. In case of persistent stress, the person would experience an unreasonable body-ache, fatigue, change in sex drive or oversleeping, procrastinating tendency, withdrawing from friends, family, and usual activities; craving on food, overworking (to avoid facing problems) and taking out stress on others. In extreme cases, the person may become habituated to smoking, drinking, using pills or drugs to relax.

   

Effects:

As mentioned earlier, stress is a gateway to many psychosomatic diseases. Most common effects of stress on your body are a consistent Headache (a Migraine), muscle tension or pain, sleeping disorder, digestion problems whereas anxiety, lack of motivation or focus, feeling overwhelmed, irritability or anger, sadness or depression are the emotional effects of stress. Stress can be felt reflected in one's behaviour through anger outbursts, over or under eating, drug or alcohol abuse, Social withdrawal etc.

Remedies:

Once a frog entered a kitchen and accidentally fell into a pot of water kept to boil on a burner. Now since the frog has a unique characteristic of adjusting the body temperature with the surrounding, the warm water in the pot didn’t bother the frog. The water temperature goes up gradually and the frog kept on adjusting to the water temperature. When the water temperature reached the boiling point, it goes beyond the capacity of the frog to adjust its body temperature further and he tried to jump out but in vain. The frog lost all his energy in adjusting with the rising water temperature and when it came to jumping out, he couldn't and ultimately died.

We all are the victims like the frog, falling to the boiling pot of stress every now & then and keep on adjusting, ignoring and overlooking that we are caught in stress until it becomes chronic. So the first & foremost thing is to check your ‘Stressometer’ regularly. Simply saying, mere awareness that you are carrying some stress is the first step to keeping your stress in check. Jump out of the boiling water before you are exhausted.

The following measures may be helpful in handling Stress,

1. Awareness & Acceptance: Identify your most common stressors in the day to day life. Recognize your physical and emotional reactions to such stressful situations. Recall what made you feel better when gone through such situations before and practice it again.

2. Don't ‘React’...but ‘Respond’:  Avoid Arguments. Filter your thoughts. Be ‘Non-judgemental’. Practice living in ‘Here & Now’ conditions.

3. Learn to Say ‘No’: Be assertive. Say yes only if you wish to.  Know your limits. Don't take too much that you cannot handle. Don't commit what you cannot fulfil.

4. Organise your routine: Schedule your activities. Set your priorities. Avoid procrastination. Live in an ‘Important but Not Urgent time zone’.

5. Settle your Emotional Accounts: Be Expressive. Express your hurt, pain & discomfort then and there in an assertive manner.  Don't carry negative emotions. Don’t leave too many emotional windows open, hanging your psyche.  Make a proper shut down of your ‘Emotional Processor’. (Comparing it to the windows of phones and laptops)

                               

6. Develop your personal stress buster workouts: Sweat out…to stress out, do aerobics, gym, jogging, walking or yoga whatever suits you in a regular routine. Daily meditation is also an important tool. Get an accord with music; listen, sing or play musical instruments. Play outdoor games. Laugh, create humour, and connect with people. And most importantly schedule your own ‘Me’ time to be with yourself.

Easier said than done, many people may be able to withstand but if you find difficulty in coping with your stress, don’t hesitate to consult a counsellor before your stress overpowers you. 

Author: Dr Chetan Rewatkar, a counsellor and psychotherapist. He is assigned with corporates as a mentor and trainer. He has expertise in life skill training. Conducts self-development workshops for individuals and groups.