What is Stress? now it has becomes the part of human life and due to the lifestyle of todays world this affects to a lot of people. This is what makes you nervous and anxious.

Stress: It is a non specific respons to any pressure or demand.

Stressor: It can be internal thought or could be an external event.

What are the conditions that trigger this situation

Social issues and life style issues that are common.

It may be work load for many people, Uncertainity for anything that makes anxious to the person, Changes or moving like job change or school change, depression related to heath or illness, having loss or loss of job, unstatisfactory job, Fighting and arguments or may be bad relationships either with parents, childrens, husband or wife, Death of loved ones, marriage, divorce, poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, traumatic event, these are the major stressor in the life that can create a lot of problems.

How it activates or its machanism

These can be of two types first one is immidiate and seconds is slow or long term response.

Immediate respons:

The immediate reapons is from sympathetic nervous system here adrenaline and nor adrenaline releases from adrenal glands in the response of stress which is a fight or flight response.

And it response to the particular tension by increasing heart rate, increasing blood pressure, increasing metabolic rate, diverting blood supply to essential organs and dilatation of pupil.

The example of this type of respons is when you see a snake and immediately become alerts or when you see a dog who is barking at you loudly, in that type of situations immidiate response is to away from that situation and you gets alert and gets out of that situation.

In such response you immediately relieve tension by coming out from that situations which creates tension.

Long respons or slow response:

In the brain hypothalamus secretes the hormone called corticotrophin releasing factor that is CRF hormone.

Which stimulates pituitary gland ( Pituitary gland is the mother gland in the brain ) then pituitary gland secretes other hormones which is adrenocorticotropic hormone ACTH.

Then this ACTH stimulates adrenal glands (which is present on the top of both of kidneys) and then adrenal glands secretes secondary cortisol hormone.

And then you starts to get stress respons, this type of response is seen in the Social factors and life style factors like above mention divorce, loss of loved ones, illness, unemployment, unsatisfactory job all these creates slow reapons or long term response.

Where cortisol level is increases in your body due to the above mentioned factors that creates a lot of problem to you.

How stress affects your body and its symptoms

There is a lot of things happen when it goes prolonged.

Central nervous system – :

when it goes prolonged, it decreases concentration and your ability to sit for an exam or to study for an exam decreases.

Along with that the memory also decreases, so that the amount of information that you are able to retain is also decreases.

It also affects mood and increases the risk of anxiety and depression, sleep is also affected and you may have insomnia.

“Pain” people who are in prolonged tension their pain perception is actually increases that’s why they feel more pain than any other person.

When it becomes Anxiety

Long term stimulation of sympathetic nervous system creates disregulation and causes anxiety.

Anxiety can be consider an emotion characterised by feeling worries or tension. And this may lead to anxiety disorder.

Anxiety disorder becomes chronic anxiety in which intrusive thoughts and worry interfere with normal life functioning and now it is a feeling without illness in which you can’t enjoy things as much as you can.

Immune system –:

Immune system decreases response to vaccine during stressful period, it also decreases wound healing and the resistence to infection is also decreases.

Normally our body scanning for cancer cells, there are certain cells in our body who comes and kill them in normal situation, but in chronic Stressful period the ability to kill those cancer cells decreased.

Inflammation –:

Inflammation increases and your body starts to attacking itself, your immune system finds increased inflammation in your body and finds its abnormal or foreign and starts to killing it, which is called autoimmunity when body immune system attacking itself.

Along with that degenerative diseases may occurs and like rheumatoid arthritis in which due the inflammatory reaction the cartilage of bone destructed and that causes oedema or swelling or decreases joint mobility

Digestive system –:

Abdominal problems such as diarrhoea, gastritis, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome may occurs.

In chronic stress condition the parasympathetic nervous system stimulate that leads to vasoconstriction of stomach blood vessels that leads to stress ulcers.

How to relive stress

There is a lot of things that you can do overcome this problem:

Exercise –:

Exercise is particularly helpful if you are very anxious, if you finding that your anxiety is really high then you should starts with exercise.

When you consistent with your exercise, your body releases endorphins ( happy hormone ) and which relaxes your parasympathetic nervous system.

This hormone that relaxes when you exercise, counter the activity of hormone ( epinephrine, nor-epinephrine or even cortisol ).

If you not exercised at all then you can starts with 20 minutes walk, you don’t have to go to the gym, after the couple of days you can go one step ahead starts doing exercise or walk at least 30 minutes three times in a week.

Reduce your stimulants –:

Caffeine, Nicotine, Tobacco, Smoking all these are stimulants ( you have to remember that excess cortisol are circulating and present in your blood stream on top of that you added little caffeine or nicotine that causes just more activation of stress.

Diet – :

Eat a balanced and clean diet, at least 50% of serving what you eating should include fruits and vegetables.

Meditation –:

Meditation can help to overcome this condition you meditate for a longer period then it reduces your anxiety, increase your memory, and concentration.

Mindfulness based stress reduction – Mindfulness is the state of mind that is not judgmental and experience of the present moments without trying to control it, make it go away or without saying it bad or good.

It is the state of not being doing anything but fully aware of present moment without evaluating inner or outer world but it needs regulation of attention.

For example when you take shower in the morning you most of the time you think things like what you are going to do the whole day, but in mindfulness practice you just feel the water and not think about anything.

Stress management techniques

■Get to know your body so that you can recognize the first sign of tension.

Learn to relax by practicing techniques like.

Take 4 to 5 deep breaths , particularly with your face upwards.

Inhale through nose and exhale through mouth.

Count down 1 to 10, it distracts you.

Walk, run, dance, play or exercise to stimulates blood flow.

You can read book or listen to music distract yourself with a hobby or favourite pastime.

You can play with child and pets.

■Learn to smile and laugh and to balance work and recreation because laughter will release your endorphins.

■Talk over the situation with someone who is a good listener and is in your confidence.

■Learn to accept things and people because some situations are beyond your control.

■Take one thing at a time, a sure way to be overwhelmed is to find yourself in the middle of a dozen projects.

■Try to avoid getting angry once you are angry, you conquered the ability to think clearly and rationally is diminished in the face of anger.

How stress affects your health|how to come out of stress