Stresses are unavoidable, and there’s not a single soul who’s not been stressed at all. Some people seem to get over with it quickly, and some people have a feeling of stress hangover with them all through. What distinguishes them is how they react to it and recover from these situations. Stress is taking its toll on families and individuals everywhere, especially in the time of recession; the financial woes have done nothing but added to stress. Families are worried that they will not be able to make ends meet and the money earned will only be used for settling bills. Many retirement accounts have been vanished.

A little stress in life is good if it invokes motivation and challenges us to perform better in a healthy way. But chronic stress, constant worry leads to anxiety and affects our health.

If you are feeling stressed, anxious or overwhelmed about something, here’s a simple step you can do to overcome the situation. Stop all activity, think about what made you anxious, take a few deep breaths, allow your nerves to calm down and then take an appropriate action of your choice from the list below.

Here is a list of few things you could do to help you relieve stress

1. Eat properly and do regular exercises

2. Set yourself targets to achieve. Your goals should be realistic and practical.

3. Try to complete the most important work first, and then the other work. Learn to prioritize and remove the unwanted tasks.

4. Reduce the urge to be a perfectionist. You are human and bound to make mistakes somewhere down the line.

5. Be flexible in your approach.

6. Avoid excess competition, but do not fear from competition either. Competitions help to bring out the best from you.

7. Do not buy on criticism, but constructive criticism is not to be neglected.

8. Do not worry too much if you fall short of expectations.

9. Exercise control over your temper

10. Push away negative thoughts

11. Take time out for yourself and spend some time alone thinking about the activities you planned for today, and make a plan for tomorrow

12. Keep quiet when someone’s yelling at you.

13. Keep smiling and be cheerful, it will de-stress others around you.

14. Try to keep the atmosphere light. Try to crack a joke when you are stressed out.

15. Practice meditation and yoga. This will help you relax.

16. Call a friend or your loved ones and speak to them for a while

17. Watch a funny movie or video on the internet

18. Take a massage followed by a hot shower

19. Indian head massage

20. If you like dancing, dance to your favorite music

Remember, when stressed out, it is important to take an action to relieve stress. Don’t make a mistake by doing negative things like drugs and alcohol. Be positive in your approach, think good, do good and only good will happen to you.

When stressed out, people tend to feel hungry and often set out to the canteen and grab a snack. Eating snacks gives a feeling of comfort to many people, but many of them don’t realize that eating snacks can add to the stresses instead of minimizing them. Since eating gives a feeling of comfort, people also tend to overeat sometimes. Most common substance taken in during stress diet is caffeine, which are not only found in coffee, tea and soda. You can find caffeine in chocolates too. Caffeine adds to your stress by increasing heart beats and blood pressure. It is advised to cut back taking in caffeine. Reducing the intake of caffeine will reduce your stress. But do not just stop it abruptly; else you may suffer the ill effects of withdrawal. Do avoid it, reduce it gradually.

Alcohol is another substance people turn to for reducing stress. While it gives a feeling of elation to your mind, the body is still under tremendous stress. Alcohol makes your body to produce adrenaline and affect your immune system. You may not feel sleepy even though you are tired. Alcohol only adds to your worries, and increases stress.

Another common comfort food for stressed out people is sugar. There’s hardly anyone who wouldn’t have had an ice-cream, or a candy after a long day at work or any other stressful activity. Sugar affects your adrenaline glands and you may feel depression and irritated.

Fatty foods like sugar strain your cardiovascular system. You are leading your heart to more stress by eating such foods. You must also avoid salty food as this increases blood pressure. You will loose control over your emotions. If emotionally disturbed, you are likely to feel agitated later on with compound feelings.

One more disadvantage of eating all the above food is that when stressed out, these foods add to the weight on your body and start showing gradually. Many obesity cases are due to unhealthy eating in stressful conditions.

Eating chocolates, fatty foods, sweets, salty foods are all harmful when I’m stressed out. So, what is it that I should eat to avoid hunger pangs when I’m hungry and stressed?

To control your stress and avoid hunger pangs, take in fruits, vegetables and whole grain food. These will naturally assist you in fighting stress, are good for your health as they are rich with nutrients. These foods are fat free and you will not gain weight. Maximize the nutrients by eating them raw; you will loose vitamins and enzymes after cooking them.

Here are a few tips on eating habits which could reduce stress

1. Do not skip your meal, have at least 3 meals a day.

2. Try to eat at the same time everyday.

3. While eating focus only on eating. Do not eat while you drive, walk or work. Finish your food and proceed to whatever you want to do.

4. Incorporate fruits, salads in your meals.

5. Drink plenty of water.

The response to pressure from out side world causes strain to us physically, mentally and emotionally. This strain is termed as stress. When stressed out, our bodies react by releasing chemicals into blood which could induce more energy and strength. The most common reaction to stress is losing temper, getting irritated, tension, lack of concentration, headaches, increased hear beats, etc. Stresses are not always bad to have; we would like have stresses because it adds excitement and spice to a dull life. But over stressing can be harmful physically and emotionally. Many relations are hampered due to stresses, and not knowing how to exercise control over such situations. Stress is a way your body responds to any kind of demand, due to good or bad experiences. Let’s take a look at few overload situations people come across almost everyday of their lives.

• Husband and wife working full time, while their parents are dependent on their help for shopping due to health conditions.
• You are running hand to mouth over expenses and you are denied a hike in pay. You hardly seem to make ends meet and barely save some money.
• Divorced parents sharing the custody of child arguing with each other on matters concerning the children. These arguments tend to arise out of nowhere and more frequently.
• Ever increasing competition at work makes you feel pressure and for survival you work day in and day out. You may take up more work than you can handle. Working very early, staying up too late to complete your job. Taking time to recheck work to correct the mistakes, etc.

Types of stresses

1. Survival stress

It is a common response to fight dangers or run away from it, depending on the situation. When you feel that someone is trying to hit you, you’d react by hitting him before he hits you, or you’ll get clear and avoid getting hit. There is a sudden burst of energy in you enabling you to survive this physical danger.

2. Internal stress

You must have come across a crossroad in your life where you would have felt that you are not capable of handling certain situations, or you start worrying for no reason at all. This kind of stress is very difficult to understand and manage. This happens when we put ourselves in stressful situations and start worrying about things irrelevant to the issue.

3. Environmental stress

Responding to the situations which surround you is natural. For example, when passing by a noisy area, we tend to close our ears. We react differently to noise, crowds pressure from family, friends and work. Identifying environmental stress and getting a control over them will help reduce stress level to a great deal.

4. Stress due to fatigue and overwork

Working hard throughout the day takes a heavy toll on the body. One of the common reasons for such stress is the inability to manage time properly. Find ways to relax when you are uncomfortable, and stressed out.

Everyone experiences stress like getting lost while driving, forgetting the car keys on the office desk, etc. These are short lived and often leave us worried and anxious .These are healthy, as they teach us something and we become cautious. But at times events like breaking up with you girl friend/boy friend, divorce, life-threatening accidents and diseases can cause you a long term stress and these could affect your health adversely. This can cause depression. Depression and nervous breakdown are likely when someone is working in and extremely stressful condition.

When you experience stress, there is a dramatic change in your mind and body. Stress affects us physically, mentally and emotionally, and 90% of all health problems arise out of stresses.

Stresses can bring about changes in your body which may make you feel ill. Most common problems associated with stresses are

• Difficulty to conceive (infertility amongst women)
• Sleeping difficulties
• Headaches
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Nervous breakdown
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Stroke
• Weakness or lack of energy
• Irritation
• Inability to concentrate
• Erratic eating habits; eating too much or eating nothing at all
• Feeling sad and deprived
• Losing temper very easily
• Asthma
• Tension
• Stomach cramps
• Anxiety
• Weight gain (Obesity)
• Weight loss
• Heart problems
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Pain at joints
• Less sex drive
• Hair loss
• Hyperthyroidism
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Tooth aches
• Gum diseases
• Ulcers
• PMS (premenstrual syndrome)
• Migraine
• Auto-Immune diseases
  • Eczema
  • Psoriasis
  • Ulcerative Colitis
  • Oral and genital herpes
  • Crohn’s disease (also known as granulomatous colitis and regional enteritis)
• Possibility of cancer

Some facts about stress and concerns about health

Death due to emotional stress is more likely from cancer or cardiovascular diseases rather than smoking and drinking. A study has revealed that people who managed stress ineffectively had 40% higher death rate than people who were not stressed out

People who experienced heart attacks and got angry during emotional arguments doubled the risk of subsequent attacks.

When stresses are handled positively, they are beneficial to us and help us keep alert and be active, energetic. Too much stress turns into distress, and when we handle them negatively, it affects every part of life. Negative handling of stress affects you physically, mentally and emotionally. To make matters worse, we may break relations and deteriorate our status in the society. Negative handling of stress leads us to depression, and to get over this depression people get attracted to seek help of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. Initially these things make us feel that we are not stressed, and give a sense of relieving stresses. The body remains stressed, and the substance abuse make us addicted to them which help in making matters worse. A stressed out person is be given care and attention as soon as possible with emotional support as well. Stress kills silently and can become fatal over a period of time, hamper one’s happy and healthy life.