Ways to lower your stress
way to lower stress
You know when you’re stressed out — your body feels tired and your thoughts are spinning. It can also help to know why your body reacts that way, and what you can do about it. Our bodies are designed to handle calm situations, and also exciting or dangerous ones. When you’re in the middle of something scary or challenging, your body gets into a mode that’s better for handling the situation. This is a state of high energy and sharp senses, such as the way you feel when you’re playing a fun sport or doing really well on a test. However, when the situation turns into more than you can handle, that’s when you start to feel the effects of stress. It’s as if your body is shouting “Do something!”, and your brain is shouting back “I don’t know what to do!”
When you’re stressed, you feel changes in your body and your mind. Your heart beats faster, your blood pressure may go up, and your face may get flushed. Your muscles may tighten up, or you might feel anxious. You may feel rushed and confused, or forget things and you may feel sick to your stomach. You might also be irritable, and get into arguments with your family and friends.
Whether you’d like to admit it or not, stress is probably playing some sort of role in your life. It’s a six-letter word that can deprive you of sleep, make you less productive at work, and cause tension in your family. Stress can pop up in so many areas of life that it’s difficult to name them all — from financial woes to the death of a loved one to troubles at work, varying levels of anxiety can be present at almost every turn. The trick is to recognize stress and figure out ways to manage it so you can move on quickly and not let it become like quicksand.
Scientifically speaking, there’s a reason the sexes handle stress differently. No matter the gender, stress causes a spike in epinephrine and cortisol, which together raise blood pressure. (Cortisol also lowers the effectiveness of the immune system, which is why you’re more susceptible to getting sick when you’re extremely stressed.) Both men and women’s brains release the hormone oxytocin, which works to counteract the stress-inducing hormones and tries to create a more relaxed feeling in the body. But women’s brains release more oxytocin, so men are often left feeling more stressed. Because of this, men often biologically resort to the traditional “fight or flight” responses — they choose to bottle up the stressors, or fight back.
Knowing what causes stress can be the first step to handling it. But if you’re dating or married to someone who handles stress differently than you, their suggestions might not be all that helpful even if they have the best of intentions. Take a look at some ways to handle stress that are specific to you — for the sake of yourself and those you care about.
No matter your best efforts, there’s likely to be stressors in your life you know will pop up. You have a scheduled presentation for your supervisors at work each week, you know there’s a time of month when finances get tight, or your family schedules a vacation that means a little more stress than R&R. Having a process for dealing with these expected stresses will limit their negative effects.
Stress is unavoidable in modern life, but it doesn’t have to get you down. Work, money and family all create daily stress, while bigger issues like the global pandemic and politics contribute to our underlying stress levels. But approach it the right way, and it won’t rule your life — it can even be good for you.
