We’re wearing our stress like a badge of honor, bragging over how little sleep we had last night, how our weekend was spent rushing to reach the deadline, and how we’re too tired to take a break. This lifestyle appears to have reached epidemic proportions, with 63 % of Americans acknowledging feeling overwhelmed and more than a quarter citing a “great deal” of tension, according to a spring 2014 survey by NPR and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Several researchers suggest that our tight-knit commitment to stress is partially self-imposed. Most of us are simply addicted to stress; seeking the deadlines’ pressure or the explosion of incoming job emails as if they were caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs.
The good news, though, is that there are ways to interrupt this unhealthy loop. But as with any addiction, acknowledging that you are an addict is the first step on the path to rehabilitation.
Getting High On Stress
Stress is a biochemical mechanism that has developed to support us. Hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are released into the body in stressful conditions. Everyday life in the suburbs never involves fight-or-flight, but the same reflex agents can be a blessing to score a winning goal or give an impeccable speech. They summon our strength and turn off nonessential functions to funnel resources to muscles and the brain.
To get past time constraints or to find an escape from stress at work, we find ourselves searching for extra adrenaline boosters on top of what is already constantly afflicting our body. “We become adrenaline junkies, which leads to workaholism.”
Breaking The Addiction
Chronic stress, as many clinical findings have demonstrated, triggers a variety of long-term physical and mental disorders, including depression, mental impairment, cardiac disease, and weight gain. Symptoms such as insomnia, muscle aches, short temper, digestive issues, chronic colds, and anxiety can mean that stress is beginning to overtake you.
However, we can break the loop by making diligent attempts to ditch depression and relax. Released from this pressure, you will become more successful at work, healthier mentally and physically, and more appealing to others. Here are a few approaches to do this:
- Unplug: This would involve the disposal of the key cause of stress: your phone. Set internal guidelines, such as not checking the phone at dinner, or no emails for the whole weekend.
- Detach: Try to assign a name to the nagging, self-criticizing voice in your brain. When something comes up, respond with something like; “Thank you for sharing, Shelley, but I’m taking a little break now and I’m getting back to you later”. Psychologists have always discovered that we’re more able to cope with our issues when we talk of them in the third person than in the first person.
- Exercise: Working up a sweat is among the most sure-fire ways to alleviate tension while allowing you the ability to cause pent-up anger. Exercise releases a flood of endorphins that can replace your stress hormones.
- Relax: This guidance might sound like anathema, but relaxing Meditating doesn’t have to be still or silent. There are over 100 forms of meditation activities; from dancing to singing to eating, and they can last between 30 seconds and an hour or longer.
- Place yourself at the top of the list of things to do: Last but not least, make room for you-time. It could be a massage, a fitness exercise, an hour of solitude with a book or a box of art supplies, or a stroll in nature. Just make sure you ‘re doing it for yourself, whatever you do.
Reference: HUFFPOST
Photo de Andrea Piacquadio provenant de Pexels
