Stress has been part of our life. We all have experienced stress, pressures, noise, relationship problems, pollutions, finances and insecurities are only some of the common causes of stress. Stress should be monitored because it can contribute great impact on our health conditions and can cause damage which can be fatal. The consequences of stress affect our body, mind and emotion.
How stress can affect our bodies? Most people are familiar with the idea that stress could cause headache or high blood pressure, but stress can actually affect a lot more. We all have stress in our bodies, and we go through different types of stress. For example, when we got job promotions and you got more responsibilities that would put more pressure on you but if you are having a positive response, this could help you grow. There are also times when you need stress when your body are in a potentially dangerous situation. Stress can help us be more alert and help us pass danger. However, if we go through chronic type of stress, we are going to have negative effect on our health. It becomes distress and that continuously were facing challenges which resulted to become overworked and that stress builds and builds.
Stress could also lead to a lot of physical symptoms like affecting your respiratory system and cardiovascular system. One of the things that alter is the type of neurotransmitter or brain chemical that our body will make. For example, when we are under stressed, thing called Epinephrine also called as adrenaline. This adrenaline rush comes when we are scared or when we are running on a race, those things our bodies make in response to. That chemical could help speed up heart rate that’s why we breath faster, then we start to sweat, the blood pressure goes up and you are using more oxygen going to your muscles and more blood circulations occur. When you start breathing faster, you are getting more oxygen in the body and you can run faster. You can have a high level of adrenaline.
Not only the body but also psychological feels the effect of excessive stress. First are thoughts, difficulty in thinking correctly, faulty memory and lack of concentration, mistaken concepts etc. Second is emotions, constant tension, fear of losing someone, impatience and irritability, insecurity etc. And last is behavior, habitual absence from school or from work, difficulty in sleeping, mood swings etc.
The question is what do you do to address those problems on stress in our lives? So of course, you must identify all sorts of stress. Trying to address the stress and the stressor situation. Don’t be afraid to seek out for help. Sometimes there are stressor that come from work. So, by addressing your boss talking about looking at different work hours or can allocate workloads, those kinds of things could reduce stress. As much as possible work out for those kinds of stressor. Meditation, yoga and simple breathing exercise will do. When we can take a deep breath going down our belly that could be something that could really help to lower the level of adrenaline and increase the level of brain chemicals that are calming, then you are eventually relieved.
By: Lizette Ivy R. Calayag| Administrative Assistant II | Department of Education | Balanga, Bataan
