From the monthly archives:

November 2008

Definition of Stress

Stress is an intrusion on your peaceful existence.  All of us strive to have orderly and peaceful lives.  We tend to develop well when we get into certain routines.  Human beings are all animals.  If you have ever owned a dog, you may have observed that the dog thrived very well on routine.  You had to walk the animal a certain time each day, it had to be fed at a certain time each day and it slept at a certain time each day.  The dog depended on a routine.

When the routine was broken, the dog would do things such as have accidents in the house, or behave in another destructive type manner.  This is because the dog was actually stressed out.  Why was the dog stressed out? Because his or her routine had been broken.

The definition of stress : Human beings behave the same way.  Parents often find that their children will behave much better when they have a set routine than if everything is pandemonium in the household.  Routines give a child a feeling of security, which is the one thing that a child wants most of all.

Many people will complain that their kids are unruly and do not want to go to bed on time.  Their bedtime “routine” involves telling their kids to go to bed.  It then escalates into screaming at their kids to go to bed to threatening their kids with punishment if they do not go to bed. 

The entire “go to bed” issue can be avoided if the parents simply set a bedtime routine.  Milk and cookies.  A bedtime story and being tucked in. Every night.  The children know what to expect and actually end up looking forward to bedtime.  This gives children an added sense of security, something that they really need in their lives. 

We all want to feel safe and secure, but as we get older, we realize that we cannot always count on things being the same.  We experience different incidents in our lives that turn our world upside down and cause us to feel stress.  Most of these incidents we cannot control, others we can control to a certain degree.  Some of us are fortunate enough not to experience these stressors until adulthood.  Others experience stress as young children. 

Stress can be pinned to an outside factor or something that we create in our own heads.  If we are creating self induced stress, chances are that something from the outside triggered this condition and the resulting response.

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How Stress Affects A Person

Just about everyone who you talk to nowadays will complain about being “stressed out.”  Thirty years ago, no one ever even used this term.  Today, however, it is a staple in most conversations.  We often refer to ourselves as being “stressed out” when we discuss our careers as well as our personal lives. 

Recent studies indicate that even children are “stressed out.”  Little kids, who shouldn’t have a care in the world, are becoming “stressed” due to activities at home or at school.  In most cases, they are simply inheriting the stress from their parents.

Psychologists who deal with “stressed out” individuals blame the current situation on everything from the foods we eat to our society.  Most agree that people today attempt to do “too much” and end up getting burned out. 

We all experience stress during the course of our lives.  There is a difference, however, in being constantly stressed out and experiencing stress due to a certain situation.  Anything that dramatically disrupts our lives is a cause for stress.   Most people recover from the stressful situation after it has been resolved or over a period of time. 

Other people tend to get stressed out all the time.  In fact, their entire life appears to be one big stress factory.  This is unhealthy and is gradually taking its toll on our society.  Each year, billions of dollars are spent on symptoms of stress.  There are dozens of prescriptive medicines on the market today that address stress and anxiety.  Millions of people are on some sort of medication for “stress.”

What has happened in the past thirty years that has caused us to become such a nation of stressed out individuals?  Is society expecting too much from us or are we expecting too much from ourselves?  Why are so many people suffering from the following:

  • Anxiety disorder
  • Social anxiety disorder
  • Obsessive compulsive disorder
  • Anorexia Nervosa
  • Depression
  • Panic attacks

Years ago, no one ever even heard of these conditions, now they are featured in every magazine you encounter.  There is a huge market to treat both depression and anxiety, which usually go hand in hand and are the offspring of stress.

Pharmaceutical companies are cranking out different anti-depressants all of the time.  These are said to be ‘better” than the other anti-depressants that they discovered a year prior.  Thirty years ago, no one ever even heard the term “anti-depressant.”  If you used that expression back then, people would think you were talking about something to do with your car. 

Today it seems as if every single person you encounter is “on something” for stress, depression or anxiety.  All of them can neatly be lumped into the same category and are caused by stress. 

Stress is usually at the root of all of the above psychological disorders.  It also affects us physically as well.  Stress has been linked to every disease known to man, including heart disease and cancer.  Clearly, it is not a good idea for people to be under stress.  But, as human beings, we are going to experience stressful situations.  There is no avoiding this fact.  Therefore, in order to really be able to help cure ourselves from being “stressed out” we need to know how to do the following:

  • Identify stressors that affect our daily lives;
  • Eliminate the stressors of which we can free ourselves;
  • Learn to deal with stressful situations in a healthy way 

If you are one of the millions of people who are feeling stressed out, you must take a look at the reasons why you are stressed out and try to do what you can to eliminate as much stress as you can from your life.  If you continue to be “stressed out” you will most likely find yourself taking some sort of prescription drug for one of the above disorders.  Taking prescription drugs for stress does not mean that you are “crazy.”  This book will discuss alternative ways to deal with stress, but as a last resort, you are better off with the medications than allowing your body to be battered by stress.

Life is way too short to go through it being stressed out.  And chances are that you will shorten your lifespan significantly if you continue to be “stressed out “ through the daily course of your life.  This is especially true as many of the things over which you may be stressed are minor, but have been blown up in your mind to be worse than they actually are.  

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually be able to go through life without being “stressed out” over everything and without drugs or medications?  This book will teach you everything you wanted to know about stress and how you can avoid this scourge that seems to be plaguing millions of people.

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