the life of human being is full of stress. We respond to stress automatically, mostly out of habit to thousand of events in our lives. When the body react to an event or a situation that is emotionally disturbing and faced with such a situation, then various chemical reactions occur in our body like rise in blood pressure, heart beats, breathing problem and disturbed sleep pattern. A certain amount of stress is required by our mind and body to keep it ticking. But uncontrolled, unrelenting stress is not only harmful to our body, but it can also lead to unwise behavior such as alcohol and tobacco abuse. This in turn places us at even greater risk, health-wise. Life-threatening situations are rare, but our current life styles keep our body in a state of continuous imbalance. In the big urban cities, the urban environment, the fast life of the urban people, various other urban activities like commuting long distances, challenges in relationship and usage of drugs for instant relief result in stress.

There are various group of people who suffer from stress like the office goers, professionals, house wives, school children, drivers and the aged people. Thus it can be said that no people are relieved from stress in one way or another. | | Stress | Stress manifests itself in the form of many psychological and physical problems like anxiety, hopelessness, anger, helplessness, egoism, expectation, tension, constipation, irritation, depression, apathy, frustration, loss of memory, loss of mind’s balance and finally suicide. It has also been reported that people suffering from stress are more likely to be psychologically distressed than those who are not.

Stress has also been linked with many types of physical illnesses or disorders like peptic ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome, respiratory disorders like bronchial asthma, skin problems like eczema, acne, allergies, cancer, headache, backache, migraine, shoulder ache, high BP, spondylosis, palpitation, chest pain, heart attacks and chronic fatigue. Individuals affected by chronic stress are far more susceptible to other illnesses and terminal conditions because their immune systems are weakened when their metabolism is in a constantly stressed state. The most common symptom of stress is the complaint of “not feeling well”. No clinical reason has been found by medical practitioners for this manifestation. In short, the negative effects of stress can be highly visible such as illness, absenteeism, smoking, alcohol abuse, etc. But less visible are consequences such as bad decision making, negative internal politics, reduced creativity and apathy.

A person under stress cannot use his faculties to optimal limits and makes mistakes, which put him under more stress and so the cycle goes on creating a vicious circle. This leads to frustrations and mental and psychological weakness, which prevents the person from taking a firm grip on his life. Hence, it is imperative to get out of this vicious circle by exerting a little bit of will power. | | Causes of Stress | The main causes of stress are as follows: 1. Today, we can choose from many options and growth paths for our journey. If we are not careful, though, we can fall into the trap of merely exchanging one set of belief, one technique and approach for another. We can read and learn more but if the quality of our lives does not improve, we are no better off. 2. From the movement we are born, we became creatures of habit. We use our habits to face our minds of routine tasks and simplify our day-to-day existence. Habits are important. The problems occurs when we began to acquire habits regardless of whether they are good or bad, positively or negatively reinforced. Chronic stress response, then is simply a bad habit that needs to be controlled. 3. When the body react to an event or a situation that is emotionally disturbing and faced with such a situation, then various chemical reactions occur in our body. These chemical reactions are rise in BP, Heart Beats, breathing problem, mental imbalance, loss of memory, blood clotting and disturbed sleep patterns. 4. Our ancestors depended upon the stress response for life itself to flee from predators, to fight enemies, and to survive in a hostile world. Those who were successful in responding to the life threatening events survived, those who could not disappeared. Somewhere along the line, we developed into super responders, able to react immediately to almost any life situation, yet unable to control the way we react. As a result, stress wove its way into every aspect of our society and became a part of our lives that we work granted. One should understand that stress does not effect every person in the same manner. And what is extremely stressful for one could be a take walk for another. 5. The drug is not the way to good health but it is the way to further disease. Drugs usually cause temporary relief from any disease. Constant consumption of drugs may develop side effect or after-effects in the body. It has also been found that germs do not cause disease but the accumulation of filth, waste products or garbage inside the body invite germs to invade thereby causing disease. Thus we can say that stress manifests in the form of desire which further results into egoism, expectation, tension, indigestion, constipation, irritation, frustration, apathy, depression and finally, suicide. But a certain amount of stress is required by our mind and body to keep it ticking and for the proper functioning of the nerves. |