From Distress to De-Stress

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As Wonder Women of the 21st century, we want to achieve, ace and acquire everything we set our minds to. But when life feels like a never ending stress test, it’s prudent to lower the pace, writes Behnaz Sanjana.

Are you overwhelmed by the number of tasks on your to-do list? Do you constantly feel unable to stay ‘on top of things’? Well then, you are ambling about in the black hole called stress, just like most people around you!
The USA documents that work stress causes 10 per cent of strokes. Three out of four doctor’s visits are stress-related and stress is the basic cause of 60 per cent of all human illnesses. That seems like reason enough to pack your bags for a relaxing get-away more often. Read on to know more.

Recognising Stress
Stress is a state of mental or emotional tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. When in stress, the body reacts with a stress response – fight or flight.

The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. It helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life – giving you extra strength to safeguard yourself. “Stress can be beneficial if it drives one to perform better. It pushes people to be more productive at work or in their personal life,” says Dr Puja Malhotra, a practicing health psychologist in Bahrain. If you need to ace that exam or nail that presentation, stress is what will push you to do your best. But if the levels of stress shoot up beyond one’s threshold, it can negatively affect one’s health, mind-set, work and relationships.

The most common cause of stress these days is trying to maintain a work-life balance. Change; such as a new job, marriage, divorce or a serious illness can also be stressful. “Parenting issues, the onset of puberty in teenagers and even happy events like the birth of a newborn can bring about stress in people and their relationships,” says Dr Puja.
Stress can manifest as increased anger and hostility, disturbed sleep, pessimism, lethargy and binge eating. “If not addressed in time, this can lead to anxiety and depression as well as serious maladies like cancer, high blood pressure, cardiac trouble, hormonal disturbances etc,” warns Dr Puja.

Unleash the Feel-good Factor
May-2015_Wellbeing2_01When the brain perceives any kind of threat, our bodily systems make significant changes to gear up to tackle it. For instance, the brain releases endorphins to relieve pain. Muscle tension increases to prepare for quick action. Heart rate increases, pumping more blood to the extremities so you can fight or run. Breathing gets shallow and faster to supply more oxygen to the muscles and body tissue.

“These physiological effects of stress are meant to be short term. Once the danger passes, the body should return to its natural state of internal equilibrium, functioning in perfect balance,” says Dr Amy Bowzaylo, clinical director and CEO of Intouch Integrated Chiropractic Spine Center. But what if stress is a constant companion, wreaking havoc to the body and mind? The answer is exercise.

“Exercise decreases stress hormones like cortisol, and increase endorphins, your body’s ‘feel-good’ chemicals, giving your mood a natural boost,” explains Dr Amy. She says that exercise helps release built-up tension in the body and is a platform for releasing emotional tension. It helps promote overall health and wellbeing, which can also lessen the experience of stress.

Besides all the physical ‘wow’ effects of exercise, some forms of exercise boost self-esteem and enable you to be more social, which can also be a great stress buster. Dr Amy advocates massage therapy as an effective way to deal with stress. A massage relaxes tight and painful muscles, increases the range of motion in the joints and improves circulation, thereby diminishing stress levels.

Still the Mind
Yoga brings together the mind, body and spirit. Besides stretching and toning the body, the deep breathing in all yoga postures helps reduce heart rate, blood pressure and tension in the body resulting from mental stress and creates a general feeling of wellbeing, says master yogi Weam Zabar, of Namaste Bahrain.

Elaborating on the importance of breathing techniques, Weam says: “Yogis noticed that animals with longer breaths (such as turtles, elephants and pythons) live longer than animals with short breaths (like dogs and rabbits). The breath and the mind are connected. When you’re stressed you’ll notice that your breath is shallow and restricted, as opposed to longer, fuller breaths when you are relaxed or sleeping. So, by lengthening the breath in times of distress, you will find your mind calming down. When you focus on your breath, you bring your attention to the present moment and you begin to disconnect from the worries that the mind creates.

On similar lines, meditation is said to stave off stress and bring on inner peace. Weam says: “Meditation is the art of being aware of what is. We become more skilful at being aware of our thoughts, filtering the ones we keep from those we let go of.”

Bad posture is another fall-out of frequent stress, and comes with its own aches and pains. When we ‘stress out’ and hold tension in the body, then that stress is stored in the body and remains there until we work through it and release it.

Weam concludes that we need to stop taking life so seriously, spend more time doing things we enjoy and be able to laugh at ourselves, especially when things don’t go our way.

By keeping our hearts and minds open we will be able to fully enjoy the gifts life brings as they come.