How does
stress affect health?
The good, the bad and the ugly...
How does stress affect health?
There's "good"
stress as well as "bad" stress, and each kind
affects health differently. But let's start by answering
that
question
with a simple, basic definition
of stress.
The definition
of "stress" in general is any
opposing intention, reaction or force to your own intention,
reaction or force that causes strain or tension.
This
strain or tension can be mental and/or physical. This
is the basic definition of stress.
An example of this
definition is walking your dog and all of a sudden
he wants to run another direction. The dog has an
opposing intention to
your own. Can you give an example of this definition
of stress?
We're familiar with the concept of negative stress,
but life depends on stress in general, which is an essential
factor in achieving happiness and the feeling of freedom.
Most
of the available information about the physical effects
of stress
only
discuss how
stress
affects
health negatively, only the negative aspects of the question, "how
does stress affect health?' But there is positive
as well as negative stress, and positive stress is essential
to improving health and happiness.
It's important to
look at all aspects of the question, "how does stress
affect health?" in order to successfully handle it!
To define stress completely, meaning the kind of stress
that we deal with personally every day in living life,
there's another part to the definition of stress. This
will help us to completely understand the concept of
stress, the emotional and physical effects of stress
- and open the door to how to handle stress!
The definition of a problem, similar to the definition
of stress, is an opposing intention or force of some
kind. A problem doesn't necessarily cause stress or tension.
The main characteristic
of a problem that becomes stressful is feeling like
we can't do
anything about it.
Not all
problems are stressful when we feel that we can do
something about them, no matter how much or how little.
Back to our main question then: How does stress affect
health?
Negative stress that is caused by long-term unsolved
problems is the kind of stress that you can read about
everywhere. There isn't a part of your physical or emotional
health that escapes the destructive results of stress
from the types of situations such as:
- Long-term financial problems (unsolved)
- Upsetting long-term relationships (that you feel
unable to solve)
- Physical conditions (that you feel you have no positive
effect upon)
I'm sure you have your own list
of situations that are stressful and seem never- ending...
Those "never-ending" situations,
those that are long-term problems that we don't have
a solution for, are the things that affect our health
negatively.
This kind of stress produces
hormones in your body that are intended for short-term "run
for your life" responses, not for chronic, long-term
situations. These hormones and chemicals are destructive
over the long haul.
Imagine a monster's foot squishing
you down for an indefinite span of time. This is
an analogy of how
long-term unsolved
problems mess up your physical and emotional health.
This is a "visual" of the answer to the question
how does stress affect heath. Very poorly, if you
feel you can't do anything about it and the stress
continues.
Okay, so we see how
stress messes us up... but how do we handle stress?
What are ways to deal with
stress?
There is another
side of the "stress coin" that
is far more powerful than negative stress. That is the
feeling that you get when you overcome some barrier,
hurdle or challenge in life. That is where happiness
comes from.
Let's take the monster foot squishing us for example.
We feel worse and worse physically and emotionally, maybe
first annoyed, then angry, then fearful. We might feel
like we're going to croak and cry all the way to feeling
totally apathetic about solving the problem. That's what
chronic negative stress can do.
But what if we decided we could solve the problem of
big monster foot by say, tickling it with a feather?
Or blowing it away with a stick of dynamite?
Immediately we feel hopeful about doing something
effective about it and feel more energetic. We
attack monster foot with a feather... we hear a roar
of laughter and <gasp!> monster
foot has run off! We feel relieved, ecstatic
and full of life again because we've solved the problem.
Positive
emotion generates certain hormones that contribute to
a healthy body and mind. So how does stress affect health
in this case? It's good!
Of course, this is an imaginary example to illustrate
how chronic, negative stress affects health, and just
as important, how stress that you do handle leads to
positive health. Hopefully it makes it simple to see
that negative long-term stress, like the monster foot,
contributes to poor health. But overcoming stress has
the rewards of happiness and good health.
It is not necessary to have a solution to a
huge problem right away to handle stress. By
engaging in anything enjoyable and/or productive, you
will begin to beat back
the stress monster and create space for yourself. For
further information on how to deal with stress and some
useful stress relief tips, check out the articles on
stress
management and relaxation and how
stress can affect your lifestyle.
How does stress affect health? It depends on how you deal with it!
Cheers!
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