Are You Feeling STRESSED?!?

Medical research has proven that stress has a very negative effect on human health. No matter what your problem, stress can make it worse. In many cases, stress opens the door to illness; if there is a virus going around you’re a lot more likely to catch it if you’re frazzled, and type A personalities who are stressed by nature are far more susceptible to heart disease and cancer than their calm counterparts. We are human and can be weakened by emotional and physical pressure; even metal breaks under repeated twisting.

The catch-22 is that our society is pretty much set up to push us into high-pressure situations. Just keeping up with basic living expenses is a strain for those with little income. Conversely, keeping up performance levels and vying for top positions can be stressful if you are a big earner. Throw in family expectations, socioeconomic pecking orders, your love life and world terrorism, and you have the perfect recipe for hair-pulling anxiety.

However, here’s the interesting thing: You can expose a number of people to the same stressful situation and not a single one of them will react the same. Some will freak out and start chattering or fidgeting, others will clench their teeth and clam up, still others will simply disengage.

This leads us to the question: Is stress bad for us or is the way that we react to it bad for us? The answer is yes.

The truth is, our circumstances and the situations we find ourselves in are a combination of two things — what happens and how we handle it. Circumstances can present us with a dire situation, but whether it snowballs into health-damaging stress or becomes just a passing headache is almost entirely up to us. “Almost” is the key word here. Not all of our reactions are conscious. Some of us were programmed from an early age to react badly to stress. We were raised by parents who didn’t handle pressure well and we never learned healthy coping skills. And some of our emotional reactions to stress can begin at a genetic level; many anxiety disorders share common DNA. Recently, even pessimism was linked to a specific gene variant.

Does this mean that some of us are doomed to be torn apart by the slings and arrows of fortune? Not at all. It simply means that some of us have to make a conscious effort to react differently. New behavior can always be learned with enough effort and time. Even genetic tendencies can be counter-balanced. A study of heart attack survivors found that their risk of a second cardiac event was reduced by a whopping 74% if they took a stress management course. Here are some basic steps that can help to neutralize your sizzling nerves:

BREATHE. The next time you are tensing up, pay attention to your breathing. Most of us start holding our breath or limiting our breath intake the moment the pressure is on. This unconscious reflex not only raises our blood pressure, it reduces the amount of oxygen that is getting to our brains, so we act without thinking clearly. Breathing calmly and deeply will lower your blood pressure and alleviate sensations of anxiety.

STEP BACK. If someone is standing in front of you screaming at the top of their lungs, there is no reason you have to join in. The more negative energy that is thrown into a situation, the more likely it is to explode in everyone’s face. Are you the kind of person who gets angry with everyone who disagrees with you or gets in your way? Type As tend to make mountains out of molehills. Cut it out! Are you late for an international flight? No? Then let the asshole cut in line in front of you. It ain’t the end of the world.

LIFESTYLE. Do you exercise? Do yoga? Meditate? Enjoy the company of supportive friends? All of these have the effect of releasing stress and tension. If you do nothing but sit and stew in your own juices, you will breed monsters. Too many of us lead sedentary lives of forced tasks and repetitive movements. We were not meant to live in chairs. Everyone has a list of reasons that they don’t have time for workouts or alpha waves. But just wait until that first heart attack and see how much time you suddenly have. There’s nothing like three months of forced disability leave to put things into perspective.

Life is a series of choices. We can’t always choose what happens, but we CAN choose not to let it get to us. A new year brings new opportunities. Choose well.