Zen Please – Make Life Easier

[digg-reddit-me]Destressing and relaxing are extremely important to our overall health. Physical and mental health problems due to stress are increasing at an alarming rate today. Our lives are consumed by distress and stress from the time the alarm clock goes off, and the time our heads hit the pillow. They affect our lives in many different ways. They often create undiagnosed health issues that go untreated.

Distress is defined as extreme mental pain or suffering. Stress is the reaction of your body different changes it is confronted with. They can cause both physical and mental health problems. Our bodies can react to stressors physically, mentally, or emotionally. These reactions can cause medical problems that doctors often misdiagnose.

Our bodies need a certain amount of stress in our lives. It keeps us sharp and helps us avoid many dangers in our lives. Destress and stress become damaging when our minds and bodies do not have enough time between stressful situations. Normal stressful situations that are not resolved can cause distress. Distress can lead to serious health problems.

Some of the adverse health problems caused by distress and stress are:

• *Headaches: A very large percentage of all headaches are caused by stress. Relaxing and alleviating the stressful situation can relieve the headache.
• *Upset stomach: Stomach issues can appear almost instantly in reaction to stress.
• *High blood pressure: Stress can cause your blood pressure to rise and increase your risk of cardiac issues.
• *Anxiety: Stress can cause extreme anxiety.
• *Insomnia: Stress can cause sleep disorders.
• *Fatigue: Distress and stress can cause extreme fatigue and tiredness.
• *Immune System: Prolonged stress can damage your immune system.
• *Depression: Stress can lead to manic depression.
• *Mental breakdown: Untreated stress can cause a complete mental breakdown. This mental breaking point is different for every person. It is not known why some people can handle stress better than others.

These are just a few of the adverse affects of stress on our bodies. Study continues on the negative effect of stress on our physical and mental state. Research also shows that stress can make any disease worse. People will often try to alleviate stress through the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. Studies show that the use of these substances only makes stress worse, and can lead to distress.

Stress can be caused by many situations in our lives. It can be something as simple as rising fuel prices. Some common causes of stress are:

• *Relationship conflicts: Conflict with other people is one of the number one causes of stress. How we deal with conflict in relationships is very important in lowering our stress levels. Each of us “Deal” with relationship conflicts differently.
• *Financial: Financial problems cause severe stress and can lead to distress.
• *Change: Change can trigger stress. Any kind of change confronting us can trigger stress. It can be as simple as roadwork or a traffic jam. Changes often trigger stress on top of other stress. This increased stress can lead to significant distress.
• *Nutrition: Quite often we do not have time in our busy lives to eat properly. Poor nutrition causes physical stress on our bodies. Proper diet and nutrition is critical to lowering your stress level.
• *Exercise: Lack of exercise can lead to undue stress in our lives. Exercise is also a way to eliminate stress. Regular exercise can increase blood flow and relieves muscle tension.
• *Negative attitudes: Being around people who are negative can cause stress. Watching depressing and negative news can cause stress. Being positive is important to relieving stress.
• *Cultural problems: These problems include things like war and politics. The problems that face the country you live in can be stressors.

Any change that faces us in our lives can cause stress. Learning to deal with these changes is essential to our health and well being. Each of us will deal with stress in different ways. Often, we do not realize that stress is affecting us. A huge percentage of all visits to doctors in America are caused by stress related illnesses. Often, our doctors will not recognize that the illness is caused by stress. This can end up making the illness worse because the root cause, “stress” is not treated.

Learning what causes us stress and relieving it is important to our health. It can add years to our lives. You should always discuss the stress levels in your life with your doctor. It will often affect the treatment plan for your illness.

The first step to relieving stress is to understand its cause. Doctors will often send you to a therapist or your church pastor. Talking about the changes and issues in your life will lead you to the cause of your stress. Some things you can do to relieve stress are:

• *Nutrition: Eating properly is the first step in dealing with stress. Eating a proper breakfast is the foundation for your day. A good balanced diet is a very important part of reducing stress.
• *Exercise: Exercise is a natural stress reducer. It breaks down the tension in our muscles and body. It also increases blood flow and clears our minds.
• *Breathing: Deep breathing exercises will decrease stress levels. In our modern lifestyles none of us breathe properly. Most take shallow breathes which only provide oxidized blood to our major organs. Deep breathing exercises and training ourselves to breathe properly will significantly reduce our daily stress.
• *Meditation: Meditation can help us reduce the stress in our lives. Meditation is often used in conjunction with deep breathing exercises. You can use meditation to train yourself to handle change in your life in a better way.
• *Spiritualism: Attending church and praying has been shown to reduce and eliminate stress.
• *Therapy: If stress evolves into distress in your life you may need to see professional help. Talking about your problems can often help you cope with them.
• *Communication: Learning to communicate effectively with family, friends and co-workers can help you deal with stress. Communication leads to positive attitudes in your life. Positive attitudes in turn lead to less stress.

Each of us has different stress levels in our lives. Science does not understand why stress affects each of us differently. Learning to relieve distress and stress will enrich and lengthen your life. The first step is to understand that distress and stress are present in your life. Discover the cause and effect and you can then learn to relieve it.