Stressing out not best for your health

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Does stress affect our physical health?

Simply put, yes. There is actually a very strong correlation between stress and physical well being, especially when it comes to immune systems.

Those who cannot properly deal with stress have an overall lower life expectancy and are more likely to become ill. Studies have shown that stress can be related to heart attacks, strokes, minor and serious illnesses. Your emotional state is strongly correlated to your immune system, which helps your body fight off infections. When you are overcome with stress, your immune system decreases and you become more susceptible to contracting an illness.

In order to properly manage stress levels, we need to understand what stress is, what causes it and what we can do to reduce it.

Stress is the physiological and psychological response to a stressor, an event that causes stress. When most think of stress, they think of a negative event; however, stress does not only come from something negative. Any event that brings change into our lives causes stress, for example, getting married or having a baby. In most cases, these are positive life changes, but the extent of the change can cause a great deal of stress. Rather than trying to avoid making any major changes in our lives, there are other ways we can manage and better deal with not only major life changes but also those pesky everyday stressors that we all have to face.

There are two main ways of coping with stress: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping involves reducing, changing or eliminating the source of stress. Emotion-focused coping is used when you are unable to reduce, change or eliminate the stressor with problem-focused coping. Emotion-focused coping involves changing the way you react and feel about the stress. Just changing the way we respond to stress can greatly improve how much we are affected by stress.

Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of an issue, try to focus on the positive. For example, if you are trying to quit smoking, try not to think about how awful it is not being able to smoke and focus more on how quitting will affect your future health and how much money you will save.

Not all situations causing stress will have such obvious "positive" factors, but if you can't think of one then focus on how being able to stay relaxed will benefit your health. Don't let stress get the best of you.

Try to remember that being stressed out about something is just an emotional reaction; it will not help the situation and it is only causing you to become anxious. If you find it difficult to calm yourself emotionally, then try taking a few minutes to just sit and listen to your favourite song.

Source: Wood, Samuel E., Wood, Ellen G., Wood, Eileen and Desmarias, Serge. The World of Psychology. Toronto: Pearson Education Company, 2008. Print.