Don’t Let Stress Control Your Life
Improving Your Health by Reducing and Managing Your Stress People have always been under stress, but the stressors of today are more constant. They begin as soon as you get out of bed in the morning and continue until you go to bed at night. This is especially true for women, who are frequently juggling the demands of household duties, a job, family and friends. These everyday stressors of your daily grind build up over time, causing a significant detrimental effect on your health. There are many steps you can take to handle stress and live your life to the fullest.
However, chronic stress, be it positive or negative, can affect your health in a variety of different ways. It causes your insulin and cortisol levels to rise and can eventually culminate into adrenal fatigue. Chronic stress impairs your immune system, making it more difficult to fight off infections. It can also lead to weight gain.
Four Major Steps for Stress Management
How you respond to the stress in your life is much more important than what actually causes that stress. But what do you do to either decrease the stress in your life or manage how it affects you? There are ways to handle the stress so Benita Swartout, D.O. that it has less of a detrimental impact Stress and Your Health on your life. There are four major steps that I recommend to manage your stress: Anything that causes you to adapt is a form of stress. It’s not always negative u Regular exercise. A regular exercise — there are positive stressors, as well. program can drastically reduce the For example, welcoming a new baby into stress levels in your life. With exercise, the family or throwing a wedding may you will feel less stressed overall be positive stressors. Negative stressors and you’ll be able to manage your include such things as car accidents — response to stress better. or even very minor incidents, such as u Proper nutrition. A healthy diet is very effective in reducing slamming on your brakes to stop quickly. and managing stress. Certain foods, such as refined carbohydrates, can have a detrimental effect on a stressed You actually need some stress in your life. It’s a motivating body. factor. When you have a due date for something, whether u Quality sleep. You need 7 or 8 hours of quality, non-drugthat’s an assignment at work, a personal goal, or anything induced sleep every night to give your body an edge in else, it’s the stress of that approaching date that motivates managing stress and combating the negative effects of you to take action to complete a task on time. Without stress, your daily stressors. it can be very difficult to stay productive and accomplish everything that you need to do during the day. u Relaxation techniques. There are many techniques, including yoga, meditation and deep breathing, that can help you to relax and reduce the detrimental effects that stress can have on your life and your health.
Different Stressors
for Different People
What one person finds stressful, another may not. It’s not the cause of the stress that’s important — it’s how you react to it. For example, you may have difficulty dealing with the long line at the grocery store, but you may have no trouble at all with a fast-approaching deadline for a major project at work. Meanwhile, a friend may breeze through grocery lines while feeling overwhelmed by a project deadline.
By following these simple guidelines, you can reduce your stress levels and help your body respond to stress in healthy ways. These positive responses to stress can drastically reduce the health risks posed by chronic stress.
Relaxation Techniques to Try When the effects of stress weigh in on your life, you can find quite a bit of relief through different relaxation techniques. If you’re looking for formal, structured guidance in relaxation,
Long-Term Effects of Stress Stress can have many long-term effects on your body, so it’s important that you learn how to manage your stress and minimize it as much as possible. Studies have linked an increased risk of a variety of chronic health conditions to stress, including cancer, heart disease , diabetes and fibromyalgia. And if you already have one of these conditions, you may not respond as well to treatment if you’re experiencing constant stress. Beyond Fitness, Nutrition and Sleep While exercising, eating right and getting enough sleep are the three biggest steps to managing your stress, there are other things you can do, as well. You may feel better if you add some of these activities: n Humorous entertainment n Volunteer work n Weight loss n Prayer or meditation
you can learn a great deal through relaxation classes and instructional relaxation videos and tapes. You can learn to relax your body from head to toe. Yoga and meditation can also be very formal. You can learn many relaxing breathing techniques and how to take yourself into a state of extreme relaxation. But you don’t have to follow structured, formal programs to learn how to relax. Find a quiet, comfortable spot to relax, such as your favorite chair in a quiet room, and let your mind go blank. Or, close your eyes and think about a relaxing, calm environment. I like to imagine lying in a shaded hammock between two palm trees while Caribbean-blue water slowly laps against a white-sand beach. Informal breathing exercises can also be very relaxing. Take two or three slow, deep breaths from down deep in you abdomen — what I like to call your seat-belt muscles. These cleansing breaths
are very simple and easy to do any time you feel stress creeping up on you.
The Root of the Problem While stress can come from anywhere, there’s a hormone at the root of the problem: cortisol. Your cortisol levels rise when you feel stressed and many of the detrimental effects of stress are actually due to increased levels of cortisol. But it’s important to remember that all your hormones are linked — they work together to keep your body functioning. When one hormone is out of balance, the rest of your hormones are affected, as well. That’s why it’s important to manage your hormone levels. The proper harmony between your sex hormones — estrogen, progesterone and testosterone — will help you keep your cortisol levels in check and help you control and manage your stress.
To learn more about stress management and reduction and how bioidentical hormone replacement therapy may help, visit www.bodylogicmd.com or call my office at (866) 972-6076. More about BodyLogicMD Founded in 2003, BodyLogicMD physician-owned practices make up the nation’s largest and fastest growing network of the most highly trained physicians specializing in natural bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Integrated with fitness and nutrition programs, BodyLogicMD’s medically supervised programs are for men and women suffering from hormone imbalance associated with menopause and andropause. BodyLogicMD is currently featured as an expert resource on Oprah.com; Suzanne Somers’ latest bestselling books “Knockout: Interviews With Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer And How To Prevent Getting It In The First Place” and “Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness” lists BodyLogicMD as an expert resource, and her book, “Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones” dedicates an entire chapter to BodyLogicMD. Florida Trend cover story December 2009, features BodyLogicMD as the national leaders in the growing anti-aging industry; BusinessWeek cover story March 2006, features the BodyLogicMD business start-up story.