What Is Stress? Stress is a psychological and physical response by your body to anything that is perceived as a threat or a challenge. Stress can be caused by either a negative challenge (like a death in the family) or a positive challenge (such as a wedding). When you experience stress, your body acts like an alarm system. In today’s society, it is hard to fight off or run away from mounting stress. But you can do something about it. While you can’t completely avoid stress, SecondsCount can help you minimize
it by changing the way you deal with stress, including: - Maintaining a positive approach to life - Setting realistic expectations of yourself and other people - Identifying any unhealthy ways you might be coping and instead choosing healthier ways to relax and manage stress.
What you may not realize is that stress has a significant impact on your brain. 1 When your brain is under stress, it goes through a sequence of reactions, some beneficial and some poor, to mobilize and protect itself from potential threats. Stress can sometimes assist the mind sharpen and improve the ability to remember specifics about what is going on. Stress has a bad impact on both the body and the mind. Stress has been discovered to have a wide range of harmful consequences on the brain, ranging from contributing to mental illness to reducing the brain’s volume.
Coping Skills -
Connect with others.
- Maintain a normal routine. - Talk, listen, and encourage expression. - Take care of yourself
How Can Stress Affect You? Long-term activation of your body’s stress response system, along with prolonged exposure to cortisol and other stress hormones, may put you at risk for health troubles such as: - Anxiety - Weight Gain - Sleeping problems - depression -Headaches -digestive problems
Most Effective way to reduce stress
Taking a walk by yourself outside can be a great way to reduce your stress. The idea that spending time in nature can make you feel better is intuitive. We all feel this to be true, and many of us have anecdotes of our own or from friends or family that support that idea. Research published in Environment and Behavior has shown that access to nearby nature acts a buffer to these stresses, especially in children.