STRESS SOLUTIONS (STRESS PART TWO)

In a previous article I talked about stress and how it is detrimental to our health. Some stress is necessary to keep us motivated and some folk cope with stress better than others, it's an individual thing so don't ever think you are weak because you feel others seem to cope better than you. There are lots of therapies and strategies that can help but the first thing to do is identify what your stressors are, make a list, write it down if you have to.

So now you have decided what your stressors are my theory is this, find someone to help you, this can even be a good listener, and before you say there is no one to listen, that's not true, the Samaritans, will listen without making judgement, you would be surprised how this can help. If you really cannot find anyone to help, is there any point in worrying? what will worry achieve for it will make you ill. This does not mean you put your head in a bucket and ignore problems, no matter where you are in the world there are always agencies who can help and the first step is to recognise your problems and to talk about them this alone will lift some of the burden, bottling up worries in your mind will only increase the burden and lead to more pronounced physical symptoms.

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A TECHNIQUE TO DEAL WITH WORRY

This is a great little technique to deal with worry you will need first of all a large glass jar, with a tight fitting lid. It doesn't have to be an expensive jar a large washed out coffee jar is ideal for you are not going to keep the jar when it is full

The jar should be kept near to your front door as the idea is you place all your worries in the jar e.g. worries about work, money, health etc. You will also require something like string, or wool, you can have different colours for different things e.g. green for health, yellow for money, it really doesn't matter but the more you can relate to the worries the better.

You will also need a pair of scissors and you keep the scissors and wool/string beside the jar by your front door. For every worry you have cut a length of wool/string you think represents how big your worry is e.g. for a big money worry cut a piece of yellow wool 12 inches long say and for a little health worry cut a piece of green wool 1inch long and place them in the jar and replace the lid. I am sure you will get the idea.

Over time you will find the lengths you cut will get shorter and shorter until you don't see them as worries at all. When the jar is completely full and full of all your worries you can either bury it in the garden or put it in the trash can, then you can begin a new worry jar.

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Many problems in the scale of things are not really problems at all but if you have been under a great deal of stress for a long time and even if that original stressor has gone, it can still leave you in a stressed state and it can be hard to wind down and sometimes because you are so stressed you cannot see a solution, when there actually is one.

So the solution what can you do to alleviate the effects of stress? 

Well you need to reverse the physical manifestations caused by stress. In the previous article I wrote what happens in the body physically how the Sympathetic Nervous System initiates changes in our hormones and if these hormones are secreted for a long period of time it can be detrimental to our health. The solution is to instigate the opposite effect to the SNS and that is the Parasympathetic Nervous System, by triggering this we can slow down heart rate, incur slower deeper respirations, reduce blood pressure, antedote the digestive problems by instigating stomach motility (when stressed you can lose your appetite and food just sits there like a stone in your stomach, this is because the SNS takes blood flow and activity in the stomach and redirects it to the heart lungs and skeletal muscles SEE STRESS PART 1) All of this will enable you to relax and think clearly.

In the next article I will tell you how you can reverse the physical effects of stress and instigate the Parasympathetic Nervous System

Maggie Brown (Author)

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