Beat that stress - I

‘Human life’, from Stone Age to modern age has changed a lot, with respect to all the physical and mental challenges it faced. Not that I have to been to the Stone Age, but from all the history lessons it could be derived that life has more complexities in modern life.
But being humans we adapt, we change and are ready for our next challenges before we know it. In that race, we are often not able to address one of our worst enemies, ‘stress’. ‘Every human being has stress’, looks like a bold statement, right! ”But Gaurav, I am not stressed” you might say. Well, the question is not that you are stressed or not, because the possibility is that you probability don’t realize that you are.
My point is not to make you feel miserable about your lives as being stressed, what I want you to realize is the amount of stress you have, how to recognize is it, and change your lifestyle in a way to remove the possibilities of stress being originated in your life. “Well then, Gaurav tell me how do I know that I am stressed”. You might ask. Trust me recognizing stress in your life is not a big deal because it shows.
It shows on your face, your whole body reacts to it, the way you react to situations changes.
Effects of Stress
Physical effects: As I said, “your whole body reacts to it”. To name a few immediate effects, muscles tense in preparation of an activity, blood pressure increases more blood is pumped to these muscles, in turn respiratory system reacts, and further the body shut downs some functions like reduction of blood to kidneys and ceasing of digestive functions of the body.
Prolonged effect of these, skin becomes paler, increase in pimples, lowering down of metabolism and at the end affecting the immunity system.
“Heart disease and cancer are two major effects of stress.”

This is what I would like to call chain reaction of stress.

Causes of Stress

Believe it or not one of the major causes of stress is inadequate nutrition in your body. A healthy body needs its daily allowance of proteins, vitamins, minerals and omega 3 fatty acids which if not provide, reduces the capability of your body to fight stress internally.
The kind of lifestyle you have also determines the stress level you can handle. Sam who is enjoying his summer holidays, playing video games, watching TV, eating junk is prone to more stress than a construction worker. Yes, it indeed means, a more active lifestyle leads to less stress provided you have a healthy nutritional diet.

How to fight Stress?

1. Proper Nutrition: As I mentioned earlier, to increase the capability of your body to fight stress you need to have your daily nutritional allowance (DNA). For you to complete your DNA requirements, you need 4-5 servings of fruits, 8 – 10 eggs, lots of greens, chicken, milk, cereals etc.
That seems a bit too much to ask, right. First of all it is an expensive deal. Secondly, digesting so much food in a day is itself a punishment for your body. To overcome these hurdles, nutritional supplements could be of great help.
2. Exercise: Going to gym or aerobics is not the only solution. Going for a morning walk for 25 to 30 minutes and doing some basic exercise everyday could also do the trick (Look out for the videos of such physical exercises in my future entries).
3. Manage your sleep: Your sleep could hold a key to distress you. At least 6 hours of sleep is required for your body at a stretch in nighttime. Further, quick naps in daytime could also be helpful. I would stress on the ‘quick’ part, I mean to say, don’t extend it beyond 45 min. in any case because then it will work in the opposite direction. (Look out for my upcoming entries on stress.)
4. Positive mental attitude: Attitude changes a lot, make it a practice to do activities that have some positive effect on your precious brain. Activities such as reading positive books, watching a comedy or inspirational movie, and even having great companionship matters a lot.
Include all these activities in your Lifestyle and it is a surety you will have amazing results and yes even positivity shows.
So be merry and tell me how I can help you in achieving a stress proof life and I will do my best to help you achieve it.