{"id":60444,"date":"2018-08-23T07:02:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T12:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=60444"},"modified":"2018-09-16T08:27:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T13:27:40","slug":"a-comprehensive-look-at-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/health\/a-comprehensive-look-at-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comprehensive Look at Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stress is a subject that I write about from time to time because I see all too often the damage it does to our health and wellbeing.\u00a0 <\/span>I see it from clients and I see it with friends.\u00a0 <\/span>And we happen to live in a society where the demands made upon us are unreasonable.\u00a0 <\/span>Whether your stress originates in the workplace, Yeshiva, family relationships, or a host of other areas, what we do know for sure is that long-term activation of the stress response system can disrupt almost all of the body\u2019s processes and increase the risk of numerous health problems. \u00a0 <\/span>Exercise, diet and sleep are definitely major factors in controlling our stress.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahron is a client who came for weight loss.\u00a0 <\/span>It became very apparent at our first meeting that he was under a lot of stress. He couldn\u2019t control his twitching and his body was tensed up all of the time.\u00a0 <\/span>After a few sessions we began to discuss his high stress level and the impact it was having on his weight and general health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest facts and figures on stress out of the United States are indeed frightening.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s start with financial stress.\u00a0 <\/span>In a survey of 3,000 adults over the age of 18, 75% reported feeling stressed out about money at some point, with some respondents saying they sacrificed health care because of finances.\u00a0 <\/span>But it is job-related stress that sit at the top of the list.\u00a0 <\/span>80% of workers say they feel stress on the job and nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage their stress. 42% notice and say that their co-workers need help with stress.\u00a0 <\/span>The cost?\u00a0 <\/span>Workplace stress causes healthcare expenditures of roughly $150 billion per year.\u00a0 <\/span>That is about 7% of all health care expenditures per year. <\/span><\/p>\n

Certain kinds of stress can indeed be healthy. If we had no stress at all, we wouldn\u2019t get things done and deadlines would mean nothing to us.\u00a0 <\/span>But when the reaction goes beyond the types of responses discussed above, not only can it be debilitating, it can be dangerous.\u00a0 <\/span>If your stress response is turned on too much of the time, and certainly ALL the time, it will almost always lead to serious issues – both psychological and physiological.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stress has been linked to a long list of sickness, including heart disease, depression, insomnia, anxiety and if we take the research of Dr. Kenneth Pallatier\u2019s (Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine) research, 85-90% of all illness is stress induced or stress exacerbated.\u00a0 <\/span>We now have evidence that chronically elevated stress shrinks the brain.\u00a0 <\/span>One of the biggest negative effects of stress is that it almost always causes sleep deprivation, which in turn intensifies our stress levels and that becomes a terrible cycle where one just gets more and more stressed and gets less and less sleep.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How do we deal stress and improve our wellness?\u00a0 <\/span>Although for many people this is something that needs work and needs professional help, there are certain things we can all do to help keep our stress in check.\u00a0 <\/span>There is an analogy I like to use with my clients who are working on stress management.\u00a0 <\/span>Imagine a very heavy chain around your neck\u2014too heavy to take off by pulling over your head.\u00a0 <\/span>The only way to take that chain off is to remove one link at a time.\u00a0 <\/span>It might take some time, but ultimately after enough of those links are taken off, the chain is light enough to deal with.\u00a0 <\/span>And so it is with our stresses.\u00a0 <\/span>We might be overwhelmed with our problems and issues, but it is only with tackling them one at a time that we can find a solution. <\/span><\/p>\n

You might have seen this list before of stress reducing steps, but it is worth taking a look again to see which of these will be helpful to you in order to help you control your stress:<\/span><\/p>\n