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How Handling Stress Can Give You Better Relationships

 

Stress, if not handled properly, can cause many health problems. The most well-known are high blood pressure, bad digestion, and fatigue. But some other effects of stress are the constant worry, the constant feeling of tension, and the inability to focus. And these affect your relationships, if you do not have a comprehensive stress management system.

 

The result of failing to handle stress in a way that destroys the stress is interference with your relationships. Even if the stress has nothing to do with the relationship. The inner tension that stress causes removes your confidence, so it is harder to talk to people. It distracts you, so people you are involved with feel like you aren’t listening to them. And stress prevents you from focusing, which interferes with conversation, remembering anniversaries and birthdays, and not focusing on interacting with your partner.

 

There are innumerable stress management systems available. You can try individual counseling, group counseling, or education. Most of these programs recommend that you somehow avoid the stress by meditating, repeating little sayings, or actually getting away.  But these programs do nothing to eliminate the stress.

 

A comprehensive stress management system may be just what you need. A comprehensive stress management would consist of:

 

-a program to attack stress, instead of merely avoiding it;

 

-a program for improving your health and fitness; and

 

-a program to teach you how to improve your skills at managing stresses.

 

The program would be in discrete modules, so you can learn it at your own pace, and refer to specific parts in the future. 

 

This type of program would be able to address the stress you are under, and help you eliminate or reduce the stress, and counteract the bad health effects of stress. If all you do is avoid or delay the stress, then you still have the stress, but now it’s probably under worse conditions. So you have lost ground in the fight. Sure, the meditating may have made you feel better. But you will feel even worse when the stress returns,

 

The comprehensive program outlined in this article strengthens you to resist the stress, instead of just “going to a happy place.” It also gives you the tools and skills to attack and eliminate the source of the stress. One thing that most stress management programs fail to teach you is how to improve your skills.

 

Effects of Stress

Before we have a discussion about stress, let’s define our terms. What exactly, are the kinds of stress that we are talking about? There are the physical stresses like lack of sleep or working nine hours digging ditches. There are the chemical or nutritional stresses that are becoming more common every day in America. Just have a soda and pizza and watch the people for a while. Then there are the emotional or mental stresses. I bet you’re talking about emotional stress.

Okay, let’s talk about emotional stress, but understand that all three kinds of stress can create the same effects of stress.

There are certain patterns that take place during times of stress, no matter what kind you want to talk about. Here’s a list of stress effects: circulatory changes, skin rashes, adrenal gland fatigue, lymphatic system slow down, intestinal track irritation…almost every symptom of the body will show the effects of stress.

So instead of looking at all the symptoms, which won’t do you any good anyway, let’s get to the cause and the correction of the cause of stress. Because no matter what the cause and effects of stress are, there are some powerful ways to reduce them.

Emotional Stress

Some people never “get over” a loved one’s death, marital breakup, or other severe stress. Never. These people live their lives in the constant presence of the past emotional stress. Even extensive counseling doesn’t help some people. Counseling at such times can be most important for a person, but counseling does not reset the emotional stress overload circuit breakers if they have been short circuited.

How many stressful life events can you think about which cause your “stomach to tie into a knot” or a queasy feeling to occur or tears to fill your eyes? The presence of these symptoms when thinking about an emotionally stressing event are a surefire indication that the emotional stress overload points need to be “reset” by you or someone close to you.

Have you ever seen a distressed person or a person completely frustrated, clap their hand to their forehead? Maybe you’ve done it yourself… recently. Why over the forehead?

It is no accident that placing the hand over the forehead is an instinctive reaction. Your body knows what it’s doing.

It has been discovered that on the skin of the forehead are located neurological “circuit breakers” which are associated with mental and emotional stress overload. The instinctive reaction of the person’s nerve system is to draw attention to these circuit breakers.

Think about the last time you went through a stressful situation. How about a school assignment that you had forgotten? What about that person you have to talk to but don’t want to? What about that event that’s coming up that you have to attend—and it’s the last thing you want to do? Think of “that one thing” that causes you stress.

In each of these situations, if you think about the one that causes you intensity, you may very well slap your hand to your forehead. You might even add a shake of your head.

The point is this thought is causing you stress and the job of your subconscious mind is to minimize the effects of stress by attempting to reset your emotional circuit breakers. So let’s do this for real. It will take 5 minutes and may very well change your life.

Find something moderately stressful. Think about it for ten seconds or to the point that this thought causes you a “gut feeling” of stress. You know what I mean? If it’s not there, add some sensations like movement, sound, color, or brightness.

Now, place your finger pads on your emotional circuit breakers; they are the two bony points on your forehead. Make sure you are thinking about that stressful episode at the same time you are touching your forehead. Hold these points with a slight stretching or tugging on the skin and you’re going to reset these circuits. The contacts should be held until a slight pulsation (like taking your pulse on your wrist or your neck) is felt in both fingers simultaneously. This usually takes from 30 seconds to two minutes. Once the pulsation is felt, the contacts may be held for a few more seconds and then released.

This is a simple but powerful way for you to reset your emotional circuit breakers in relation to a specific episode of stress. It will dramatically reduce the intensity of the event. If not, do it again. Do it until the intensity goes down to zero.

How do you feel? You have just removed a significant effect of stress from your life.

The 7 Ways Stress Effects Your Health

All of us stress out sometimes, but there are times we are so stressed out it effects our health.Unknown to a lot of people, stress is a direct cause of a number of health problems. Many people dismiss stress as a result of overwork, but it is in fact a medical condition that can lead to more serious complications if not treated properly.Stress 101: Everything You Need to KnowFor such a fairly common problem, the public doesn’t really know a lot of information about stress. This is probably why most people just dismiss it instead of seeking treatment for it. In fact, here are a few interesting statistics that may just encourage people to take stress more seriously:

Two Main Types of StressThe first type of stress is a good type of stress. This stress is called eustress. The other type of stress is called distress or chronic stress. This type of stress is the one that is harmful for the body.As serious as Chronic stress can be it is hard to detect. Most times chronic stress will go be undetected until symptoms arise. By then it means that the chronic stress has progressed and at this point it is treatable but is much more difficult than if caught early on. What Could Happen With Prolonged Stress1. Depression Depression is a side effect that is commonly seen in people with chronic stress. Depression is a serious condition that effects not only you physically, but emotionally, and economically. It not only makes your tired, but sad and from being sad it effects your willingness to go to and perform at work.2. AnxietyThis is a condition very similar to depression but also quite different. Physiological effects can be seen in the body when anxiety and depression occur at the same time.3. Heart Conditions Although stress is not a direct cause of heart attacks, it certainly plays a huge part in the process.4. Diabetes This illness is characterized by the unnaturally high levels of sugar in the bloodstream. It has been said that stress is one of the most common reasons for the irregularity in glucose levels in the blood.5. Hair Loss There are times a couple of weeks after a stressful situation occurs that clumps of hair will fall out. Although most of the time hair loss is blamed on genetics, stress is a common cause that is commonly overlooked.6. Excessive Weight Weight gain is extremely common when someone is under a great deal of stress. Stress slow your metabolism and causes people to over-eat to have the endorphins, a chemical in the body to be released when the stomach is full. Endorphins gives you a temporary high that chronically stressed people enjoy. These two factors can be deadly to a healthy physique.7. Loss of Libido Now, if the last 6 steps didn’t convince you stress is a serious problem this will. Libido is diminished when there is severe or prolonged stress in a persons life, and for some reason or another this condition is more commonly found in men than women.Although these conditions are severe there are many more conditions to consider. These are simply the most reported. However these conditions alone should be enough to make you reconsider your options for medical treatment. It is best to catch the problem before it’s too severe to treat.