Stress - Health Web

• Physical Stress - This occurs when the body becomes tired and exhausted after heavy physical activities, such as exercise. The symptoms include body aches, muscle soreness etc.
• Mental Stress - "The stress" that most people normally refer to affects our feeling, emotion, mood and even our behavior.
• Oxidative Stress - It is the stress imposed on the body by free radicals. The source of free radicals can be external (pollution, UV radiation, etc) or generated by our body in time of stress.
• Metabolic Stress - Occurs when we are suffering from illness (fever, sore throat, infections, etc) and when we are recovering from surgery, fractures or other diseases.

Signs & Symptoms of Stress

The following are forewarning signs to watch out for when one is under stress:

• Mood or Behavioral Signals - depression, anger, overreactions, back pain, anxiety,  muscular pain, sexual disorders, impatience, tiredness, overeating, doing several things at once, emotional outbursts, increased smoking, disturbed sleep patterns, headaches.
• Stress Related Illnesses - Stress may also manifest itself as a recurrent attack of some illnesses without other
  indefinable causes. Some examples are: recurrent asthma attack, back pain, chronic stomach upset, headache, migraine, muscular ache and pain, skin rash, sexual disorder.

All these stress signals must be taken seriously, as ignoring them will only worsen the situation.

How Stressed Are You?

The stress process begins with the sources of stress, known as stressors. Stressors can be categorized into two groups: external and internal stressors. External stressors include physical environment (loud noises, heat, bright lights), social interaction [rudeness, insults), organizational (deadlines), major life events (death, promotion, life crisis) and the daily hassles in life (traffic jams). Internal stressors include lifestyle choices (caffeine, lack of sleep), negative self-talk (pessimistic thinking, self criticism), unrealistic goals and stressful personality traits (perfectionist, workaholic).

Holmes-Rahe scale is frequently used to check the stress level of an individual caused by stressors. The scale, devised by two American doctors, T. H. Holmes and R. H. Rahe, cites 43 positive and negative life events valued
according to the amount of adjustment needed to cope with them. The score shows that a person's psychological and physical well-being influence each other and is a good predictor of your future physical health.

Click for the Holmes-Rahe Scale interpretation of the results.

Ways of Reducing Stress

• Plan your time well in order not to have too many controllable major changes e.g. change of job, shift house, change in social activities, etc. (as stated in the Holmes-Rahe Survey) at the same time.
• Have a flexible attitude and be adaptable towards changes. Deal constructively with negative feelings.
• Try not to suppress grief and anguish in incidences that involves bereavement or loss of a partner through divorce or separation, or loss of family members through death. If necessary, share your problems with friends and family or consult a physician or psychologist.
• To exercise regularly - Our body will generate chemicals during stressful condition for the purpose of preparing our body for actions required during stressful events. These chemicals when accumulated in the body will bring forth various harmful effects from tiredness, fatigue to emotional disturbances and even diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Exercise helps to burn up these chemicals and helps the body to relax and recuperate before any future encounter with stress.
• Relaxation - Engage in relaxing activities such as hobbies, going for a holiday or taking up your favorite games or sports that helps the body to switch off from stressful events.
• Get enough sleep - Sleeping is still one of the best way for our body to recuperate. Once the body is well charged after a good sleep, you are able to face further challenges and stress better.
• The stress free diet - Changing your diet may help to increase your body's defense against stress. A healthy diet should consist of several elements. Among the most important are fresh fruits, vegetables, and fiber. If you eat meat, make sure it is lean, or remove the fat before cooking. Foods to be avoided during stress are sweet foods, animal fats, processed or refined foods, salt, caffeine and junk food.
• Dietary supplements - Most people may think that they are getting a good variety from their diet, but they might still be losing out on essential nutrients. These can be lost for several reasons:
  • Difficult to obtain really fresh foods.
  • Extremely short shelf life of certain nutrients in fresh foods e.g. vitamin C and the B groups that are rapidly destroyed during processing and storage, and by heat and light.
  • Over-washing or soaking of vegetables and fruits to get rid of excessive pesticides and insecticides causes nutrient loss.
  • Further destruction of nutrient due to overcooking. Lack of knowledge in preserving nutrients during cooking plays a major role in nutrient loss in foods.
  • Modern cultivation techniques can deprive fruit and vegetables of important nutrients.
• Due to incidences mentioned above, supplementation of certain nutrients might be important in certain circumstances where additional and fast replenishment of nutrients are required. For example, when you are under a great deal of stress or emotional trauma, you are likely to need more of the B complex vitamins, vitamin C, and mineral such as zinc, which the body uses up more quickly under stress. If your body couldn't obtain sufficient amount of these nutrients fast enough from food, supplementation with vitamin pills will definitely be greatly beneficial. This also applies to people who smoke, drink a lot of alcohol, take antibiotics, or are on contraceptive pills.
• IMPORTANT - Avoid stress enhancer such as: cigarette, alcohol, sugar, stimulant, caffeine and drugs.