Donna L Brogan.com

As promised here is Part IV of my 5-part series on stress.  I hope you enjoy my post and will leave a comment with any other ideas or advice you may have.  Thank you and enjoy your day.

Have you ever walked into the next room to get something, and then wondered what you came to get? Or maybe you have forgotten a certain word you use all the time  -  you can picture it in your head, but you just can’t think of it.  Researchers and scientists are conducting studies that say this kind of memory loss, and even Alzheimer’s, is due  to poor nutrition.  Are you able to control the stress in your life, because this is so important to the health and well-being of your life.

As a person ages, a healthy level of antioxidants is essential to balance out the negative effects free radicals have on your body.  Free radicals increase in the body by exposure to things like pollution, household chemicals, cigarette smoke, and pesticides.  Stress is also a major cause of free radicals, along with having  an infection, and even when we exercise.

Stress and overeating are very close to each other.  When you are stressed you sometimes forget to eat or eat when you aren’t even hungry.  You eat all the wrong things not thinking about the consequences or even caring for that matter.

Managing Stress

Stress comes in many forms and affects people of all ages.  We can’t predict stress  in people.   It isn’t because you have a stressful job that you have stress in your workplace, just as a parent of one child may have more stress than a parent of more than one child. The degree of stress in our lives depends on individual things such as our physical health, the quality of our relationships, the number of commitments and responsibilities we have each day, the amount of other people’s  dependence upon us,  the amount of support and kind of support we receive from friends, family and co-workers.  It is also determined by the number of changes in our lives or traumatic events that have recently occurred.

Stress isn’t always bad. In small doses, it can help you perform under pressure and motivate you to do your best.  But when you’re constantly running in emergency mode, your mind and body pay the price, making it time to take action to bring your nervous system back into balance.  Your body doesn’t know the difference between physical and mental  threats. When you’re stressed out because of your  busy schedule, an argument you had with a friend or spouse, a traffic jam, or overdue bills, your body reacts to that specific thing and tells you it is time to take action.  Now!

What If We Don’t Take Care of Stress

Long-term exposure to stress can lead to serious health problems. Some of the things that may happen from not taking care of these symptoms are high blood pressure, susceptibility to flu or colds, the increase of heart attack or stroke, and definitely the speeding up of the aging process. If  stress is not taken care of properly and as soon as possible, it can even lead to anxiety and depression.

Each of us needs to determine what causes stress for us and how we respond it.  Start a journal and write down when something makes you feel down, how you reacted to it and what you did to deal with it. Keeping a stress journal can help you find out how much stress you can handle and then you can take steps to reduce it and handle it better.

Stress can be hard to deal with by yourself and it is okay to seek help if you need it. Talk with your doctor about what you are feeling and how it is affecting you. There are specialists that can help you find ways to know what is happening with your feelings. Those persons can also help you think about ways to reduce stress in your life.  The important thing is to realize you have stress and deal with it as soon as you can.

If you liked this post I would love for you to retweet it or leave a comment and let me know what you think.   Stay tuned for part 5 coming soon.  Have a great day.