We live and work in a world where stress seems unavoidable. In fact, it seems directly related to success. In other words, if you’re NOT stressed…you’re not doing enough.
While stress will inevitably play a role in your life, it is critical to understand the weight it holds when it comes to your health. Everyone has their own tips and tricks to deal with it, but today we want to focus on why managing that stress is critical not only to your success, but your overall health and well-being.
Stress diminishes the brain functionality. Any high-stress situation forces chemicals such as dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine to rise. This results in increased heart rate, blood pressure, and even weakens your immune system. While that may not sound so bad on an individual situation, consider how often you enter those high-stress situations. Over time, more serious problems begin to fester such as stomach ulcers, asthma, and even heart disease.
Your body naturally adapts to stress. Don’t misread that fact…when it comes to chronic stress, adapting is not something you want to do. While you may feel more inclined to handle these situations, it doesn’t lessen the effect they have on your body. It’s important to stay aware of what you’re putting yourself through so that you can handle it accordingly. On the physical front, stress produces tense muscles, musculoskeletal conditions, digestive issues, and fluctuation in appetite.
Stress literally invades your headspace. This might seem obvious, but the mind is probably the most susceptible to stress. It disrupts our focus and decision-making process, often leading to even more stress that wasn’t even there before. It promotes itself. When you let these feelings fester without a clear process to deal with them, you open yourself up to feelings of anger, depression and insecurity.
Stress disrupts all the hard work we put in every day to keeping our bodies in shape to support our lifestyles. If we could see on a daily basis the effects it has on every single part of us, we would be more inclined to relax. You might be asking, “How can I possibly relax?” and that’s a valid question. Like we stated in the beginning, in most industries, stress is inevitable. That’s why it comes down to how we react to seemingly stressful situations every. single. day.
Look out for our next article on some of the different ways you can handle your stress. Remember – you can’t always control the situations you’re put in, but you absolutely control how you react…and that can make all the difference.