Steem4nigeria Accelerator Contest Week 68: What is the best way to handle stress?

Hello friends, Welcome to my blog! Let's discuss STRESS.

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The term Stress:

Our body has a way of responding to threats or burdens and this may be physically or psychologically displayed. These complex situations and responses have a way of undermining our health. Therefore, those changes our body exhibits due to the overbearing pressure from challenges and tasks are known as stress. This is man's silent enemy.

Types of Stress:

We have two types and they depend on their severity of occurrence.

1. Acute Stress - These are the usual ones we see every other day that we may term beneficial due to their motivation to respond to challenges. However, they are short-term kinds of stress from tasks and duties.
2. Chronic Stress - unlike short-term stress from acute stress, they are long-term stress over a prolonged period and, if unchecked,d, could lead to health breakdown.

Causes of Stress

There are different causes of stress. They include;

• Environmental factors from pollution and noise
• Work and Duty calls from our jobs
• Health factors from underlying illness
• Relationship factors from connections with others and conflicts
• Lifestyle factors - sedentary activities and deaths of loved ones.

Responses to Stress

Each time we are stressed, it is normal that our body system responds to it. This may include the following ways;

• Release of body hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to help fight this threat.
• Energy mobilization through a concerted effort to either respond to threat or escape from it.
• Through physical changes, we notice increases in heart rate, blood pressure, or palpitation.

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Effects of Stress:

Over time, stress has been seen to affect humans through the different side effects.

1. Physical Side Effects - We observe fatigue, headaches, poor immune system, digestive disorders, etc
2. Emotional side effects- we observe anxiety, irritability, and depression. One of the foremost causes of suicides.
3. Cognitive side effects - we observe loss of concentration and memory loss as major concerns.

How to Manage Stress

There are various stress management strategies available today. These have been proven to help in reducing these stressors to a minimum. Some of these ways include;

1. Exercise - Physical exercises and other structured activities are the best ways to handle stress levels.
2. Meditation and Relaxation- We owe ourselves this major way of reducing stress. This helps reduce anxiety and as well enhance mental stability.
3. Healthy meals - We do not need to continue with junk and unhealthy meals. A balanced diet goes a long way in curbing stressors.
4. Sleep and Rest - adequate sleep time and rest are essential to help remove stress from us.
5. Socialising with friends and loved ones - This is one way to help get motivation and emotional support that aids in reducing stress levels.

I am a senior sales personnel and hence saddled with the responsibility of undergoing acute stress. I have tried so much not to slip into the chronic stress category. Job tasks are indeed tasking as targets are mostly sacrosanct. In achieving this, we fall into the comfort of stress unknowingly.

It is one to know you're stressed, and the other to quickly retreat and find solutions immediately. In doing so, I try as much as possible to have a minimum of 8 hours of sleep time, do my weekly exercises, and have a good meal time with my loved ones.

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Stress has never been termed a solution to our challenges but rather a complicated issue for us. It rather depreciates our lifespan and health in general. While stressing about achieving set goals, we also end up depreciating our performance unknowingly.

As intentional people, we need to continuously work around times to boost and control incidences of stress. Reducing our stress levels should be one way of solving our challenges rather.

Thank you...