Monthly Archives: February 2013

Can You Afford It?

I think we all can, it’s just a matter of figuring out what strategy works best for each of us as individuals because what works for one doesn’t always work for another.  Everything that goes on in our daily lives can be considered some level of stress, the more you have on your plate, the more you have to manage and that can create stress.  Remember when you were young and the most you had to manage was who’s house you were going to play at?

Even though we have more technology to help us manage it all, we still even have to manage the time we put into that as well.  Crazy!  That’s like stress upon stress, no wonder some of us are so frazzled at the end of the day.

I have been told that I normalize stress, which actually seems to work in my favor because that adaptation provides me with the benefit of not having my stress affect my overall health and well-being.  It no longer feels like stress because I have altered my perception which has in turn allowed me to adapt faster than I would have in the past.

How do you deal with the everyday stress in your life?  Is it healthy and productive or dragging you down?

Stress can affect us medically in so many different ways and just as we are all unique, so is our internal reactions to stress.  Stress starts on the inside, it’s an emotion that can wreak havoc on your entire system and alter your quality of life either mildly or drastically.

Some of the ways I have noticed the effects of stress are:

–          Internalizing:  Holding in your stress is similar to holding in any other emotion.  It can only be bottled up for so long before it blows up and depending on what your breaking point is it could have either mild or major negative results.

–          Vocalizing:  Definitely not holding in stress but rather allowing it to have its effect in the current moment.  How beneficial this is depends on how you are vocalizing your disdain, whether it is very negative or if it is productive but healthy.

–          Projecting:  I believe that when someone is projecting it is a result of holding in the emotion and the negativity of holding it in is getting close to reaching its boiling point.  The projecting could be for a period of time before the final blow-up occurs and that is because the internalization method can no longer sustain it.

–          Physically:  Stress can cause mock symptoms of many different health issues and can even have your doctor wondering what’s going on.  I have experienced this dilemma and my doctor tried so many different medications for a year and was still stumped.  It wasn’t until I changed my physical presence in a situation that everything magically went away.

You could put two people in the same exact situation and each of them would experience it differently, same goes for how that situation affected them emotionally.  So it’s not far off to know that the stress and level of it would be completely different which is why it would be so difficult for a doctor to try to follow any guideline, the diagnosis for one may not or won’t be the same for the other.

I believe one of the healthiest ways to deal with any stress in your life is talking it out with a trusted friend because that friend may be able to help you work through it, whether that is just by listening or offering ideas and/or solutions to eliminate or at least reduce it.  Honestly just being able to talk it out with a friend has been my best defence against stress as well you get the opinion of someone who isn’t as close to your stress as you are.

Another healthy outlet for stress is humor, if you can find the humor in most situations it eases the level of stress, maybe not fully but enough to make it more manageable at times.  Plus a good dose of roaring laughter does relieve stress and tension, even if it’s only for a moment.