Stress

We all have stress in our life, and we all have different ways of coping with stress, whether we eat more comfort food, complain more, eat less, or just let the stress bug us! But do you know what stress is doing for your body?

Stress is a completely normal part of life, it’s our body’s way of saying that we are doing to much, that we have taken too much on. Stress is our body’s reaction to a change that we have caused. It is a feeling of pressure you can experience, caused by events that happen to you, around you, something that you do, or even just a few small things that add up! All these changes and pressures can cause your body to react physically, mentally or emotionally.

Some stresses can be good or exciting, like weddings, and graduations, while others like work deadlines, or taxes can cause you to stress and not give you anything to look forward to. Stress can be conceived as both positive or negative. At times stress can be helpful; stress can keep us alert and prepared to work on the task, it keeps us focused on the problem. Stress can keep you on your toes! However stress can also be bad when the stress is endless, if the job (or activity) causes constant challenges with no relaxation at the end.

Stress can even lead to headaches, an upset stomach, raised blood pressure, chest pains, and trouble sleeping. All of these are not good for your body. When you get stressed your whole body realizes that, and even if you are just emotionally, or mentally stressed, that stress will transfer to your body. Trouble sleeping is one of the most common side effects of stress, which can lead to numerous other problems. When you lose sleep to stress, you wake up the next morning more tired, and you will not have the energy that your body needs to survive the day. Your body will not have gotten the sleep it needs, and will physically begin stressing out trying to keep up with what you need to be doing.

It is important for you to realize when you are beginning to stress, because stress can creep up on you quickly! We’ve all had it happen before, stress really does have a way of creeping up on you (especially right around a deadline time). You need to make sure that you stay in control though, you can not let the stress take over your life. It is important that when you realize that you are stressed about an event, activity, relationship, or deadline, that you try to make a change.

When you realize what you are stressing about, and you can find a better way to spread out the work, or a different way to handle the situation, you can ease the stress. Just doing little things like becoming more positive, laughing more often, or learning to say no to some things (you don’t always need to do everything) can already help you get rid of some of your stress. Little changes can go a long way to help rid yourself of stress!

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Chrisi Keating
Santa Clara University
Communications Major