Stress

I ponder at the biological response to external situation know as stress. What is stress? Life can present situations or stressors that are perceived as a threat to one’s well being. The challenge of dealing with stressors which exceeds the person’s resources. This triggers the body's stress response which is to fight or flight. This is when we experience stress. We all have stress in our lives for example a traffic jams can causes us to be late. This can led to a stressful situation.

Stress is a part of life. We have to learn to cope with stress. This usually involves adjusting to events while attempting to maintain emotional balance. Life is an evolving process with constant changes. Our coping to life occurs as life changes, these changes are perceived as stressful. Changes are stressful because changes require us to adapt, to adjust. The change does not always have to be negative to cause stress, positive changes such as getting married or having a baby can be stressful.

We get into trouble when we encounter a number of changes within a short amount of  time. This usually  creates a feeling that we are not in control of events in our life. This feeling can lead to low self-esteem and may even contribute to the development of anxiety and depression.

Many individuals often experience illnesses in response to stress. The stress can also cause an illness to rear its head. Stress may also complicate an illness.  The effect of stressors that happens within a brief period of time may be cumulative and lead to serious problems. For example, when an individual experiences the death of a parent, get divorced, and lose their job within a brief period of time, they can be struggling to adjust to life events. This individual can experience a physical illness in response to the situation they are going through.

So how do we make the best of life? We learn to cope with life and stress. There are many easy and common coping strategies. I personally think this is a time in our life when we should reach out to God. This is an excellent time to grow in our relationship with God. We can reach out to our friends and work on maintaining emotionally supportive relationships we already have. Do not shut out your friends and family, this is often a response of some individuals. Some times we need to swallow our pride and ask others to help us.

Other coping mechanisms include lowering our expectation, life is not perfect. We need to be flexible in coping. Sometimes taking responsibility for the situation empowers us and helps lower our stress level. We can also work to resolve the situation. Many work toward resolve the situation by trying to change the source of stress. Other individuals deal with stress by putting distance between themselves and the source of stress. We often use several of the above coping strategies in order to cope with stressful events. Our individual personalities come into play with the differ styles and strategies of coping with stress. This can often complicate the situation. 

How can we cope with stress? Personally one of the most important thing we can do is to reach out to God, and friends. Friends can be a big help by listening to your situation. It helps to vent. It can lower your stress level. One can participate in other stress reducing activities which can be an excellent overall approach to coping with stressors which leads to stress. These stress reducing techniques involve taking care of your body by sleeping 8 to 10 hours.

Exercise is an excellent way to reduce stress. We need to pay special attention to our diet. This is where I mess up and eat a diet high in carbohydrates. I also crave salt and sugar when I am stressed.

Other ways to cope with stress include taking short breaks or a short nap less than 30 minutes, this helps lower your stress level. Self medicating with drugs and alcohol only make the situation worse. It also helps to avoid caffeine and nicotine.

While we all agree stress is a part of life, it takes its toll on all of us in varying degrees. How we deal with stress depends in large part on who we are. There are times Christians become stressed because they don’t trust God to provide the basic necessities of life.

Matthew 6:24-30 (KJV)

^"24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
²⁵ Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
²⁶ Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
²⁷ Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
²⁸ And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
²⁹ And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
³⁰ Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"

I think this maybe the key to why we get stressed in the first place. We worry!!! We worry about about everything. We worry about providing for ourselves and families. We stress over material things and money.  Many worry about making ends meet since many often live paycheck to paycheck. Other individuals become consumed by "things". They worry about maintaining their lifestyle also know as," keeping up with the Jones." God will provide your needs maybe not your wants, but definitely your needs.