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natural health articles > are you feeling the pressure?
are you feeling the pressure ?
Today we live in a world with increasing amounts of pressure and sometimes this can leave us feeling overwhelmed by it all.
Eventually something has to give, and it's usually our health.
In sick days alone stress costs UK businesses £1.24bn a year, that's 105million sick notes!
So why is it we feel stress?
When man lived in caves he developed a life saving respose to meeting a predator - this is known as the 'fight o flight' response. When in danger the body learned to prepeare to either run away or stay and fight. If the decision to fight was made, the body would shut down the digestion, sharpen the senses and flood the muscles with blood and adrenaline.
We still have the same internal reactions to stress today, but very rarely are we in danger.
Today stress is often constant, leaving us in a continual state of hyperactivity, with nowhere to run.
The Health and Safety Executive defines stress as:
"The adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demands placed on them"
This constant stress leaves our bodies excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This reduces our ability to work effectively, it can also make us more accident prone and less able to make fine judgements.
In modern life we rarely need this resonse, as most situations benefit from a calm and rational approach.
What can you do?
Ideally you need to reduce your levels of stress or at least increase your coping resources - or better still, a combination of the two.
Other ideas taken from the Stress Mangement Society, include:
- Avoid stimulants,
- Exercise regulaly,
- Learn to relax,
- Get plenty of sleep,
- Rest when you are ill, don't carry on regardless,
- Agree with someone. Don't make your life a constant battleground,
- Learn to accept what you can't change,
- Listen to your body; when you're tired, hungry or thirsty do something about it,
- Learn to say 'no',
- Manage your time effectively and don't overdo things.
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