Live a Stress Free Life

It can be easy to become overburdened by stress in today’s society. We are a people with many responsibilities, things to do and remember, people to please, and projects that need to be done. If we aren’t careful, it can feel like we have a giant weight on our shoulders that will topple down on top of us if we miss a single step. This stress, unfortunately, weighs not only on our daily lives, but on our health and well being as well. Prolonged stress can damage our bodies, and take the fun out of life. So how do we fight it?

First we need to understand stress. Stress is completely natural – when you become stressed, your brain releases hormones into your blood that cause your body to work overtime in case there is a dangerous situation that it needs to respond to. Unfortunately, we are supposed to remove ourselves from the stressful situation relatively soon. The problem is that sometimes we find ourselves continuing to live in stress, and our bodies are constantly pushing harder as a result, and suffer as a consequence.

A good way to protect yourself is to make sure that you get the occasional break, but the key to avoiding the dangers of stress comes from your ability to mentally leave behind a stressful situation once you no longer have control of it. Most of us face small situations of stress everyday, whether it be a traffic jam, a crying baby, or having to put up with an irritating history professor. These situations are unavoidable, and the only way to protect yourself is to not let them get to you. You need to take mental control of the situation. Remind yourself that this is only a minor problem, and that it isn’t serious. Think of other similar situations that actually ended up as a funny story. The bottom line is that the first step to preventing stress damage is to remain calm and relatively unaffected by the small quirks in life that we just don’t have any control of.

That’s great advice for the small stuff, but what about the larger problems? Maybe you really need a promotion at work, or maybe you constantly have to deal with a business associate who dances the mamba on your very last nerve every day at work. Larger events like these that tend to draw themselves out over time can wreak the worst effects on your body. How do you combat this? You have to be able let the stress go once you get away from it. Are you fuming about that co-worker after you get home, and letting him sour your mood? Are you pushing your food around on your plate while you torture yourself with questions about your promotion? You have to stop. These little acts are keeping your stress levels elevated and damaging your body. Start asking yourself this question: is there anything I can be doing to alleviate my problem at the moment?" If the answer is no, let it go – you can’t actually do anything about it.

The last thing you can do is to make sure you are filling your life with joy, and not only responsibilities and deadlines. We all have projects that must be completed, but if we schedule in time to do the things that we enjoy, we’ll love our lives and be more prepared to deal with our problems. Find those simple things in life that you live for, and plan for them as much as you can. Go on a hiking trip, or spend a lazy day in a hammock outside, build model airplanes, whatever it is that relaxes your soul and brings you peace. Doing these things can help us take our minds off of the things that stress us out.

There is no way to escape stress, but fortunately, we don’t have to. Stress itself is natural, but living in stress is not, and it isn’t something anyone has to do. If left unchecked, stress will wear away at you physically and make you ill equipped to handle your responsibilities, so slow down, take a fresh view of the world, and unwind.