Experiencing stress can take a toll on both your physical and mental health and well-being. Constant worrying may cause you to feel emotionally and physically depleted. Chronic stress can greatly impact your immune system and make you more susceptible to sickness. Stress usually plays a role in most aspects of your life, but the healthier you are, the more manageable the stress is when it does surface.
Excercise
Exercising may help you to improve your stress coping abilities and can decrease the production of stress hormones and promote your mental health. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), people who exercise regularly are less likely to suffer from anxiety, depression or stress than their sedentary counterparts are. They say that exercise may hinder incidents of anxiety and depression by boosting the body's capacity to respond to stress. The Mayo Clinic asserts that exercise can improve your overall health because physical activity helps in the production of endorphins, which are neurotransmitters that relate feelings of excitement or exhilaration to the brain. The APA says, “Biologically, exercise seems to give the body a chance to practice dealing with stress. It forces the body's physiological systems--all of which are involved in the stress response--to communicate much more closely than usual: The cardiovascular system communicates with the renal system, which communicates with the muscular system. And all of these are controlled by the central and sympathetic nervous systems, which also must communicate with each other.” Because of the body’s ability to communicate, you prevent the sedentary state that decreases your ability to respond to and fight stress.
Relaxation
Withdrawing from the world and releasing tension of the body and mind can help you to counteract the negative effects of stress. Stress can cause the external forces to overwhelm your body with chemicals causing an increase in your blood pressure and heart rate. Relaxation can reverse the negative stress response by bringing your breathing, blood pressure and heart rate back into balance. Help Guide contributors Jeanne Segal, Joanna Saisan, Melinda Smith, Ellen Jaffe-Gill and Robert Segal say that relaxation not only offers soothing physical effects, but also that “research shows that the relaxation response also increases energy and focus, combats illness, relieves aches and pains, heightens problem-solving abilities, and boosts motivation and productivity.”
Meditation
Meditation influences the body by restoring it to a state of tranquility through a comprehensive examination of the relationship between your body’s reactions to the manner in which your mind processes thoughts. Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist, former foreign correspondent and author, Katherine Ellison has studied Buddhism and the art of meditation. She distinguishes between relaxation and meditation by saying that quieting the mind in meditation is more than relaxing mind and body--it requires you engage in self-instruction in order to abandon harmful mental tendencies. She says that meditation is a tool by which you can understand yourself more clearly by investigating your mind and transforming your outlook on the world to a more positive view.
References
- Mayo Clinic: Excercise: Rev Up Your Routine to Reduce Stress
- Psychology Today: Mastering Your Own Mind
- American Psychological Association: Exercise Fuels the Brain's Stress Buffers
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Stress - Lifestyle Changes
- National Institutes of Health: National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Tai-Chi: An Introduction
