How To Handle The Short-Term Effects Of Stress
When someone feels threatened, their body automatically falls into the fight or flight response which is our default short-term response to stress. Learning how to handle these short-term effects of stress is essential for our overall health and well-being. This is because the fight or flight response is an ancient one and generally inappropriate in modern day situations.
Being confronted by a rampaging woolly mammoth is not the same as feeling overwhelmed by a situation at work, for example, but our bodies cannot differentiate between these two scenarios and it is therefore up to us to learn to handle the physiological changes that occur.
These changes include:
• The diversion of blood from less vital to more vital organs
• An increase in heart rate to supply blood more efficiently
• An increase in respiratory rate to take in more oxygen
• An increase in blood pressure to supply blood more efficiently
• The breakdown of glycogen stores in the liver and muscle to obtain more glucose
• The formation of more glucose from non-carbohydrate sources
The signs and symptoms of these functional adjustments within the body include:
• Palpitations or chest pain
• Cold, clammy skin
• Breathlessness
• Dry mouth
• Looking flushed and feeling warm
• Diarrhoea
• Abdominal discomfort
• Feeling low in energy
• Aggravation of existing peptic ulcer
• Aggravation of skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis
• Headache, backache or neck pain
• Decreased libido
• Sleep problems
• Loss of appetite
• Depression
• Anger outbursts
When dealing with the short-term effects of stress, it is important to use techniques such as deep breathing or progressive muscular relaxation. Deep breathing is a simple but highly effective method of relaxation that will enable you to handle the often distressing symptoms of short-term stress. It also works very well when used in conjunction with progressive muscular relaxation.
To practice deep breathing all you need to do is sit or lie in a comfortable position and inhale and exhale in a slow, measured fashion. Allow your body to relax more with every out breath. Try to inhale as much air as you exhale as this will quickly alleviate the feelings of light-headedness or breathlessness that are a result of our bodily response to short-term stress.
Progressive muscular relaxation helps to alleviate the muscular tension that is an inevitable result of the fight or flight response. The idea is to tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible and then to hold them in this state of extreme tension for a few seconds before letting go. Once you have let go, consciously relax the muscles even further using deep breathing to achieve a state of total relaxation.
Although tensing your muscles may at first seem counterintuitive, it in fact allows you to then relax even more than if you had tried to relax your muscles directly. You can try a simple form of progressive muscular relaxation by clenching one hand into a fist as tightly as you can and holding it there for a few seconds. Relax so that your hand is in its normal state and then consciously relax it so that it is as loose as possible. You should feel a sense of deep relaxation in your hand muscles and it is this same sense of relaxation that will help you handle the short-term effects of stress.
