The Importance of maintaining anxiety and stress levels

Is stress piling onto you to the point it is affecting you mentally, physically, and emotionally?

Have you had unexplainable shaking and unstable breathing randomly occur with no physical health condition linked to the issue?

Have you been in a situation that is uncomfortable to the point you feel suffocated and cannot find a clear exit to escape through?

These moments will happen at least once in a person’s lifetime and is not abnormal; however, constantly overthinking or feeling negative emotions could indicate an underlying health issue such as severe anxiety or stress.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is feeling worried or anxious about the future that can be mild or severe depending on the individual and environmental factors. It is normal to feel anxiety but it can become an issue when an individual is continuously experiencing emotions that

conflict with their daily lives.

What society does not seem to emphasize is the relationship between the mind and the body, having anxiety can equally affect an individual physically and mentally.

It can cause effects such as:

• Not able to concentrate

• Dizzy, sweaty, or shortness of breaths

• Tired, irritable, and restless

• Shaky

• Headaches or tummy aches

• Pins and needles

• Trouble sleeping

• Avoiding situations or do not carry out tasks that an individual may be worried about

• Sweat excessively etc.

The body responds in two different ways when feeling anxiety, the nervous system produces your fight or flight response that is designed to support you in different situations. Fight helps in defending the individual who is posed by danger and flight helps in preparing the body to run away from danger. Due to these body responses, the individual experiences the above symptoms, which can also lead to an increase in long-term health problems if not treated such as high blood pressure and heart disease, etc.

How can you tackle anxiety?

It is important to take a break to collect thoughts and understand your emotions before it piles up into something too big to handle.

Ways to cope with anxiety can consist of the following:

• Shifting focus such as breathing exercises, relaxation in activities such as yoga, and brain exercises that helps to refocus yourself.

• Journaling/writing in a diary helps to reduce anxiety as it identifies your different emotions throughout the day. It places your thoughts in a more organized manner, which helps to know what necessary steps to take in order to cope with the anxiety.

• Face the issue by slowly building resilience against anxiety, continuously isolating yourself can cause the anxiety to grow bigger to the point it is impossible to tackle.

• Sometimes we are too fixated on what could go wrong; stop focusing on the more minor details and see the bigger picture in every situation in order to devise an appropriate plan to tackle any issues.

What is stress?

Stress can come in different forms such as emotional, physical, or mental, and is the body’s response to anything that requires attention or action. There are 3 types of stress that are acute stress, episodic acute stress, and chronic stress.

Acute stress happens after a traumatic event has occurred that causes an unpleasant, intense, and dysfunctional reaction, which usually lasts for less than a month. Acute stress can cause common symptoms such as muscle tension, stomach upset, raised blood pressure, emotional distress, jaw ache, back pain or headaches, and rapid heartbeats.

Episodic acute stress is when an individual frequently experiences acute stress that can make a person feel under pressure or constantly fear negative outcomes. It can affect an individual mentally and physically, which can change a person’s behavior toward others. Common symptoms of episodic acute stress consist of relationship problems, unintended hostility, irritability, panic attacks, heartburn, and rapid heartbeat, etc.

Chronic stress is long-term emotional pressure resulting from ongoing stress. The body, between episodes, is constantly experiencing the fight or flight responses; not allowing the nervous system to recover, which causes it to stay on alert 24/7.

How can you tackle stress?

There are various methods that help reduce stress levels, such as the following:

• Setting goals to achieve, which helps the individual physically, mentally, and emotionally as they are making a positive change for themselves. For example, going out for walks can help an individual, as they are able to clear their mind, take a breather and keep physically fit, which is their overall goal.

• The majority of the time when people experience stress they resort to temporary unhealthy habits such as drinking, smoking and doing drugs, etc. Avoiding these bad habits will prevent more health issues and stress.

• Research has demonstrated those who help others whether that is through volunteer work/community work or helping a neighbor, helps reduce stress and build resilience.

• Exercising does not solve the problem but it can reduce the emotional intensity of certain situations. It also helps clear one’s mind from thoughts temporarily, which helps people cope with stressful episodes more calmly.

• Taking control of the situation to ensure stress levels do not rise as not having control of a situation can cause it to increase as people panic or are not sure what next step to take.

• Staying connected with family and friends is highly important as they can ease an individual’s stress and listen to a person’s issues.

• Allocating a slot for “me time” allows individuals to do tasks they enjoy and focus their thoughts.

Overall, do not take anxiety or stress as a light topic; do not push it to the back of the mind or label it as the least important task of the day. Prolonging the evitable will only make things worse and will only cause more harm to yourself over time.

When a stressful situation or event occurs, do not for one moment feel it is more important than handling your own stress and anxiety. Being selfless is a good trait to have but it is not worth it if the result is more damaging to you.

Take time to address the issue, find solutions to the issue, follow the new steps you have paved for yourself, and entirely love and accept the person you are from the start to the person you are at the finish. If the same issues keep occurring, do not feel like you have been pushed back to the start of the race; see it more as a detour that you are taking from the main road in order to reach your destination. Everyone is different and everyone succeeds in similar goals at different paces, life isn’t a competition, it isn’t a race, it isn’t “let’s see who can become better using the least amount of effort”, life is about facing all good and bad times, which is okay.

At the end of the day, when it comes to stress and anxiety, the only enemy you are battling is the person reflecting in the mirror.

Thank you for reading! – Aamena Patel