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Week 4: Stress and your health

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It’s been a long day, and you feel overwhelmed. Your head is pounding, your mind is full, and you’re always worrying about everything.  

Stress is the way your body reacts to triggers or changes in your life. Although stress can be good in some cases, if it is at high levels and experienced for a long time, it can harm your health, mentally and physically. 

Stressors trigger your body's response to stress. This physiological response is also known as the "fight or flight" reaction in your nervous system. 

The flight or fight stress response is meant to be temporary to improve your chances of surviving a short-term stressor like a crisis or physical threat (i.e. outrunning an attacker or predator). Symptoms of the fight or flight reaction may include:

  • Increase in blood pressure.
  • Rapid breathing.
  • Slowing the digestive system.
  • Increased heart rate.
  • Higher blood pressure.
  • Muscles tense.

Once the stressor is removed or passes, the body’s hormones, systems and processes revert to normal functioning. If this stress response is activated repeatedly or over a period of time, it could negatively affect your health. 

What causes stress? 

  • A chronic disease.
  • Emotional problems, like anger, sadness, grief or guilt.
  • Major life changes like changing jobs, losing your job, the death of a loved one or getting married.
  • An unpleasant work environment. 
  • Unhappy relationships (family and friends).

How can stress harm your health?
Stress harms both your emotional and physical health.

Physical health

  • Stress disrupts the balance between good and bad bacteria in your gut. This effect may cause pimples, acne or eczema.
  • When you’re stressed, your immune system doesn’t work properly so you’re more vulnerable to illnesses.
  • When you’re under stress, your body produces less reproductive hormones and more adrenaline (fight or flight hormone). This may cause lack of sexual desire and cause irregular and painful periods.
  • Your body produces extra glucose (sugar) when you're stressed and you may not be able to handle all the extra glucose. This, along with the rush of hormones and rapid breathing, may cause a stomach ache, nausea or vomitting. 

Emotional health

  • Forgetfulness.
  • Difficulty making decisions.
  • Increased moodiness or irritability.
  • Negative thinking.
  • Poor concentration.
  • Constantly worrying.

How to manage stress
Get moving
Exercise keeps you in shape and healthy, and can also lift your mood and help you relieve pent-up tension and negative feelings.

Work at it
In many relationships, we choose to avoid, rather than to address problems. For less stress, say what’s on your mind. Talk to your loved ones about issues you may have and you might feel less overwhelmed. 

Know your emotions
Recognising when you’re stressed and being able to work through it will help you to overcome these feelings in the long run. Don’t hide behind distractions. Accept how you’re  feeling and try to self-soothe, by thinking positively and doing something to de-stress. 

Be prepared
If you know you are going to be in a situation where you might be stressed, prepare yourself before the time. For example, if you are going to the doctor for a check-up and this usually makes you anxious, go through the process in your head, so you’ll at least feel prepared. 

Look out for the next tutorial – we’ll be discussing the importance of a Pap smear test. 

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