Image source :Pixabay (License : Public Domain)
Hello!
The past few weeks has been uneasy to all steemit bloggers due to the upgrade of #hardfork20. For me, I used that opportunity to make more research while I wait for the stability of the system.
Here we are, #steemit working fine and better. All thanks to team steemit for putting heads together in making this a reality.
In this article, we will be dealing with three subjects, "the brain, body and stress". The mind controls virtually everything in the human body. From thoughts, actions and reactions.
Which is why, each time the brain is not at rest, it affects us and our daily activities.
Based on research, the human brain holds about 14 million cells, and we cannot say that any one bit of it makes us wise, happy or good.
But there are sites for controlling movement and for taking data from each of the senses: and others for analyzing this data, and making our basic judgment from it.
"Mind over matter" tells how much importance the brain gives to conscious control of different parts of the body. like movement of the hands, feet, mouth, and tongue.
If we look at it in the other hand, "thought over matter", it tells how much importance the brain gives to its different informants : eyesight, hearing, smell, taste, and different points of touch.
But then, I will be dealing more with the subject "stress" and its different type as well as how it affects us as humans.
So let's begin....
Stress and Health
Stress is a nervous tension. The person may know he feels tense or he may not. It may be due to psychological or environmental issues. i.e, the person may be reacting to a mental or physical threat.
The threat may be chronic or acute (an event or a continuing situation).
.jpeg)
The fact is that, stress occurs in a person's reactions to certain situations which apparently threaten him/her or exert pressure on him/her.
So whatever is the cause, stress in the end depends on the person's reaction not on the outside event.
The distinction between types of stress is important, though it is common to talk vaguely about the impact of stress in the body.
For the purpose of clarity, it is important to distinguish between psychological and environmental stress, which could be either acute or chronic.
Acute Psychological and Environmental Stress
.jpg)
Image source: Pixabay ( License : Public Domain)
Acute Environmental Stress is a situation whereby someone is walking slowly across the street feeling tired and suddenly see a car bearing down on him or her, then leap to the sidewalk, the body begins to vibrate and start panting breathlessly.
This situation is said to be "The fight or flight reaction syndrome" that has taken over him or her.
When a threatening event happens in the environment, the body has a specific reaction. Signals from the brain from the brain stimulate the autonomic nervous system (over which we have no conscious control).
This causes the release of powerful hormones which key up the body for action.
When the "fight of flight syndrome" take place, it goes with increase in rate and strength of heartbeat, rise in blood pressure , increase in blood sugar, increased muscle tension, dilation of nostrils and retraction of the eyeballs.
These speed the person's reactions and make him more capable of any supreme physical effort that the danger may demand, whether it is fighting or running away.
In the case of "acute psychology", it has to do with the psychological effect of a particular incident of which the impact may last over a long period of time. This type of stress is of two kinds, "conflict and change ".
Acute conflict may be with a person, or with an abstract such as time. It produces emotions of either anger or anxiety, and both are often accompanied by physical changes of the fight or flight syndrome. The link is an automatic one, over which we can have little conscious control.
In the case of "change", here no fight or flight is involved. But being faced with change and having to adapt to it does create psychological stress and recent research has also shown that it consistently results in physical illness, even though the process is not understood.
Chronic Psychological and Environmental Stress
Image Source: Pixabay (License : Public Domain)
Chronic psychological stress depends much more on the person than on what happens to him.
For instance, someone promoted above his abilities will probably be under such constant stress, but some personalities may not be aware of the pressure, or of not being up to the job.
On the other hand, someone in a position well within his abilities may carry it out with constant drive and tension.
Perhaps it is because he does not realize he can do it easily, or because he wants to win promotion or simply because that is his way of going about things.
Everyday a town bus driver may face several incidents of acute stress, when a traffic accident threatens. But he is also working under constant conditions of chronic environmental stress, even if no such incidents occur.
This is as a result of the physical conditions of his work setting ( unpleasantly cramped and noisy) and the need for constant alertness and readiness in case incidents of acute stress do occur.
In these circumstances the body reacts with what has been named the "General Adaptation Syndrome" which means a long term adaptation to the presence of stress.
One of the above cause alone is sufficient. For example, noise polluted work conditions tend to set up permanently high blood pressure (and maybe high blood cholesterol levels).
The person eventually feels exhausted, mentally and/or physically.
Stress Symptoms and Management
Image source : Pixabay (License : Public Domain)
Like I said before, stress can affect our thoughts, characters, emotions, and health.
Symptoms of stress could be emotional like, frustration, anger, loss of control, restiveness, depressed, low self esteem, staying far away from others and so on.
It could be physical like, having low energy, headaches, constipation, pains, tense muscles, increased heartbeat, inability to sleep, loss of sexual desire and so on.
It could be cognitive like, disorganisation, forgetfulness, being negative and so on.
Stress could be behavioral, like eating too much, taking excessive alcohol or cigarettes, being nervous, and so on.
We can manage stress by relaxing, taking deep breath, meditation, yoga, or even getting a massage, keeping a sense of humor, socializing with friends and family. Have a good sleep and eat good food.
Conclusion
Stress has been part of our lives, there is no human that doesn't experience stress. Stress can occur during work activities ,school activities, challenging relationship, finance management and so on.
The most important thing is how we handle stress . If we know the symptoms we will be able to avoid the consequences that is attached to stress. Knowing that stress could wear us down and eventually make us fall sick both mentally and physically.
Most people have perfected the art of drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes when they are stressed out.
But this is wrong! We can actually get better if we know our stress symptoms and manage it properly or better still see the doctor for counseling.
Thank you for your time!
References
[1] Meaning and Examples of Mind Over Matter
[2] The Effects of Stress on Your Body
[3] Stress Symptoms
[4 ] Stress effects on the body
[5] What is body stress?
[6] The impact of stress on body function: A review
[7] Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior
Hello dear @masterwriter :)
It is nice to read your work about physical and mental health once again. I like how you drew attention to how detrimental some combinations can be for us. Besides smoking and alcohol drinking I have come a across quite a few people who resort to eating and shopping to release stress!
Of course, an important step to avoid all this taking place and get out of control is being able to understand when stress is setting in. And I find very important that you discuss not only the symptoms of this overwhelming experience, but also informed us how to manage it!
One of my favorite ways to both manage and prevent stress is Yoga. What is yours? :)
All the best to you!
Hello @abigail-dantes,
I'm so delighted to have your contribution to this article.
A lot of persons don't know how to avoid, and control stress.
For me, I manage and prevent stress by socializing with friends and of course watching or listening comedy shows.
As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by masterwriter from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
We Steem Tuners are Happy to find this post as our "STEEM TUNER FEATURED POST - DAY #19". A few upvotes from the community have done already. Hope, this content will encourage/impress/motivate/learn a lot to the Steemians... There is more to Steem Tuner. check here for some more tips on being a community member. You can also join our discord here to get to know the rest of the community! We Steemtuner Community Supports good posts. We believe being in a community helps to grow. You can join Us.
Feel free to join the SteemTuner community and participate contests to win exciting prize. Check out the discord server of SteemTuner for more details.
Please note that SteemTuner welcomes delegation from the supporters of this community in voluntary basis. Check out following links to show your support towards the community: 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000.
This post has been voted on by the SteemSTEM curation team and voting trail in collaboration with @curie.
If you appreciate the work we are doing then consider voting both projects for witness by selecting stem.witness and curie!
For additional information please join us on the SteemSTEM discord and to get to know the rest of the community!