Stress: Understanding and Managing Its Effects on the Body
Stress: Understanding Its Effects
What is Stress?
A state of alert in the body due to an event, phenomenon, or sensation. It manifests as a deregulation of chemical substances (hormones) and psychological changes such as muscle tension, increased blood circulation, and respiration. According to Selye, there are two kinds of stress:
- Positive: A beneficial state that requires maximum effort to deploy qualities.
- Negative: The requirement is perceived as something superior to the body, causing fatigue and anxiety.
Manifestations of Stress
- Physiological:
- Increased heart rate
- Increased blood pressure
- Excessive sweating
- Increased blood glucose levels
- Subjective Symptoms:
- Tiredness and difficulty sleeping
- Increased muscle tension in the neck and shoulders
- Constipation
- Headaches
- Difficulty concentrating
- Behavioral Symptoms:
- Increased alcohol and tobacco consumption
- Loss of appetite or overeating
Setting achievable goals is satisfactory, but if it produces anxiety for not achieving them, it is negative.
Working with the Appropriate Activation State
Neither too relaxed nor too nervous to do things. Three models:
- Determine a scale of 1 to 10 as a function of the activity.
- Analyze the degree of activation at the moment.
- Adjust the level of activation required by the task.
Relaxation: Techniques for Balance
Tactics to balance stress and decrease the body’s overstimulation. Usually, muscle relaxation is used, but the broad concept influences other systems:
- Autonomic Nervous System: Controls heart rate, blood pressure, sensory activity, and sweat glands.
- Endocrine System: Related to the previous one, the amount of glandular overstimulation with adrenal glands that are active leads to hormonal release directly related to fear and aggressiveness.
Psychological Effects of Relaxation
- Reduced heart rate
- Reduced blood flow
- Reduced cholesterol
- Improved digestion
- Increased skin temperature
Physical Methods
1. Jacobson’s Progressive Relaxation
Studies on reflexes conclude that a relaxed musculature leads to a general decline in the rest of the mind and nervous system. Exercises were designed in which the patient learned to locate muscle tension in parts of their body and release it through contraction and relaxation exercises.
2. Behavioral Relaxation Training
Schilling noted that people with tics, clenched fists, and facial gestures had tension. His modified technique influences behavior to help people relax.
3. Alexander Technique
Based on the conviction that how we walk and stand is a way of seeing and reacting to life. The technique is based on a correct perception of one’s own body to know when we walk or stand in a correct way. The method is to perform daily activities in a relaxed way.
Mental Methods
In which we are left in a state of relaxation, bodily or mental processes are not pure:
1. Self-Knowledge
This technique is based on the belief in better control of our lives and living with more awareness. This helps us achieve mental peace. It proposes self-perception tasks of the external world and sensory relaxation with our inner world.
2. Visualization (Ateherbere)
A psychologist defines the activity of thought by evoking photographs instead of words. Through techniques, it evokes our senses of life, working at the psychological level to generate responses.
Autogenic Training (Schultz)
A psychiatrist discovered that some of his patients had learned to be in a state similar to sleep-like hypnosis, concentrating on images of heaviness, feeling heavy or hot parts of their body. He developed progressive training exercises in which the exerciser gradually evoked these sensations until reaching a level of deep relaxation.