When was the
last time you put Stress at the focal point of your attention? If not in a
while, perhaps a few moments to ponder over it may save a life in more ways
than one. Here is why:
Stress
morphs you into another person, a person you are a stranger to in your calmer
moments. But over time, persistent stress also brings in irreversible and
undesirable changes within. While stress has been the subject of study since
decades, an overall view of it is perhaps not very commonly put across. This
write up proposes to do that for you.
When
stressed, the same person who was so considerate, sensible and caring now comes
across as harsh, insensitive and aggressive, some one who is hard to reason
with.
Stress visits
us in doses but these doses themselves are a matter of perception. So, just as
in the actions of drugs, higher the dose, stronger the effects of the drug on
the system, similarly, the more the stress, the more damage it causes.[i]
Reading
about stress and understanding it during times of relative calm is one thing
and practicing what one has learnt when the heat turns up is quite another. One
is almost never done in learning to manage stress once and for all. It needs
continuous practice and awareness to be at it. The common experience for the
unprepared is that one fails one’s own standards and has to consider starting
all over again. The collateral damage that failure (to manage the stress) does
to oneself and those one is interacting with is hard to reverse. This damage is
both emotional and physical. And yet there is a lot of hope and promise for the
person who is working at managing stress on a regular and persistent manner.
An important
point that one misses easily, especially in the early years, is to take cognizance
of the fact that persistent stress and failure to address it in real time
effects changes on the body’s immuno-chemistry. One may pride oneself in being
resistant to stress and go ahead with the feeling that no harm can come to
visit us, but at the very moment one is engaging is this thinking, on going stress
is working quietly, heaping one straw on another. Some of the proven disease
states associated with chronic stress are: ulcers, hypertension and heart
disease, diabetes, some common cancers, inflammatory arthritis, neck and back
pains. There are many others; this sampling is just off the cuff; also some
other disease states are waiting in the side lines to be proven as being
strongly associated with ongoing stress.
Apart from
changing the immune system, stress also changes one’s perception of oneself and
the people or circumstances around oneself. This change includes impaired cognition as well. Importantly, this altered self
perception would mean that one ends up becoming a person one never wanted to,
or even imagined, in the first place. That’s quite a cost for unattended
stress. At a more day to day level an example of what this could mean is that it
is more likely that a stressed person is quick to take offense on minor issues.
On going
stress leads to a state of anxiety that persists. One feels as if one is
constantly up against formidable challenges as well as time constraints. Such a
person thus rushes from one task to another without feeling a sense of
satisfaction of a task well done, no matter how well done the task turns out to
be. This is so because there is always the next task waiting to be completed.
If that is so, where is the time to sit back and enjoy the fulfillment a well
done task affords the doer. Thus life satisfaction goes down with ongoing
stress, and ultimately clinical depression sneaks in from back door.
While there
is a lot of literature and on-line help available on various strategies and
practices that one can lean on and practice regularly, one important point to
keep in mind is to draw one self back from the situation, to be detached and
take a larger or higher or more encompassing perspective from time to time and
monitor what one is doing and why, as well as how it is affecting one’s life in
general. This occasional and regular stepping back is vital. It is like a
painter stepping back from the canvas and noticing the larger picture. It gives
perspective and direction while releasing any doubts or tension inherent in the
situation. It opens up lines of action that one is not willing to consider in
the rush to reach the goal while laden with stress. This practice is also
called Mindfulness.
[i]
A note to the technically
inclined: tachyphylaxis, the tendency of drugs having to be given in larger
doses to produce the same effect, over time, is not observed in the effects
stress has on us. The more the stress, the more adverse effects it has;
tachyphylaxis does not apply to stress.
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