How Did We First Hear About The Bad Effects Of Stress?

Stress, the stress response, and the negative effects of chronic stress were first linked to the 1930’s when McGill University endocrinologist Hans Selye studied the behavior of rats. Specifically, he observed what happened to rat’s hormones when they were subjected to a variety of stressors, including starvation, extremes in temperature, and slamming doors. Selye applied the engineering term “stress” to define the myriad of traumatizing behaviors to which the rats had been subjected. To explain how they reacted to stress, he coined the term general adaptation syndrome, a response, he said, that consists of three stages: alarm, adaptation (or resistance), and exhaustion.

Stage 1 Occurs when the body becomes aware of the stressor, alerts its systems, then prepares to meet the threat (the fight or flight response).

Stage 2 Occurs when the body either adapts to the threat or successfully resists the threat with its stress-response mechanism and then returns to its natural state.

Stage 3 Occurs only after prolonged exposure to stressors and its marked by the stressed body contracting various diseases. Selye attributed this phenomenon to a depletion of the body’s stress-response hormones.

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How Can Couples Who Are So Well-Matched End Up Unhappy?

The answer is that there are lots of ways that people can be unhappy. Sometimes life throws the couple a huge challenge, and it can overwhelm their ability to cope. Sometimes one of the partners, or both, can have an individual problem that causes problems in the marriage, no matter how compatible they are. And every once in a while, a well-matched couple can find themselves totally hung up on just one or two narrowly focused conflicts, namely kids and work. Allow me to give you an example.

Jack and Jennifer got married together in their late thirties and were worried about having fertility problems, so they didn’t waste time trying to have kids. And to their great joy, they had no trouble conceiving their first child, which turned out to be a girl. A couple of years later they figured it was time for their daughter to have a little brother or sister, and to their delight they had no trouble conceiving a little sister for her. And then, within just a few months of her birth, they had another little sister for her on the way. Now this last time of having their third child, they were not exactly delighted, because they had planned on having only two children.

By the time Jack and Jennifer came to see their counselor, their children were ages one through four. It quickly became very clear that the problems they were having were due to the children having crowded out their own interpersonal relationship. It was not just that the kids required a lot of work; as a matter of fact, Jack and Jennifer handled their part quite well. The problem was that they had allowed the kids to intrude on their personal “couple” relationship in ways that could of been prevented. Bedtimes were often an issue, and all too often either Jack or Jennifer would fall asleep with the children. And as you can guess, their sex life suffered as a result. But that is not all; they had not cleared a space for their relationship in other ways. They hardly ever went out together at night, and they had never taken a weekend off for some time to be alone and have dates together, like they used to before the children.

Jack and Jennifer’s counselor also discovered that the kids were not the only thing that they had let in the way of staying close to one another, it was their jobs as well, especially since they were both high-powered jobs. Jack was in a fast-track corporate job, and Jennifer was working long ours at home pulling legal work. They both worked all of the time, while juggling the kids.

Sometimes people overwhelm themselves to an amazing degree. Once the situations are taken to marriage counselors the problems are often found out to be a direct result of not handling the situations correctly. You are always responsible for your actions. If the kids are eating into your “romantic time” then make time. If your job is too much for the relationship to handle, then get another job. I realize it may sound hard to do, but it is not, and you only have this one lifetime to love and cherish your spouse and children. Make time for whatever it takes to be happy together.

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Are You Ready For Change In Your Life ?

When you are willing to set goals, your motivation becomes more focused and less confused in everyday interactions. Setting goals and designing your dreams and aspirations is a commitment to participate in a dynamic relationship and interaction between yourself and others. Committing yourself to be in a relationship with others helps to create an environment of self-support. The “willingness” to define your goals and aspirations provide you with the motivation to focus on achieving your goals.

Your “will” to take action and achieve your goals is different than wishing your goals to complete themselves. Wishing is a desire for the possibility of some act or state arbitrarily occurring. When it comes to making your goals happen, wishing can be self-sabotaging. “Willing” is self-responsible behavior. When you take conscious control of your life, you actively plan your course or direction. Determining your direction builds positive momentum in your life. Creating positive momentum and enthusiasm drive you to share your enthusiasm with others. When you encourage others to believe in themselves you build positive momentum in their lives.

Your first responsibility as an encouraging person is to yourself. Make your best effort to provide the proper atmosphere for growth to occur. Discovering your own personal power and “free will” requires an attitude of positive self-control.

Without commitment, you are helplessly determined by others and their “will.” To overcome fear and determine your own destiny, you must make a commitment to believe in your own free will. By being committed, you actively assert yourself in your relationship with others and the world. When you become self-supportive, you become better equipped to overcome barriers that prevent you from reaching your goals. By committing yourself to your goals, you generate power in taking a risk to achieve your goals. Developing clarity of focus increases your self-determination and your ability to make up your own mind.

Breaking the shackles of past behaviors and attitudes that have kept you from growing and changing can be uncomfortable. Change is not always comfortable, and it’s definitely not stable or predictable. Deciding to make new, positive changes that generate excitement, or to remain in your stable, sedentary world (or relationship), is a decision only you can make. You have one question to ask yourself: What’s rewarding to you? If you’re comfortable with staying in one spot in life, that’s your choice. But if you want to move on and travel to new destinations, mentally and emotionally, then go for the change.

The challenge is to take conscious control of producing positive thoughts and behaviors that will create healthy choices for you and your life. Make up your mind and overcome your fears. Your positive attitude, like your “will,” is powerful medicine. Turn on your power key to success and become more dynamic. Get fired up and drive with conviction toward your dreams.

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The Importance Of Raising Our Children To Deal With Stress

And individual’s response to stress can be modified as early as in the cradle and all during one’s upbringing. For example, many of the adults who do poorly under stress share a common mistake during their formative years. They all had parents who tried to “protect” them from all possible stresses that exist. So for example, the “protected” child who has never had to look at a waiter in the eye and order his own food during family outings may never learn to look anyone in the eye during conversations.

This is also one of the reasons why many self-made rich people and famous personalities have severe problems with their children: The parent, having gone through considerable poverty on the way to success, wrongfully assumes that this stress was bad for him or her. The attitude of “I may have started out poor but no child of mine is ever going to have to worry about money” deprives the child of ever learning the value of hard work, and undermines the development of self-esteem and confidence. Although the act is well-intentioned by the parents, the child who is spoiled will certainly become a victim when faced with stress because they never had to face it growing up. Stress is not the enemy, but rather can be your ally if properly managed.

On the other hand, children can be actively raised to manage stress, and develop winning responses that will last a lifetime. These are the children that we see to have leadership and show high levels of self-esteem and confidence at such an early age. This type of upbringing will enable them to be high-achievers throughout life and rise above the crowd in whatever they do.

It is quite obvious that the stresses of publicity that are placed upon a member of the royal family such as Prince Charles are far greater than most people can be expected to endure. His ability to withstand these pressures and stress levels can be directly related to his upbringing. This man was trained from the start of his life in how to handle himself under fire. It would appear that, for this very reason, there is considerable sense in requiring monarchs to marry peers rather than commoners. Princess Diana’s upbringing, and the stress of a royal courtship, demonstrated her ability to handle the immense pressures of the spotlight with grace.

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Do We “Imagine” Our Way To A Stressful Life?

As the world changes it seems that many of our stress issues are placed on ourselves, and by ourselves. Consider how different the modern life of telecommuting is from the world of the ancient hunger-gatherer. It would seem more reasonable to ask if there is any similarity at all. And yet, this physical body that we have was actually designed to get us through a day of searching through desert lands or a trekking through a forest, not sitting at a desk for most of the time. Your body was designed and wired to jump into high gear without asking your permission. This design has served us very well for thousands of years. However, society has changed so much and so fast that our bodies are not matching the current lifestyle that we place ourselves under. That fact is at the very heart of stress prevention.

Do you know what factors in your daily life contribute to your physical tendency to be stressed? How can you change your life to minimize those factors and in doing so put a damper on your stress? Knowing the answer to these questions below may help move you closer to understanding the forces that increase your stress. Please consider the following issues:

1. Are you judging yourself too harshly because you think that other people are judging you?

2. Have you set goals that serve you personally, what you want out of life, and not what expectations and goals that other people have wishes for you to move into?

3. Do you have a habit of taking on more than you can handle and then have a tendency to feel like a failure when you can’t carry the burden?

4. Do you find yourself hypercritical of your family, thinking that the rest of the world is judging them on you, and finding you unacceptable?

5. Do you feel responsible for the happiness of other people around you but do not seem to receive their concern for your happiness?

Concern over how other people see and perceive us is a great inducer of stress. You may launch into negative self-talk and programming, which increases your anxiety levels, sucks your energy dry, and reduces performance on many levels in your life. When you find yourself stressing over how you “think” you appear to others, or how you sound, or how you come across, etc. then catch yourself and tell yourself to stop.

It is at this time when your family can be on of your most valuable stress-management assets. If you’ve cultivated the trust and communication that are the hallmarks of a strong family, you can sit down with them and talk about your fears and insecurities which will help diminish the size of your stress.

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