There may seem to be nothing you can do about stress. The bills won’t stop coming, there is not enough hours in the day, and your career and family responsibilities will always be challenging. The only way we can handle stress is taking control of it and your life. It is the basics of stress management. Managing stress is about taking charge of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and the way you deal with problems. We need to identify the problems in life and find solutions, this isn’t as easy as it sounds but we all can do it.

            Identifying the sources of stress is one of the first steps in stress management. One of my biggest stressors in life right now is getting a good job, so I can support my family. It is not easy in today’s economy but I’m not giving up. Another stressor is also my transition from military life back to civilian life. After years of training and deployments, military is all I know. But I am lucky to have a great girlfriend and a little one to help ease the transition. Your true sources of stress aren’t always obvious, and it’s all too easy to overlook your own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

            Many may also find temporary ways to relief stress but may not be the best. These coping strategies may temporarily reduce stress, but cause more damage in the long run. Some examples may include smoking, using pills or drugs, drinking too much, and lastly what I’ve seen the most is taking out your stress on others. If your methods of coping with stress weren’t supporting to your greater emotional and physical health, it would be wise to find healthier ones. My biggest stress reliever is going to the gym. It is a great way to get your mind of you worries, plus another great way to stay in shape. Since everyone has a unique response to stress, there is no “one size fits all” solution to managing it. There is no single method that works for everyone or in every solution, so we need to find different ways and strategies. Focus on what makes you feel relaxed and in control.

            In all my researches on stress there were three things that I picked up that really helped me with my stress. First, was avoiding people who stress you out; if someone consistently causes stress in your life, that person needs to go. Second, was don’t try to control the uncontrollable; many things in life are beyond our control, focus on the things you can control such as the way you choose to react to problems. Last but not least is look for the upside; when facing major challenges, try to look at them as opportunities for personal growth. If your own poor choices contributed to a stressful situation, reflect on them and learn from you mistakes. All in all, don’t sweat the small stuff and be happy. Life is way to short and we all need to enjoy it.

            A stressful life sphere such as not enough money to pay the bills, family members with health problems or figuring out who will do what of the overbalanced work of running a home noticeably can create stress in relationships. It either dwindles or builds up tensions caused by the initial problem. Relationship or Marriage arguments are the last thing you in your mind when you are already trying to deal with uncontrollable situations. Stress in relationships amps up if way we talk with each other raises doubt in the relationship, respect, power balance between each other, communication, etc.  Couples often go through periods of change, every day hassles and emotional issues. These can cause uncomfortable mental and physical reactions to life’s events. This challenges you marital relationship.

            Relationship problems...we all experience it from time to time. For the majority of my adult hood I was in long distance relationships due to the fact that I was in the military and deployed overseas. It was always good in the beginning but never failed to last as long as I hoped it would. The strains on a long distance relationship are many and intense. She would always let me know that our love will stomach them over the difficulties of distance and time, and vise versa.  There are many factors that affect a long-distance relationship like jealousy, fights, unbearable missing, and uncertainty about the future. All of this doesn’t help with other things you have going on and I believe having that special someone to talk too helps reduce that stress. But, it can also make things much worse.

            Life inevitably from time to time puts stressful challenges on the path of every couple. As you can already see in comes in many different forms. It’s important to understand how stressful events affect your relationship. Since its unavoidable, you have to own it and manage it. Now that I am out of the military, my relationship stress has gone down but no matter what it will always be in my life. So I chose the lesser effects of stress by communicating. It is the key to a stress free relationship, which in turn keeps us from feeling lonely, losing trust, commitment and don’t let them drive you and your partner apart.

            In today’s economic outcry, downsizing, layoff, merger and bankruptcies have cost thousands of workers their jobs. Thousands to maybe millions of people have to drift to unaccustomed duties within their companies and wonder how much longer they will be employed. In addition, the pressures that workers face are new bosses, fewer health and retirement benefits, and the feeling they have to work elongated and harder hours just to maintain their economic status. Employees at every level are experiencing increased pressure and uncertainty. The loss of a job can be very straining and stressful. Placing unemployed workers at risk for physical illness, relationship tensions, anxiety, depression and even suicide. The loss of a job affects every part of life, from the moment you wake up in the morning; to the people you see and what you can manage to do. Until you get back on your feet, STRESS is continuous.

            Even when you are still employed, sometimes your work setting creates a lot of stress. Noisy settings, wanting more privacy, subpar lighting, weak ventilation, pitiful temperature control or inadequate sanitary facilities can be one of the many factors that create an uneasy work environment. Some jobs out there are also dangerous and others can suddenly become so. Jobs like police officers, firefighters, Emergency Medical Technicians, military personnel and disaster teams are even more susceptible to more stress. Being exposed to horrible scenes and exposed to personal danger can cause psychological stress, which can lead to sleep deprivation, guilt, fearfulness and physical complaint. Even regular jobs can become traumatic. Such events can create post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which leads to a whole other subject.

            Stress, stress, stress!!!! It is a highly personalized unavoidable casualty and can deviate widely even in identical situations for different reason. The harshness of job stress depends on the degree of the demands that are being made and the individual’s sense of control or decisions. The effects of job stress are more difficult to ascertain because chronic diseases develop over relatively long periods of time and are influenced by many factors other than stress. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that stress plays a big role.

            

College Stress

            There’s no doubt that College students are under a great amount of pressure, which again causes a lot of hardship and of course more stress. There is vast expectancy from our parents to do well in class while balancing work and family. The rise of college tuition is also another concern; in addition to that, many of the students are buried with debt. Plus with the slow economy, it is making it easier said than done to find jobs after graduation. Much like the rest of the world, it continues to get more and more competitive. Ughhhh!!! One thing after another; why is life so complicated? I’ve been away from school about eight years now and recently got back into it; wow I thought being deployed overseas was difficult.

            College life can be very stressful and very harmful when stress is excessive in ones life. By far, from what I have read and researched, depression and anxiety are the most prevalent problems students confront. The second leading cause of death among college students is suicide. The number one killer is accidents, which include accidental overdoses and drinking and driving deaths, many of which might be linked to depression and anxiety. I will refer back to the environment we are in and where ever you look stress stares you right in the face. Its like getting old, no matter what you do its inevitable.

            College life…..sometimes  parents, faculty and other influencers tend to idealize their college experience and remember it as one big party and good times. While they were in college, had very little to worry about or have any responsibilities. To the students presently attending college, however, the process is often discouraging and stressful. The struggle to get good grades, the demand to perform, relationships, fear of AIDS, career choice and many other aspects of the college environment cause stress. Also stress is often caused by general unhappiness and a sense of aimlessness of lack of purpose. People sometimes wind up making choices and living life styles that is expected of them but don’t really fit them. A student may be studying Law because his or her parents studied law but in all realty he wants to be a photographer. That’s only the beginning, what about when you graduate and have to face the real world…

Death by Stress…...Slowly but Surely

What am I thinking about? Rent? Wow, were is all my money going? I feel a lump; I know cancer when I feel it. What is she up too? Why does she not like me? Why is he not answering my phone calls? I just want to end my life so I don’t have to suffer. STRESS, it is everyone’s bottomless pit. Stress, harassing our minds and tormenting our sleepless nights. Once, its purpose was to help us survive. Most of us have come to think that stress is bad for us, but is part of our fundamental survival system. Back in our Stone Age days where acute stress happens on a regular basis, it kept us more alert, more attuned to the environment and to what actually is a threat or not a threat. Now that our environment has changed, the onslaught of the modern world can stress us to the point of death.

Stress- a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc. It can also be define as something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety and physical force or pressure. May it be short-term or chronic stress, we all will encounter it one way or another. Repeated short-term stress is experienced during most day-to-day living situations. When you are endlessly beating deadlines or running errands. Chronic stress is the response to emotional pressure suffered for a prolonged period, which an individual perceives he or she has no control. When you have poor diet, inadequate sleep, lack of exercise, and mismanagement of mental and emotional stress.

Why do we live in such a stressful world? In a world were people are constantly building or making things to make life easier, why does stress still engulf people’s lives. In my opinion oneself creates stress. Lets go back to the Stone age, were we had to worry about a few things like hunting, gathering food or surviving mother nature. In the modern world we are not stressed on hunting or gathering food, we are stressed by each other, taxes, traffic, school, work, and maybe something as small as washing the dishes. Stress is created by social and psychological pandemonium invented by our own species.