STRESS: LIFE’S SIGNAL

Stress is part of life. As humans, we even have an hormone that regulates our stress levels when it’s too high or low and for me, that’s what we need to recognize and acknowledge the role that stress plays in our lives. Usually, being stressed out is seen as something unpleasant and not wanted but to the body, it is a signal that the brain needs interprets when it is time to rest. Just imagine if your body is unable to recognize when it is stressed. That would be disastrous because I know so many of us won’t ever find the need to rest.  Avoiding stress can be possible but not for a long time. For the hivelearners topic for this edition, we are asked to share our thoughts on **AVOIDING STRESS**. The truth is, our body can only truly get rid of stress when it is at a complete state of rest. Being awake alone is stressful because the body is constantly working to keep itself in a stable state as a result of the activities we engage in and the food we eat. Avoiding stress is possible but never guaranteed. There are a lot of things that can easily stress us without us even without us feeling stressed physically. Handling stress has always been a problem for me because sometimes I’m not even sure why I’m feeling stressed out. I might have rested a lot but I still feel drained and stressed out, even worse when I know I didn’t do anything. Usually, even when my body seems to be okay, my mind is stressed and with time it starts showing in my body. Resting like I said, it’s a possible solution to avoiding stress but that’s only when we can completely rest our body, our soul and our mind. I have come to accept the fact that stress is part of life but that doesn’t mean I should stress myself out in every situation just because I know stress is almost inevitable. There are some situations we find ourselves that we often stress ourselves over but there are better ways to feel a little more relaxed. For instance, a situation when we have to lie to someone about something just because we think that will change their mind but deep down, we are still disturbed about the lie we’ve told them. And even worse, they don’t even care about it but we know read too much meaning to it and we’ve kept ourselves in a place of unrest.  We avoiding unnecessary lies and unspoken words will save us from mental and emotional stress. We can’t completely get rid of stress or avoid it completely but we can always find ways to minimize stress. Some ways of minimizing stress is to make sure we are conscious of how we breathe. Taking in good amount of oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide is very helpful in keeping our body calm and can help reduce our stress levels in different areas of our lives. Also, giving our body adequate rest and water will also help as well. Avoiding any situation that warrants us to be frightened, anxious or angry will also help us avoid being stressed emotionally and mentally. Taking a walk, reading a book, watching a movie, talking with a loved one and listening to a podcast or music can also help us avoid being stressed as these activities help us feel relaxed most of the time. Which is one reason why I always wonder why some people delight in watching horror movies and say it helps them relax, lol. Anyways, that’s by the way. We have to always work and engage in activities daily. We can’t completely run away from being stressed but minimizing it is what’s possible. The truth is, whether we are working or not, we can still get stressed so we shouldn’t in anyways tell ourselves that we are feeling stressed out only because of our work. That’s not true at all. As they say, all work and no play makes Jack a dull person. Thank you for reading through. 💜