What was thought to be true is now proven by many scientific studies: Men are less adapt at dealing with stress than women. They are also less likely to talk openly about stresses in their lives compared to women. These characteristics are usually associated with the cultural / societal upbringing where men are not encouraged to discuss their feelings and emotions even with their near and dear ones.
Having a little amount of stress in life is good as it compels us to take action. However, when the stress becomes persistent or chronic, it can cause serious damage to personal health as well as to various relationships in our lives. Stress is difficult to measure and its harmful effects are very individualistic in nature. Men who are extrovert are generally better able to tolerate and manage stress than those who are introverts by nature. Personally, I have seen the negative effects of stress first hand in my family. My father who was a gentle and quiet person by nature choose to deal with the stress in his life by bottling it all in. It ended up playing a big role in him being diagnosed with angina, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure in his early 50's. Even though he was physically active, used to go for regular walks and ate fairly OK, it was not enough to keep him away from the harmful effects of stress.
Main Causes of Stress:
Work related
One of the biggest cause of stress is related to work environment. Persistent pressure and work load, working long hours, chasing aggressive time lines, uncompromising boss, job insecurity and long commute times all play a role in causing dangerous levels of stress.
Family / Relatives
Worrying about family, spouse, children, parents, siblings, in laws etc can all increase the stress levels.
Past trauma / memories
Painful memories, incidents and trauma of the past can continue to cause stress even years later.
Future anxiety / Fear of unknown
Worrying about what's going to happen in future is a major source of stress
Financial insecurity
Worrying about financial situation, bills, debts, mortgage etc can all cause serious stress in life.
Political news / Nationalistic tendencies
Watching news media all the time tend to increase the stress levels. Having nationalistic tendencies further increase the stress levels as one can easily get sucked into the prevailing news of the day.
Lack of health / chronic health issues
Chronic health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high BP, heart disease, auto-immune disease, obesity etc can cause
Signs & Symptoms of Stress (one or more could be related to stress)
Insomnia (lack of proper sleep - tossing & turning)
Sadness
Worry
Restless anxiety
Feel like crying for no reason
Frustration - Bottling up (keeping it inside - can lead to drastic results)
Anger
Overeating
Mood swings
Depression
Unhealthy eating habits (eating at wrong time, wrong foods, wrong quantity)
Increased smoking
Increased use of alcohol and drugs to get away from stress can cause even more damage
Decreased or Hyper sexual drive
Back, shoulder and neck pain
Stomach cramps
Decreased immunity
Important: In case of men, high levels of stress can contribute towards hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, auto immune conditions etc. Even, the chances of getting a heart attack in men is higher than women under similar stressful conditions.
Unfortunately, there is no reliable way to really quantify the "amount" of stress one is dealing with on daily, weekly basis. As a consequence, we don't know when it becomes too much and reach a tipping point as far as our health is concerned. In my view, it is best to be proactive than suffer the dangerous consequences of stress in our lives.
Throw the STRESS out like Garbage:
Stress is like garbage that must be emptied on regular basis if we want to avoid illness and disease. We must not underestimate the harmful effects of stress. It has the potential to destroy health and create havoc in our relationships with our loved ones. Just because we can't physically see stress, it doesn't mean it is not effecting us at a much deeper level. Just as we have developed the discipline to brush our teeth and take bath daily, we must incorporate strategies / tools to get rid of the stress on daily basis.
Best tool to deal with Stress:
We can never get rid of ALL the stress in our lives as many sources of stress are beyond our control. However, we can take the help of some powerful tools to minimize the effect of stress in our lives. For the past 6 years, I have been practicing a powerful breathing technique called SKY (Sudharshan Kriya Yoga). Personally, it has helped me tremendously to deal with physical and mental stress that comes with living with Muscular Dystrophy (MD) symptoms on daily basis. SKY breathing technique is taught by "Art of Living Foundation" as part of the "Happiness Program". The long list of benefits attributed to SKY are reported by dozens of published peer reviewed scientific studies.
I know many people personally (friends & family) who has immensely benefited from regularly practicing SKY breathing exercise. It literally act as a vacuum cleaner which pull the stress right out of our system leaving us light and energetic. From stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, arthritis, inflammation etc, all of these conditions gets better by regularly practicing SKY. It helps improve our sleep pattern as well as our overall mood which in turn helps improve our relationships with loves ones. We feel more centered and connected with everything and everyone around us. Last year, my sister came to visit me with a lot of stress in her life. After she saw me deal calmly with my health issues she decided to learn the SKY breathing technique. After practicing it for just few weeks, her two daughters saw such a positive change in her that they decided to learn it as well. Till now many of my friends and family members have learned the SKY breathing technique. In all the cases, where it is practiced regularly people have seen tremendous benefits.
Conclusion:
As a health coach, I always advise my friends and clients to employ some tool/method to handle the "Stress" in their lives. One might be eating a great diet and/or working out regularly, but unfortunately in this day and age it is no longer enough for sustained health. If one does not use a tool/technique to deal with daily stress, sooner or later there will be a price to pay with falling health. Unfortunately, this is specially true in case of most men.
There are quite a few ways to deal with stress. Doing daily meditation/prayers is a good tool and engaging in volunteering is another good way to deal with stress. I do both regularly, but personally I have found the easiest way to handle it by practicing the SKY breathing technique. The health benefits just keep adding up. Best part, you can do it from the comfort of your home and it takes just 20 minutes.
If you would like to learn more about the SKY breathing technique you can use the contact me for more information. I'll be happy to guide you.
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