Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques

Archive for January, 2010

Children can be a major change in your life. If you are suddenly finding it difficult to handle your children or that you are now in charge of raising children, you need to learn to handle stress, and to remain calm through out the many problems that children can ‘throw’ at your family and into your life.

To keep calm, no matter what the situation you have a few alternatives, you can make a joke about it, you can breath deeply or you can walk away.  Depending on the seriousness of the situation and how upset you really are, will also determine just what you are going to do at the moment when you feel that stress attach coming on. For some, a stress attack is felt as you clench your teeth, others notice your voice is rising, and sometimes, you may even feel your heart race a bit, and for a continued time.

Facing your problems head on is going to aid in lessening stress right away. For example, your daughter just brought her boyfriend home and they are heading to her room. Simply avoid stress, by telling your daughter, sorry, friends have to stay in the family room, rules are rules. If she doesn’t like it, she will have her boyfriend leave. If you aren’t speaking your mind, you are going to feel your blood boiling the entire time they are in her room, no matter what age she is or what you may be told they are doing. Breathe deeply, and start out with a solid voice. As you approach the situation you are in control, and you are putting stress behind you. As you are in control, you are reminding the child you are the parent and that what you say goes.

What you will find is that you have many ways of remaining in control, even if your son or daughter is being defiant. Perhaps your daughter continued walking to her bedroom with her boyfriend, what are you going to do next? Make a joke about it! Go to the basement, flip all the breakers, make the house dark. Make the stay unwelcome and make it known. There will be no computer no lights, no music when the lights are out. When the daughter comes out of the room to inquire what is going on, you can sit in the family room with a few candles and state to your daughter that you don’t know what is going on, and that maybe they should come down where the lights are. You never have to let anyone know about your ‘joke’ but you will feel less stress, because you are in control.

While these situations may seem a bit silly, they can actually be quite aggravating on the parents stress levels, and health levels.  It is vital to remember to control a situation, and to be in charge, you are going to feel less stress about any situation involving your child. Keep yourself under control, be in control, breathe deeply, and do something about those things in life that are causing you stress! You can use this simple story to apply to many situations your children; your teens are going to ‘throw’ at you to keep your sanity!

If a person is dealing with stress on a regular basis and doing nothing about it, it will be considered long term stress.  Long-term stress can lead to physical or psychological damage to the body.  Stress can cause the body the following problem in their life.  Physical disorder can be a cause of chronic stress.

Stress can develop into serious problems, like anxiety or depression, which can be even more serious to your health.  Both of these problems can be very dangerous for most people.  They can cause a person to distance themselves from their loved ones or their career.  This will cause the person to feel sad and dysfunctional at the same time.  Heart disease is another problem that can come from long-term stress. 

Mental and physical stress is a trigger for an unstable angina.  This chest pain is caused by lack of oxygen reaching the heart.  There is a higher risk for serious heart events like heart attacks.  A person can even die from this problem and sudden stress can cause the heart arteries to block.  They can stop the flow of blood to the heart. 

Stress can also cause the body to have high blood pressure.  This problem can harm a person for lot of reason.  This can cause a person to have to go on medication to help them lower their blood pressure and it may eventually lead them to have a stroke if it is not taken care of in the proper way. 

Long-term stress can cause the immune system to become less effective.  This leaves a person vulnerable to colds and other immune problems for their body.  Digestive problems can be a cause of prolonged stress.  This will irritate the large intestines.  A person can be forced to face diarrhea, constipation and bloating.

A person that has been dealing with long-term stress may have diet problems.  They may find themselves getting an eating disorder.  They may become anorexic or even obese because of the disorder.  They may find that food is either the enemy or the comfort when they are dealing with stress.  Diabetes is a problem that chronic stress can develop.  It can also lead to arthritis for some people and the ability to control these problems may be clouded by the stress. 

Many people may also have to deal with sleep disorders when they are dealing with stress.  They can find that they are tired and anxious all the time and they will be missing out on the sleep that is so important for them to get.  They may turn to sleeping pills and other methods to get the rest that they are longing for.  However, this can cause more problems later down the road.