By Jodi Stuckless, PsD Candidate, Mental Health and Wellness Coach
With busy work and home lives we all deal with stress on a regular basis but few of us really understand what stress is at its core. There are good and bad stresses but what’s most important to understand is your reaction stress and what strategies will help you to handle it effectively both at home and in the workplace.
Our bodies in particular react in a very specific and functional way when we are under stress. Whether you are in immediate physical danger or you’re experiencing work related stress – your body will have the same fight-or-flight reaction. When under stress, your body is activated to produce adrenaline and your respiratory system is signaled to accelerate breathing to support the body’s need for oxygen in the muscles.In general, good stress, also called eustress, is short-term. It can use these natural physical responses to stress to propel you forward and help you achieve your goals. These generally relatively short bouts of stress (acute stress) can provide motivation to get something done or overcome an obstacle. Even though you’re excited about something, you can still feel stressed out about it. Situations or events that could contribute to eustress: a work deadline, a wedding or giving a speech. This short-term stress isn’t around long enough to do much damage to the body and engages our natural, beneficial fight-or-flight response that we have for survival.
Bad stress can be short-term or long-term. Bad stress is often accompanied by feelings of helplessness because you don’t have a lot of control over what’s happening and you may begin to feel compressed or trapped. Ongoing, or chronic, stress can slow you down and inhibit you from doing the things you need to do. This type of stress, negative stress, is detrimental because you never really get a chance to recover from the effects of fight-or-flight and you suffer consequences such as a negative impact on your performance at work, lower levels of overall happiness, and more.
So, what have you done lately to manage your levels of bad stress? If you’re interested in learning more about stress, anxiety, self-care and general happiness, join the Horizon Mental Health Challenge!
So many of us see our family physicians at least once or twice a year in regards to matters that concern our physical health, but what are we doing to maintain and attend our mental health? The goal of the Horizon Mental Health Challenge is to draw your attention towards matters affecting your mental health, and to provide you with some tools and tricks to help alleviate stress and anxiety, allow for proper self-care, and increase overall levels of happiness at work and at home.
To learn more or to register for the Horizon Mental Health challenge, click here.
