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Show Stress and How to Cope With It . . . We all face stress of varying kinds and intensify every day. It's as much a part of life as happiness and relaxation. There is much talk about stress being more intense or more difficult to cope with than it was in the past, supposedly simpler years, but it is hard to determine if this is indeed so. Most indicators of problems within our society are on the rise, such as juvenile delinquency, murder, theft, emotional problems, divorce, alcoholism, etc. I, think we would be safe in assuming that we are going through a very stressful period in our history. Actucally what stress means is change. Any change in what we are used to in our environment or in our physical condition is a stress to us emotionally. Buying a new car can be quite stressful as the old familiar clunker is no longer around and we now have a shiny new automobile to worry about getting the first nick in the fender. We also . have the additional burden of financial payments for this car. So that which normally we ', consider as being a positive sort of happening, actually ; produces a good deal of stress. ; More obvious changes include ! the death of a loved one, loss ' of a job, or change of living location. Physical illness is a : very big stress. All of these things primarily represent a change in our situation. The amount of stress we face in our lives is directly related to the amount of disease we suffer. There have been a good number of studies in recent years which point to the relationship between stress and illness of all kinds; including physical illness, mental illness and accidental injury. For instance, A Dr. Holmes ran a check on the stress levels of college football players in the previous six months to beginning football training for the season. He found that he could predict with a high degree of accuracy the men who would suffer injuries during the training period. There is some evidence evi-dence that the onset of cancer and tuberculosis are related to stressful events in a person's life. This stress seems to lower the body's resistence to the tuberculosis germs and also to lower resistence to the abnormal abnor-mal cancer cells so they can take hold and begin to spread. Dr. Holmes devised a scale of stress after talking with many many people about various life events and how stressful they were to them. Number one on the list is the death of a spouse, which j (j) f Fdur Corners : I "1 Mental Health : ; w "A HUMAN SERVICES CENTER" j f f Richard E. Shanteau, M.D. : J J Psychiatrist received 100 units on the scale. A divorce was counted as 75 units, a change of job or change in the living location was about 50 units, and a vacation which seems like a very non-stressful thing was counted at about 15 units on a scale of 0 to 100. If a person had more than 350 life change units on this scale within six months' period of time, he or she had a very high possibility of having a serious injury or illness develop. I myself have seen this many, many times and find that whenever I develop a cold or get some injury of some nature or another, that I've been under a period of high stress. So how do we cope with stress? First of all, we must be aware of how stress affects our emotional state and functioning. function-ing. Once you know that you are under a period of high stress you can begin to take steps to protect yourself against further stress or injury coming out of your disturbed equilibrium. For instance, you could cut back on a planned job or project you had thought about doing for a long time, or avoid going on a trip that you were going to squeeze into a short weekend, or you could not buy that extra item that you desired for so long but knew that if you did you would be financially stressed for a period of some months. You might be aware that when you are under a lot of stress your driving will be affected, so you ought to take extra precautions such as being more attentive to the details of driving. An important thing that one can do to cope with stress is to develop a healthy pattern to your life. That is to get up at the same time every day, have a regular sleeping time, incorporate some healthy practices; such as exercising regularly, eating the right kinds of foods and having appropriate relaxation and escape activities. I think that-the that-the value of many of the sports is just that. . They provide exercise and a regular pleasurable form of escape from daily worries. To be most beneficial, sports need to become part of a regular pattern in a person's life. To attempt to play a strenuous game of basketball after having no exercise for six months is dangerous and becomes an undue muscle- aching stress. Medication, hypnosis, deep-muscle relaxation relaxa-tion techniques, sauna baths, hot and cold showers, healthy sexual relations, sleep, taking quiet time to yourself, going on brief uncomplicated vacations, vaca-tions, all are very good ways of relaxing and getting away from the continual grind of daily stress. A good hobby is another excellent way of enjoying yourself and buffering buffer-ing yourself against stress at your job or at your home. Perhaps most important in this process is the ability to take the time to examine your life pattern, and decide what are the healthy components and what are the unhealthy components in it. Once you've made some decisions about your life and your life style you can set about to change V(1, life to a more healthy by improving your con ' 1 cation skills, setting limits or seeking nrof,-help nrof,-help if you find !pP , muchtobearbyyoU'X should be an on-going pro' . and is perhaps y". important thing that one"""-' do to help himself or hJJ.: cope with the daily io,. health-threatening stress ' ' |