Anti-Aging Information

Stress is a throwback to prehistoric times when the body would secrete hormones, raise blood pressure, and in other ways prepare itself to deal with many dangers and challenges. In those days, these most basic biological responses were a simple matter of survival, because most emergencies were solved by killing or running away from somethingthe so-called fight or flight response.

We still have the same internal physical response, but in the modern world, the replacement stimuli tend to be situations that can't be dealt with simply by fighting or running away. In fact, many don't call for a physical reaction of any kindincluding verbal. For this reason, stress is a complex mechanism with both physical and mental ramifications. More often than not, it must be dealt with mentally because dealing with the physical aspects of stress is, for the most part, considered to be dealing with the symptoms, not the cause.

Coping With Stress

The first line of attack taken by most experts is the assessment phase (called "psychological and emotional stress testing"). The degree of stress and, as much as possible, its causes, are defined. How do you really /fee/? With luck, your stress can be recognized, and you can start dealing with how stress affects you before it becomes too obviousthat is, before you suffer a stroke, a nervous breakdown, ulcers, or some other major physical or mental dysfunction.

Again, professional help is available for this critical phase in stress recognition and management. Here we are referring to psychiatrists, psychologists, or other mental health counselors.

The next level of approach is stress management itself. In any case, I strongly recommend that physical exercise be included in this phase for the simple reason that the absence of physical exercise is why stress builds up in the first place. If you lived in the Paleolithic Age, your stress would be caused by physical threats, and you would respond to them in a physical manner, thus dissipating the hormonal secretions and naturally allowing your body to return to its unstressed state. Also, although stress can be dealt with using drugs or other therapies, addressing symptoms, not causes, can lead to a Band-Aid approach.