Deprivation and urban decay are major sources of distress for millions of people around the world. Poverty, domestic violence, inadequate housing or pollution are all factors that build up stress in people overtime.
These factors will not only affect how people live, but also how they work or interact with their family members, neighbors or friends.
However, each time we are exposed to stressful events or circumstances that are out of our control, the way it will affect us will mainly depend on how we respond to these events and how we adapt to these circumstances.
Developing Coping Skills
We all have completely different reactions to stressful events and being exposed to them will help us build up resistance to stress as well as it will help us form our own ways of coping with stress, depending on our personalities. Although many of us live less stressful lives, there is no one who lives an entirely stress free life.
The trick is however to weed out as much pointless stress as possible from our lives and understanding how to control our responses to unexpected, unavoidable and accumulative stress.
What Can You do to Combat Stress?
There are several books out there, which can teach us about effective stress management skills as well as there are several natural methods that are available for us to control the effects of stress on our bodies and our minds. Meditation, reflexology, massage, hot aromatherapy baths, a cup of relaxing herbal tea, natural sleep remedies, regular physical exercise, such as yoga, pilates, swimming, running or cycling as well as dietary improvements can all effectively help us build up resistance to stress and coping skills.
When it comes to coping with stress effectively, a healthy lifestyle is just as important as developing personal resistance and crisis management skills for both yourself and those living around you.
Common Stressful Events
Every one of us will have times in our lives when we will feel deeply distressed. Family break up, losing a loved one, moving house, losing a job or becoming ill can all get us down from time to time and events like these should be anticipated by everyone. In fact emotional stress will not merely occur when we have an unexpected tragic event, but also when we experience happy events, such as moving to a larger house, getting married, becoming a parent or a grand parent.
Your struggle for internal internal equilibrium is indeed a relentless process and it is made even more complicated when profound changes disrupt out usual routines and the manner in which we organize and live our day to day lives. Therefore the reason why we need to develop stress management skills is because the amount of stress we experience in these situations will largely depend on how we respond to them.
About the author: M. H. Klein writes for several websites that focus on stress.
Photo credit: Stuart Pilbrow