Am I Depressed?

You’ve probably been hearing the same mantra since elementary school - if you don’t get good grades, you won’t get into a good college, you won’t get a good job and you’ll end up living like a bum on the street…

All joking aside, your academic performance really does affect what fields you can go into and what type of job you can hold in the future. After all, you wouldn’t expect a straight-D student to get into medical school - nor would you want them to. However, whether you’re in high school, college, or graduate school, constantly dealing with stress can have a big impact on your overall academic success in any of the following ways:

1. Stress Affects Your Health

Stress suppresses your immune system, which causes increased susceptibility to bugs and viruses, as well as chronic health problems like headaches and upset stomach. It doesn’t take a Harvard graduate to tell you that if you’re sick, you won’t be able to give 100% to your classes. You may not feel up to studying or you could suffer further from missing classes. If stress is causing physical symptoms, it’s time to consult a professional therapist or stress management consultant.

2. Stress Affects Memory Retention

Students who experience large amounts of stress in their lives often have trouble with memory retention. When you’re stressed, you’re more likely to forget the facts and figures presented in class, and you’ll be less likely to successfully recall this information on tests, labs and on real life applications. Obviously, this is a problem for anyone who wants to do well in college, so try to identify and remedy the causes of stress in your life if you find you’re forgetting more than you retain from your classes.

3. Stress Causes Anxiety

Students who face a tremendous amount of stress may also suffer from anxiety - ranging from mild cases of worry to severe, can’t-leave-the-house cases of nerves. If you’re suffering from anxiety at any level, you’ll find that you can’t focus as well on your school work or on other aspects of student life like extra-curricular activities and personal relationships.

4. Stress Affects Your Judgment

Stress has a definite impact on student judgment. Some students will turn to illegal drugs, prescription medications or binge-drinking in order to escape from the affects of stress. However, turning to drugs and alcohol doesn’t erase the source of your stress - it only adds more. Substance abuse is a serious problem, so if you find yourself pouring a glass or four of wine each night to help you wind down, it’s time to seek professional guidance.

5. Stress Compromises Your Future Outlook

Stress can turn an ambitions, driven student into one who’s nervous and unsure about the future. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you have a test Monday, a paper due on Wednesday and a major lab on Friday - but don’t let the little things affect your drive for success. If you find yourself thinking that there’s no way you’ll get everything done, try breaking large tasks down into smaller pieces and tackle them one bit at a time.

6. Stress Affects Your Self-Esteem

Students who feel overwhelmed by stress may experience feelings of guilt and hopelessness, causing their self-esteem to falter. If you’ve dropped the ball on your academic work, it’s easy to feel like you’ll never get back on track - but don’t think like this! If you get too caught up in your recent stumbles, you’ll lose track of all the positive strides you’ve made in your studies. Remind yourself of all the good things you’ve accomplished so far and find small, concrete ways to get back on the right path.

7. Stress Can Lead to Mental Health Problems

It’s easy to let the competing academic and personal priorities of being a student get the better of you as a student, and it can become difficult to see outside all this stress. As a result, many students - particularly college-aged students - end up dealing with depression or thinking suicidal thoughts. If you’re ever feeling that there’s no way out of the stress you’re under, seek proper care immediately - there are people who understand what you’re going through that can help you work through the stress you’re dealing with.

Stress is a bodily reaction that causes an individual to feel anxious, tense, threatened or angry. In today’s society, the work environment and matters related to work are the most common causative factors for stress with the second leading factor being the home itself. The effects of stress are varied and may be manifested as both physical and mental afflictions. Some of these effects of stress are more easily detected and some of them are easier for an individual to cope with, whereas others have potentially debilitating long-term effects.

Stress is, in fact, a part of everyday life. A normal individual is sure to experience a certain amount of stress over the years that he or she is alive. The ways in which we cope with stress are of great importance to our well-being. Generally, physical effects of stress are easier to detect than the mental effects. While stress is almost always depicted as having a negative effect on a person, some types of stress is healthy and it can actually have positive effects as well. However, someone who is under constant negative stress will eventually be unable to bear it any longer and will break down. Recovery time after a stress-related breakdown is likely to be relatively long.

How Stress Affects The Body Physically

The more common physical effects of stress on the body include headaches, chest pains, stomach upsets, sleep-related problems and high blood pressure. There are other, less common physical effects of stress such as hives, hyperventilation, heart palpitations, and several forms of heart disease. Sometimes, improper methods used for stress management may further complicate stress-related problems.

There are many ways that one can avoid becoming overly stressed. For example, whenever you have a particularly stressful episode or day at home or in the office, you should make sure you relax afterwards. Often, we bring home work that can actually be left in the office. This is not a healthy practice. You should manage your stress carefully, as stress-related problems can be dangerous not only to yourself, but to your family as well.

The ability to manage your stress is critical to your continued good health - both physical and mental. Both the physical and mental effects of stress can have significant negative impact on your health. While stress is part and parcel of everyday life, we should keep in mind that being overly stressed is not healthy, and we should attempt to avoid allowing stress to take over our lives. Keeping stress under control will not only benefit ourselves, but also those around us and close to us. Stress management is well within the grasp of most people, and you need only try the various methods of stress management in order to find one that suits you and your lifestyle.

It’s estimated that 2 to 4 percent of the population will experience panic disorder or panic attacks sometime during their lives. Many more will suffer from other anxiety-related psychological problems. Women appear to get the disorder twice as often as men do. The condition often shows up for the first time during young adulthood, but it can begin at any age and get worse as time goes on. Panic attacks and panic disorder are serious issues that can change your life, and not in a good way.

Your first panic attack probably happens out of the blue, while you are going about your normal routine. Suddenly you have weird heart palpitations, a racing pulse, or a pounding sensation in the chest. You may be short of breath and feel like you are choking. The trembling, nausea, and dizziness you experience add to your alarm. You know that something is very wrong. You assume it’s a medical issue and go to the doctor or even the emergency room for help.

The symptoms of a panic attack are similar or identical to symptoms of various non-psychological conditions. That’s one of the things that makes diagnosing panic disorder rather difficult. If you’ve never had such symptoms before, it’s absolutely necessary to investigate from a medical angle. You may undergo all sorts of tests and visit several specialists, just to rule out problems with your heart or nervous system or any number of other potential causes. It isn’t a waste of your time, because at least you can be reassured that your health is fine.

After you’ve gone through all this, you understand that what happened to you is related to anxiety. Of course, you naturally associate the attack with whatever you were doing at that moment. You might decide to avoid the specific activity or place so that it doesn’t happen again. Even if you continue to go the same places and do the same things, you may worry about having another attack.

You may be sitting on the bus, or eating in a restaurant, or doing some other perfectly normal thing, and you begin to feel anxious. What if you get panicky again? Your heart is beating faster, is that the beginning of another attack? You’re feeling a bit lightheaded and sweaty. Your throat is dry and closing up… your anxious thoughts start racing out of control.

Stop! It’s just your mind playing tricks on you. You’re not having a heart attack, you’re not going to die, and you’re not going to go crazy. Thinking about having a panic attack can actually bring one on, but only if you allow it to happen.

Panic attacks and the anxiety surrounding them can turn into a destructive cycle that changes your life. Those with this problem sometimes say that the anticipation and fear of another panic attack is more troublesome than the episode itself. You become constantly afraid of losing control again. You can’t relax, and the persistent worry affects your job performance and your relationships.

When you’re dealing with panic disorder, it’s important to try to control the anticipatory fear that is only making your situation worse. If you learn how to change the way you think so that you are less fearful and anxious, then the attacks will loosen their hold on you. Seek out help and treatment as soon as you can, so that panic doesn’t take over your life.

Stress is the natural reaction of the body to unfamiliar sensations and experiences that make us feel uncomfortable. Stress can cause various effects ranging from mild anxiety to intense anger, and it can have both physical and mental effects. The two most common places in which we experience stress are at home and the workplace. Stress is part and parcel of everyday life, and it affects different individuals to varying degrees.

At work, employees as well as employers must work together to develop techniques for office stress management to allow for better stress management in the office. Office stress management techniques will help improve interaction between colleagues, and will also keep the working environment healthier and more cheerful. You must understand the sources of your stress before you can develop effective office stress management techniques to combat them.

Creating Office Stress Management Techniques

There is a large variety of office stress management techniques for you to choose from, and any number of them may be effective at lowering your stress levels. Some techniques are meant to reduce stress immediately, while others have been designed to help you relax at the end of a long, stressful day at the office.

One of the most effective office stress management techniques that you can use whenever you feel overly stressed is to distance yourself from the situation at hand and calmly examine the matter. This method of coping with stress involves maintaining firm control over your emotions as you attempt to sort through a stressful situation. Approaching the situation in a logical and orderly manner will allow you to focus on each aspect as you come to it, leaving no room for panic. This method works in much the same way as having a brief respite and taking the time to think things through properly.

Another effective office stress management technique that has proven to be very effective is to leave office work at the office; do not take it home with you. If you insist on brining home work that could very well be left in the office, then you only contaminate the time at home that should be set aside for relaxing and recharging. While it may occasionally be absolutely necessary for you to bring work home, you should not make it a habit to do so.

You should also prepare yourself beforehand for any work that you are scheduled to undertake. You should know what your schedule for each day is, so that you will not be unduly surprised whenever you receive assignments. You should also read material related to your line of work so that you will better understand your work and it will cause you less stress.

Effective office stress management techniques mostly involve learning how to keep stress at arm’s length. Learning these techniques will teach you how to manage stress, and you will be better able to deal with the unexpected situations and occurrences that cause this stress.

Often, it can be very difficult to get a handle on stress. There are many stress relievers available today, but not all of them are actually effective, and some do not even work at all. Such stress relievers could be tangible or intangible and could range from breathing exercises to worry beads. You will likely have to experiment with several before you find one that truly works for you.

Meditation And The Art Of Breathing

Exercising control over your breathing is actually an effective method of lowering stress levels, and being able to better control stress. Besides relieving stress, breathing exercises also provides other associated benefits for our bodies in the form of increasing our lung capacity and allowing more oxygen to dissolve in our blood. This particular form of stress relief is both effective and convenient, as it can be performed anywhere, without the need for any form of equipment.

The combination of deep breathing exercises and meditation makes it an even more effective stress reliever. Both of them work very well together or separately as effective stress relievers; having an almost immediate effect and soothing the anxiety from your mind.

Visualization And Guided Imagery

This particular form of stress relief may be a little difficult to use at first, as it is easy to become distracted while attempting it. This form of stress relief involves imagining that you are in someplace soothing and calm, and this can greatly reduce your stress levels. Visualization is also often used as a method of motivation, where a person is better able to achieve their goals when they imagine themselves actually achieving them. In order to properly relieve your stress, you must imagine yourself as being in the place that you feel the calmest and relaxed in.

Muscle Relaxation And Exercise

These stress relievers not only helps to alleviate your stress, it also keeps your body fit and flexible. Exercise has been proven to be an excellent method of letting out stress and anxiety, allowing you to use such exertions as an outlet for any pent-up anger and frustration that you may have. Muscle relaxation is a series of exercises that involve tensing and relaxing your muscles in a certain manner, thus easing the tension in your muscles. In the same way as breathing exercises, these exercises are convenient primarily because they can be performed anywhere and at any time.

Musical Therapy

For some people, music is an excellent stress reliever while for others; stress relief is not possible when there is any external noise. For those people who are soothed by particular types of music, it can be one of the best stress relievers available because it actually affects how you feel overall, lowering your blood pressure, soothing your mind, and relaxing your muscles.

In conclusion, you should choose the stress reliever that you feel most comfortable with, and ensure that it is one that really helps you reduce your stress levels, making you feel calmer and more in control of yourself.

Every day we are faced with a situation where our health is assaulted on all sides. There is not just one cause of disease. People get sick because of a number of converging changes. In Australia, according to government research, 50% of people aged 50 and over are considered to have some form of disability. 20% of children reported symptoms of Asthma to their Medical Practitioner in the past year, 30% of Australians over the age of 25 are at risk of Diabetes. Today we are faced with many enemies that simply didn’t exist all those years ago.

Medical Science admits that they have no real answers to degenerative autoimmune diseases. They offer drugs to slow down the process while each of these has nasty side effects which can sometimes cause more problems than they solve. We have the twin problems of people having lesser quality of life from a younger age and living longer.

There are many forms of stress we face today that didn?€™t exist years ago and this stress is now acknowledged as a major factor in the rise of disease.

Sources of Stress

When it comes down to it, anything that places stress on our bodies will cause us to age prematurely and lead us down the path towards disease and eventually death. We believe that we can maintain a high quality of life and extend our lives by many years by understanding stress and taking action to reduce stress.

Green Harvesting

The practice of picking fruits and vegetables before they are ripe is commonplace in Western Society. Even most organic fruits and vegetables are transported green to market. Most of us have the experience of purchasing a green banana which never ripened. This was because the store forgot to give it “ripening gas”! All this is done in the name of convenience. Lack of vital nutrients caused by this process increases stress. We need the phytonutrients so our body can cope with the other stress factors.

Soil Depletion

Did you know that there was a time when the land was left to regenerate occasionally so that mineral levels would replenish! In the Feudal days they practiced crop rotation and leaving the fields “fallow” or uncultivated every third year. Modern farming practices have solved that problem. With the use of chemical fertilizers, we are now able to reap the same crops from a field year after year. This causes even less nutrition in our food. Studies show the modern potato has lost 100% of Vitamin A and 57% of Vitamin C compared to its sister in 1950. There is very real stress added by the lack of nutrients in our soil.

Toxins and Pollutants

There are 75,000 new chemicals in existence today that weren’t around in 1950. These represent an odorless, colorless, and place stress on our bodies. Only 3% of these have been tested in humans and hardly any studies have been done on the effects of combinations of these nasty substances. Our bodies were simply not designed to handle the stress caused by these. Testing shows that everyone has some of every chemical in use today in their bodies. Everyone suffers from this stress. The most toxic part of your environment is carpet in your home. Inside our homes is generally 5- 10 times the toxicity of the exterior areas.

Poor Diets

This is well publicised. The proportion of junk or highly processed food in our diets is rapidly increasing. Additional stress occurs from digesting these nutrient deficient foods. Pace of life is such that many do not prepare meals any more. It causes too much stress! When you add this to processed foods in your supermarket, you will understand why obesity is becoming a major concern for governments. Unfortunately, the Supermarket chains are a powerful lobby group, so expect a lot of rhetoric, and little enforcement from our governments. They will offer advice, but leave it up to us to decide. Like it or not, our supermarkets are mausoleums where food lies in state!

Home and Work Stress

This is stress everyone will understand. Let’s face it, with all the modern devices, etc, life is getting faster by the minute. If you have children you will know this. There is uncertainty in the job market and 95% of people are looking at a reduced lifestyle when they eventually retire. Talk about stress!! Work and home life are more demanding and this places a strain on our bodies. Every time we experience stress, vital minerals and nutrients are taken from our bodies. Unless we replace these, we will get sick.

What to Do About It!

Stress is a modern fact of life. The various forms of stress speed up degeneration of the body. Replacing missing vital nutrients including essential glyconutrients and antioxidants helps us neutralise stress. We can deal with modern stress. It requires action to replenish what is taken from us. At healthyaussie we offer solutions.

The Problem
You don’t need me to tell you how pervasive stress is in our modern lives. In part, this is due to our chosen life styles. One element of our life styles that is likely to be making matters worse, is our diet, by which I mean, what we eat.

You see, when we are under pressure, we tend to save time by eating food that actually increases our stress and may fuel an addiction to stress.

Now before you turn off in disgust, thinking that this is an entirely negative article about what is bad for you, let me assure you that some changes to your diet can be achieved very easily with a little thought and that I am not advocating wholesale changes in your life styles, though this would possibly be the best way to defeat stress.

It is not impossible that you are reading this article out of sheer curiosity, or that you suffer from stress although your diet is of the kind that I would recommend (for diet is not the only factor in reducing stress). Accordingly, I suggest we do a simple test to see if what I am going to tell you could benefit you directly if you took my advice. Just answer these questions:

1. Do you frequently or continuously complain of any of the following?

• Tiredness

• Fatigue

• Exhaustion

• Lethargy

• Apathy

• Poor concentration

• Lack of motivation

If the answer is yes, you almost certainly need the advice contained in this article.

2. Do you seek relief from the worst effects of stress and regain energy by:

• Eating sugary foods?

• Drinking coffee or tea?

• Smoking a cigarette?

• Burying yourself in a high-powered job?

• Indulging in an exhilarating sport or pastime?

If the answer is yes, you are probably addicted to stress, and the advice in this article is essential for you.

Let us first of all set the scene.

Stress Chemistry
Whenever we perceive a situation that needs urgent and immediate action, our adrenal glands begin to make adrenalin. Almost immediately, our heart is pounding, our muscles tense, our eyes dilate, our breathing changes, our blood thickens and glucose is pumped into it: so much glucose that we could run a mile, though this might be overkill if the cause of our stress is an unwanted telephone call, a traffic jam, or kids fighting on the back seat.

The glucose is produced by breaking down the glycogen that is contained in our muscles and liver. Getting it from our blood to our bodies is achieved by hormones, produced by the pancreas. These are insulin and glucagon. The insulin, with another chemical, this time from the liver, facilitates the movement to the cells of the body, whilst glucagon is used to top up the blood sugar levels if these fall too low.

You will realise that this process of equipping us for fight of flight is expensive of energy. We might wonder where the extra energy comes from, especially if we were feeling tired immediately before the event that we are now reacting to.

The answer is that energy is diverted from the body’s normal functions of maintenance and repair. Thus, so long as we are feeling stressed, our digestion, rejuvenation and cleansing functions are turned off. No wonder people who are continuously stressed look old before their time.

But things are even worse than this for people who suffer from chronic stress. Consider the unnecessary aging involved in the process if the pituitary, the adrenals, the pancreas and the liver pump out chemicals continuously to control blood sugar that we don’t need. In short, the process wears us and our bodies out.

The Blood Sugar Saga
Worn out by the process described above, our energy is sapped. We lose concentration, become easily confused, make silly mistakes, fall asleep after lunch, become irritable, find it hard to sleep at night, don’t want to wake in the morning, sweat more than normal, and/or suffer from headaches. Does this ring any bells with you?

This is where most people turn to stimulants to help them regain energy and control. Typically, these will include tea, coffee, cola drinks, chocolate, cigarettes, horror films, retail therapy and such extreme activities as free-fall parachuting and bungee jumping. Those who are not fussy about keeping within the law may seek their buzz from amphetamines, crack, cocaine, or crime.

The use of stimulants to regain energy tends to lead to a demand for relaxants, such as alcohol, sleeping pills, tranquillisers and cannabis.

It will not surprise you to learn that no-one can live like this for long without experiencing burn-out. This is why holidays are so popular. But packing and travelling can be extremely stressful too. Moreover, the typical holidaymaker will choose to read a steamy or gripping paperback novel while waiting for the plane or while lying on the beach. Stress is never far away.

If the holidaymaker is truly addicted to stress, he or she will soon crave some excitement. Lying on the beach is not enough to provide the buzz that is needed. Water skiing or wind surfing may meet the need.

If you have ever found that you become ill or feel completely exhausted whenever you take time off from work, it is likely that you are already addicted to stress.

The Formula for Balance
In order to maximise your energy resources and avoid burning out, follow these guidelines.

• Eat slow-releasing carbohydrates (such as fruit and nuts), but not fast-releasing carbohydrates (such as sugar, white bread, foods containing sugar).

• Check that you are taking in all essential nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals (eat plenty of fruit, nuts and vegetables).

• Avoid taking stimulants (e.g. coffee and tea) and depressants (e.g. alcohol.

This doesn’t mean that you can never break these rules – unstressed people can safely eat chocolate and drink wine, in moderation - but if you are addicted to stress or just badly stressed you break the rules at your peril.

When you keep to these rules, you will find that you are better able to face stressful events. This is because you have given yourself a consistent supply of energy. Adopting this approach both helps to break the cycle of energy-consuming behaviour (the blood sugar saga) and creates energy to overcome the mental habits that result in our reaction to stress in the first place.

Warning
If you give up tea and coffee and other stimulants, sugar and chocolate, and you begin to suffer headaches, loss of concentration, tiredness or nausea, this is evidence enough of addiction. You are suffering withdrawal symptoms. Stick to your plan and these unpleasant side effects will pass. What’s more, you will feel a whole lot better when they do than you did before you stopped taking the stimulants.

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It’s natural to get angry sometimes, and doing so can actually be healthy, too. Anger serves some important functions, particularly that of moving us to action when things need changing in our lives. Therefore, setting a goal of never experiencing anger probably wouldn’t be desirable, even if it were possible reach. Those who try for a complete lack of anger often end up just ‘stuffing’ their emotions, then ‘blowing up’ at inopportune times and causing more problems for themselves than if they had expressed their anger in healthy ways. The goal of anger management is twofold: to eliminate unnecessary anger, and to express necessary anger in healthy ways. The following anger management tips and exercises can help you with the dual goals of anger management, enabling you to enjoy healthier relationships and less stress in your life.

Examine Your Beliefs

This one can be tricky, but it’s a way to prevent some of your feelings from turning into anger in the first place — a way to eliminate unnecessary anger. When you get angry, you can often (some experts even go so far as to say always) trace the emotion back to a belief that what happened was wrong, not supposed to have happened, was due to someone else’s negligence or lack of caring, etc. Pinpointing the exact thoughts that are tied to your anger can enable you to talk yourself out of anger, or realize that whatever it is that’s triggering your anger may not necessarily need to lead to an anger response. (See these articles on cognitive restructuring and examining anger for more on this anger management technique.)

Eliminate Some of Your ‘Anger Triggers’

Once you’re aware of what types of things make you angry, you can start cutting some of these triggers out of your life. For example, if you find that you often get angry in the car when you’re in a hurry and slow traffic makes you late, you can work on reorganizing your schedule to find a few extra minutes to accommodate traffic. You can play music in your car to relax you, or use stress management techniques to calm your physiology. (See this article on road rage for more ideas.) If you have a friend who constantly triggers your anger, you may want to look at the beliefs behind your anger with this person, or limit your contact. (See this article on conflict for more on the negative effects of such relationship dynamics.) The point is, if you already know what things seem to bring about an anger response, and you can cut them out of your life, why not do so in the interest of anger management?

Develop Effective Communication Skills

Much of our anger tends to get directed at other people. Effective communication skills and conflict resolution techniques can help in two ways: They can help us communicate our boundaries to others so that we’re less likely to feel frustration and anger in our relationships, and they help us to do so in a way that doesn’t provoke anger in others. (See this article on healthy communication for more ideas.)

Take Care of Yourself

If your body is under a lot of stress and strain, you may be more prone to anger in your daily life. For example, sleep-deprived people are often cranky; the same holds for hungry people. If you’re able to create a nice work-life balance so that you have enough time outside of work to get quality sleep, eat a healthy diet, and have some time for hobbies, creativity and relationships, you should find yourself less tense and anger-prone. (See this article on self care for stress relief and anger management.)

Keep Some Stress Relievers Handy

When you’re having one of those days that you’ll scream if one more thing goes wrong, you usually do end up yelling at some point (figuratively or literally). Added stress can make you more anger-prone. Therefore, having stress management techniques on-hand to quiet the storm can help you soften or eliminate anger in your life. Some techniques that are especially useful? Breathing exercises are one of my favorite techniques; a few deep breaths can calm yourstress response and enable you to feel more in control in virtually any situation. Progressive muscle relaxation can also offer some fast benefits, especially when practiced regularly. Cognitive restructuring can also be great for stress relief as well as anger management. As for ongoing practices, meditation can provide some lasting benefits; not only do you feel better when you’re practicing it, but it can help you be less reactive to stress overall. Exercise carries similar benefits. (See this article for more on stress management techniques.)

Get Support If You Need It

While anger can push people away, it can also be a cry for help. If you find yourself angry more often than you’d like, you may just need more help and support from others. For example, if a messy house puts you on edge, enlisting cleaning help may be an effective anger management technique for you. If you find that you’re angry over constant ‘little things,’ perhaps you’re too busy and overwhelmed, and you need to cut back on your lifestyle stress. (See this article on setting priorities.) Don’t be afraid to ask others to help take some of the burden off, if they’re able. Finally, if you feel that your anger management efforts aren’t as effective as you’d like, it might be useful to enlist the support of a therapist, who can help you take a deeper look at your anger and find ways to work through it and express it in healthy ways.

Because of the negative effects of anger, it’s important to prioritize anger management if you find yourself angry more often than you’d like. With a little work, you can make anger work for you (as a motivator for change), rather than against you (as a threat to your health and happiness).

Stress Management Benefits of Laughter:

• Hormones: Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and neurotransmitters. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.
• Physical Release: Have you ever felt like you “have to laugh or I’ll cry”? Have you experienced the cleansed feeling after a good laugh? Laughter provides a physical and emotional release.
• Internal Workout: A good belly laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It even provides a good workout for the heart.
• Distraction: Laughter brings the focus away from anger, guilt, stress and negative emotions in a more beneficial way than other mere distractions.
• Perspective: Studies show that our response to stressful events can be altered by whether we view something as a ‘threat’ or a ‘challenge’. Humor can give us a more lighthearted perspective and help us view events as ‘challenges’, thereby making them less threatening and more positive.
• Social Benefits of Laughter: Laughter connects us with others. Also, laughter is contagious, so if you bring more laughter into your life, you can most likely help others around you to laugh more, and realize these benefits as well. By elevating the mood of those around you, you can reduce their stress levels, and perhaps improve the quality of social interaction you experience with them, reducing your stress level even more!

How To Use Laughter: Laughter is one of my all-time favorite stress management strategies because it’s free, convenient, and beneficial in so many ways. You can get more laughter in your life with the following strategies:

• T.V. and Movies: There’s no shortage of laughter opportunities from the entertainment, both at the theater and in the aisles of the video stores, as well as at home with T.V. comedies. While wasting your time watching something marginally funny may actually frustrate you, watching truly hilarious movies and shows is an easy way to get laughter into your life whenever you need it.
• Laugh With Friends: Going to a movie or comedy club with friends is a great way to get more laughter in your life. The contagious effects of laughter may mean you’ll laugh more than you otherwise would have during the show, plus you’ll have jokes to reference at later times. Having friends over for a party or game night is also a great setup for laughter and other good feelings.
• Find Humor In Your Life: Instead of complaining about life’s frustrations, try to laugh about them. If something is so frustrating or depressing it’s ridiculous, realize that you could ‘look back on it and laugh.’ Think of how it will sound as a story you could tell to your friends, and then see if you can laugh about it now. With this attitude, you may also find yourself being more lighthearted and silly, giving yourself and those around you more to laugh about. Approach life in a more mirthful way and you’ll find you’re less stressed about negative events, and you’ll achieve the health benefits of laughter. (See this article on maintaining a sense of humor.
• ‘Fake It Until You Make It’: Just as studies show the positive effects of smiling occur whether the smile is fake or real, faked laughter also provides the benefits mentioned above. So smile more, and fake laughter; you’ll still achieve positive effects, and the fake merriment may lead to real smiles and laughter.

According to research, the percentage of Americans who are stressed at work is high, and it’s only getting higher. According to the CDC’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, studies have found the number of Americans who are “extremely stressed at work” range between 29% to 40%. And, in a poll on this site, over half of respondents are so stressed at work that they feel close to or consumed by burnout much of the time. Unfortunately, work stress has significant health consequences that range from the relatively benign — more colds and flus — to the more serious, heart disease and metabolic syndrome. (See this article for more on job stress and health.)

Because stress at work is so common, finding a low-stress job may be difficult or impossible for many people. A more realistic choice would be to simple adopt more effective strategies to reduce stress at work. Here are some stress management techniques to try.

Start Your Day Off Right

After scrambling to get the kids fed and off to school, dodging traffic and combating road rage, and gulping down coffee in lieu of something healthy, many people come in already stressed, and more reactive to stress at work. In fact, you may be surprised by how much more reactive to stress you are when you have a stressful morning. If you start off the day with good nutrition, proper planning, and a positive attitude, you may find the stress of the workplace rolling off your back more easily. (See this article for morning stress relief strategies.)

Be Clear on Requirements

One of the factors that contributes to job burnout is unclear requirements. If you don’t know exactly what’s expected of you, or if the requirements keep changing with little notice, you may find yourself much more stressed than necessary. If you find yourself falling into the trap of never knowing if what you’re doing is enough, it may help to have a talk with your supervisor and go over expectations, and strategies for meeting them. This can relieve stress for both of you!

Stay Away From Conflict

Because interpersonal conflict takes a toll on your physical and emotional health, and because conflict among co-workers is so difficult to escape, it’s a good idea to avoid conflict at work as much as possible. That means don’t gossip, don’t share too many of your personal opinions about religion and politics, and try to steer clear of colorful office humor. Try to avoid those people at work who don’t work well with others. If conflict finds you anyway, try these conflict resolution strategies.

Stay Organized

Even if you’re a naturally disorganized person, planning ahead to stay organized can greatly decrease stress at work. Being organized with your time means less rushing in the morning to avoid being late and rushing to get out at the end of the day. Keeping yourself organized means avoiding the negative effects of clutter, and being more efficient with your work. For more on organization, visit About.com’s Personal Organization site.

Be Comfortable

Another surprising stressor at work is physical discomfort. You may not notice the stress you experience when you’re in an uncomfortable chair for a few minutes. But if you practically live in that chair when you’re at work, you can have a sore back and be more reactive to stress because of it. Even small things like office noise can be distracting and cause low-grade frustration. Do what you can to ensure that you’re working from a quiet, comfortable and soothing workspace. (See this article on noise pollution or this one on creating an ergonomic workspace.)

Forget Multitasking

Multitasking was once heralded as a fantastic way to maximize one’s time and get more done in a day. Then people started realizing that when they had a phone in their ear and were making calculations at the same time, their speed and accuracy (not to mention sanity) suffered. There is a certain kind of frazzled feeling that comes from splitting one’s focus that doesn’t work well for most people. Rather than multitasking, try a new strategy known as chunking.

Walk at Lunch

Many people are feeling ill effects from leading a sedentary lifestyle. One way you can combat that, and manage stress at work at the same time, is to get some exercise during your lunch break and perhaps take short exercise breaks throughout the day. This can help you blow off steam, lift your mood, and get into better shape. (See these tips on getting exercise for busy people.)

Keep Perfectionism In Check

Being a high achiever can help you feel good about yourself and excel at work. Being a perfectionist, on the other hand, can drive you and the people around you a little nuts. Especially in busy, fast-paced jobs, you may not be able to do everything perfectly. But striving to just do your best and then congratulating yourself on the effort is a good strategy. Your results will actually be better (perfectionists tend to stress about little mistakes and sometimes drop the ball because they can’t do things well enough), and you’ll be much less stressed at work. (Take this quiz to examine your perfectionism level, and to find strategies for overcoming perfectionism.)

Listen to Music on the Drive Home

Listening to music brings many benefits, and can offer an effective way to relieve stress after work. Combating the stress of a long day at work with your favorite music on the drive home can make you less stressed when you get home, and more prepared to interact with the people in your life.