The Recession, Stress, and You

During this recession, many people are losing their jobs. When you lose your job, you struggle to feed, clothe, and house your family, and deal with the pressure of not being the bread winner of your house hold anymore. Having a job is a symbol of respect and power in a family. A family member with a job typically has gets more respect from their fellow family members than an unemployed family member. Being in a situation such as this causes a lot of stress. Here is how to relive yourself of the stress that causes you to be depressed, socialize less, have angry outbursts, crying spells, drug abuse and many other effects on your social, mental and health life.

Stress a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. When you sense danger - whether it's real or imagined - the body's defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic process known as the "fight-or-flight" reaction, or the stress response. The stress response is your body's way of protecting you. When it is working the right way it helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert, sometimes it can even save your life in an emergency situation. Stress response is what drives you to do your best. It can sharpen your focus when you're attempting the game-winning free throw, or taking the most important test of your life. Stress helps you in many ways, however, with too much stress it stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to your health, your mood,productivity, relationships, and quality of life.

Common symptoms of stress include, but are not limited to, a fast heartbeat,a headache, a stiff neck and/or tight shoulders, back pain, fast breathing,sweating, and sweaty palms, an upset stomach, nausea, or diarrhea. A build up of stress effects your immune system,reproductive organs, heart,muscles, lungs, and skin. If you have any diseases, stress could make the symptoms worse. Stress can have many effects on your emotions such as, causing you to feel cranky and lose your temper, yell at others for no reason, and feel that you are missing out on things because you can't act quickly.

The first step in relieving stress is to think positive. By making your mind believe that you everything is alright, your body will also believe it and the stress response will go down. Meditation is a type of mind stress relief. By simply relaxing and closing off all links to the outside world, the things that cause you to stress are seemingly non-existent. People usually think of meditation as a monk sitting, legs crossed, with his eyes closed and hands up. While this is the most common form of meditation, it is not the only one.

Walking meditation is meditation in action. In walking meditation, we use the calmness and steady pace of walking to comfort our minds. Many people find walking meditation better suited for their lifestyle than the usual meditation stance. This is mostly because most regular people would not feel comfortable sitting on the floor in public and meditating. Walking meditation also helps. Unlike regular meditation, in walking meditation your eyes are open for obvious reasons. Also, your goal is not to comfort yourself by ignoring the outside world , but by breathing.By accepting things as how they are and not attempting to change them, your emotions adapt to the stressful environment. Don,t try to change things that you cannot change. If your spouse has a job and you don't, do not try change that. It will cause you even more stress if you try to change things and your relationships are damaged. When you adapt to a stressful situation, you look at the good side of things, and accept how things are and the fact that trying to change it will only make it worse.