Women and Stress

Women today are struggling to balance multiple lives as well as multi-tasking in each of the lives they have. Women as commonly as men work full time jobs, sometimes they work excessive hours like 60 or 70 hour work weeks. Many women also choose to have families as well as careers. Often they can find themselves stretched thin trying to handle family, work, and personal life (friends, marriage, hobbies, etc.) As you struggle to juggle all of the obligations that your worlds throw at you, you may find that you are exhibiting some of the physical and emotional symptoms of stress. Stress can come from different things and there are different types of stress, mental, emotional, and physical. Stress can and will prematurely age your body, it can cause health conditions that can be fatal, and stress releases chemicals and hormones into the body in quantities that are not good for the body in both the long and the short term. There are ways to get a hold of your stress and there are ways to minimize the effect that stress has on your body.

The effects of stress on the body are

Increase in the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol

Increased Blood Sugar

Increased Cholesterol Levels

Increased Heart Rate

Increased Blood Pressure

Increase in Resperation

Accumulation in the body of toxins like carbon dioxide and lactates

Emotional changes due to changes to the brains chemistry

Gastro Intestinal Disorders (Irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers, gastritis, heartburn, upset stomach)

Suppression of your body's immunity and ability to fight off disease 2011 Stressfocus.com, Food- The Best and Worst Medicine for stress

¹ 2011 Stressfocus.com

Improving your diet

What you eat can have a dramatic effect on every aspect of your life. Being overweight can not only provide additional points of stress to your life, being overweight also causes stress to the body. Carrying more than a few extra pounds can put stress on your heart and blood vessels, as well as causing a great number of health issues. Being in poor health is an additional cause of stress. Neither being overweight, being in poor health, or being overstressed is going to help you live longer. The fact that these are all commonly known factors for reducing the number of healthy years that you live it makes sense to eat a more healthy diet as well as exercising regularly to maintain a healthy weight and to try to reduce stress as much as possible to increase your longevity.

There are foods that can help to relieve or reduce stress and the effects of stress on the body. Some foods are known to help reduce your blood pressure. Many of these foods also make healthy alternatives to processed or packaged snack foods like potato chips or candy. A lot of people eat when they are under stress. The things that you choose to eat to relieve stress are not necessarily the ones that actually do help lower your blood pressure and help to slough off the effects of daily stress on the body.

Here are just a few foods that help to lower blood pressure and which are recommended by the blood pressure center online ² :2011 The bloodpressurecenter.com, Foods That Lower Blood Pressure-High Blood Pressure Diet Foods That Can Be Eatern Frequently

Lean cuts of meat

Poultry (skinless is best)

Fresh or frozen fish (baked, broiled, or poached)

Skim milk (1% milk is acceptable)

Loaf breads, dinner rolls, English muffins, bagels, and pita bread

Cereals (low sodium varieties)

Plain rice and noodles

Fresh or frozen vegetables

Fruit

Soup (low sodium soup)

Margarine and vegetable oils in place of butter

Spices, herbs, and flavorings like parsley, oregano, onion or onion powder, garlic or garlic powder, vinegar and fruit juices

Foods that should be avoided for people with high blood pressure or who are concerned about their blood pressure:

Foods high in sodium

Smoked cured meats (bacon, hot dogs, bologna, corned beef, lunch meats, etc.)

Canned fish (salmon, tuna, sardines, and mackerel)

Buttermilk

Cheese and cheese spreads

Salty snacks (pretzels, chips, nuts, pork rinds)

Quick rice

Instant noodles

Instant soups

Canned vegetables

Pickled foods (relish,pickles, olives, saurkraut, etc.)

Regular canned soup

Ketchup

Soy Sauce

Steak Sauce

Barbeque sauce

Garlic Salt

Onion Salt

Bouillon Cubes

Meat Tenderizer

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

Consuming less sugar and less caffeine can also help to reduce your stress levels and stresses on the body. If they did not develop good, healthy eating habits in childhood, many adults will develop poor eating habits as adults, such as snack foods, substituting snacks or supplements for meals, eating at odd times and skipping meals. Most adults are guilty of doing just about all of those things at one time or another. Additionally we pile on the physical stress by making poor eating choices when they do eat.

Doing more

You can also try meditation, yoga, aerobics, kickboxing, dancing, or laughter therapy to alleviate your stress as well. If you don't already have one you may want to buy an aquarium and keep fish. Watching your fish has been proven to lower blood pressure and induce relaxation. If your stress level is high and your body is beginning to manifest the ill effects of this, some lifestyle changes may be in order. Better to change your life than to lose it.

Take time out for you

We have all done it at one time or another, allocated our time to work, our families, and everything else but ourselves. If you are one of the many women who chooses to have it all, you can often feel like you are being pulled in multiple different directions at once. Every so often you have to take time out to nurture yourself and recharge your batteries. Whatever makes you feel re-energized and centered whether it is exercise, gardening, baking, taking a walk or a hike, or a long hot bath, lit with candles, and scented with fragrant bath oils or bubble bath.

Make the time for yourself to spend time doing something that is just for you. Do this on a regular basis. It could even be "girl time" if you don't feel like spending your "me time" alone. You could take your daughter or best friend for a facial or a body wrap at the spa and a massage or hot mineral bath. Let all of the cares, troubles, worries, and the weights that sit on your shoulders and drag you down, just fall away. Whether it is for an hour or two a week or a weekend each month, taking time out for you, letting yourself be pampered or put through your paces in a high energy workout, make sure that you do something that is just for you, that makes you feel good about yourself and renews your spirit.

Lifestyle changes

Taking time out for yourself is great, and it can help to release and relieve some of the tension coiled in the pit of your stomach and wound tight as a spring. Before you allow stress to cause a heart attack, a mental or emotional collapse, or a descent into deep, dark, depression, if you suffer more than a little with stress, or the conditions that long term stress can cause you may need to look at your lifestyle and make some changes.

You don't necessarily have to change jobs or careers, but if your job is stressing you out then you may need to try approaching your livelihood from a different direction. If you can cut back on the demands that your job places on you, or reorganize your work in a way that more responsibility can be delegated to others, it would behoove you to do so. If you have trouble finding the energy or enthusiasm for work, if you have trouble getting yourself out of bed and off to work, rather than wishing that you had more time to sleep in, try getting up an hour earlier and working out. The endorphins and hormones released by a good half-hour cardio workout could be just the thing that you need to set you in the right frame or mind, with your energy levels high, and a positive energy flow.

Vitamin and mineral supplements

If you lead a stressful life and you want to offset some of the damage to your body that stress can cause try adding 200 to 400 milligrams of magnesium, 10-100 milligrams of B complex vitamins, and 500-3000 milligrams of vitamin C in addition to your regular multivitamin. Multivitamin supplements should provide the following minimum recommended daily amount of the following vitamins and minerals for general maintenance:

Vitamin A 5000 I.U.

Vitamin E 30 I.U.

Vitamin C up to 250 mg

Folic Acid 400 mcg

Vitamin B 1 (Thiamin) 2.25 mg

Vitamin B 2 (Riboflavin) 2.6 mg

Niacinamide 20 mg

Vitamin B 6 (Pyridoxine) 3 mg

Vitamin B 12 9 mcg

Vitamin D 400 I.u.

Biotin 45 mcg

Pantothenic Acid 10 mg

Calcium 162 mg

Phosphorus 125 mg

Iodine 150 mcg

Iron 27 mg

Magnesium 100 mg

Copper 2 mg

Manganese 5 mg

Potassium 30 mg

Chloride 27.2 mg

Chromium 25 mcg

Molybdenum 25 mcg

Selenium 25 mcg

Zinc 15 mg

Vitamin k 125 mcg

http://www.holisticonline.com/stress/stress_vitamins.htm

Your body is not built to take the kind of stress that we put on it physically, mentally, or emotionally. Modern life is fast paced and to have a social life at all especially in addition to work and home life, is difficult at best and can be impossible sometimes. However the lack of meaningful relationships with close friends and intimates can often be a source of increased stress because interacting with friends socially can also lower your blood pressure, improve your mood, and also give you a welcome place to vent stress and share the things that are on your mind.

Mental, emotional, and physically

Never forget that stress can come in any one of the three forms, mental, emotional, or physical stress or you can have stress from more than one source at a time, known as compound stress. Vitamins and mineral supplements can help with the effects and relief of mental and emotional stress. Numerous things can help you to deal with physical stress. Exercise is one of the best prescriptions for stress and stress reduction, especially the physical effects of stress. Whichever type of stress you may be suffering under the physical symptoms remain the same, higher blood pressure and heart rate, tightening of the muscles (which can lead to muscle cramps, spasms, and knotted tensed muscles especially up the back of the neck on the head. This type of muscle tension can cause what is known as a tension headache. At the same time lactic acids also build in the muscle leaving it sore and locked into position. Exercising will help you to move the muscles around, to stretch and work the muscles through the entire range of motion. The exercise will help to release the muscles from their clench, it will also help to work out some of the stiffness and soreness in the muscle. Exercise also has a positive effect upon your mood, sense of wellbeing and positivity, as well as releasing hormones and endorphins which can help combat the toxic hormones and endorphins that stress causes to be released into the body.

If you are a tobacco user, quitting smoking or failing that cutting back can help to improve your stress levels and improve your overall health. Not smoking can relieve some of the physical and mental stress in your life. By not smoking you are cutting back on the number of harmful chemicals that your body has to process and eliminate. The chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes can put a lot of stress on the body in addition to causing many other debilitating or life threatening conditions.

It is important to identify and manage stress and the stressors or things that cause you to become "stressed out". With women in the workplace taking on the same jobs as men, and many raising families by themselves, women are falling prey much more readily, to the same types of stress-related health conditions which have kept average male life expectancies several years less than those for women. The more lives or separate "worlds" that you choose to help yourself to, you must understand that every added task or responsibility is another potential source of stress.

The way that time can ravage the mind as well as your physical appearance, stress can wreak the same changes and havoc on your life and health. Stress is just a much more type A personality type, diligent worker and killer than time alone. Stress can not only reduce the number of years of your life, it can also render those years much less happy and in need of assistance and care, rather than being able to enjoy your twilight years active, fit, and independent. As modern women we tend to want it all, the career, the family, great friends that you see all the time, and a social life. The price tag for having it all is stress. If you want to enjoy it all, after the years you spend striving to get it all, recognize and reduce the tension and stress in your life.

12011 author not given, Food - The best and worst medicine for stress, Stressfocus.com website, http://www.stressfocus.com/stress_focus_article/stress-reduction-by-food.htm

22011 author not given, Foods That Lower Blood Pressure-High Blood Pressure Diet Foods that can be eaten frequently, The Blood Pressure Center Website, http://thebloodpressurecenter.com/high-blood-pressure/foods-that-lower-high-blood-pressure.html