Reduce Stress To Live Longer

Reducing stress can lead us to live longer (and better). The point is, these days, it’s no secret that stress as we know it is highly unhealthy. Stress can be the cause of many somatic and psychological illnesses. Therefore, lowering your levels can be a life insurance policy.

The million dollar question is: How can we reduce stress? We know that stress causes us to lose health and therefore life, but many people don’t know how to deal with this state when it appears on the horizon. Before approaching this topic, let’s know a little more about stress.

What do we mean by stress?

If we asked ten people to define stress , we would get very different answers, although probably all of them are equally valid. For Juan, for example, stress is feeling like a pot about to explode. For Luisa, stress is in the environment, as if it were an external stimulus: “Stress is the taxes I have to pay”.

Other people, however, claim that stress is having too much to do and too little time to do them. For other people, stress is headaches and/or stomachaches caused by the problems of daily life. As we can see, stress can have a thousand faces.

All these definitions, while valid, are incomplete. Stress is actually a combination of the different elements we’ve mentioned. We can define stress as a non-specific response of the body to any required request.

This body response is physiological and psychological. Furthermore, it comprises gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and glandular changes. The stress response is a complete biological activation, not limited to simple nervous tension.

What are the effects of stress?

Let’s imagine that we are stressed because of unforeseen changes in some important area of ​​our life (a change of house, being fired from work, the death of someone close, etc.). The immediate changes that will happen in our body are as follows:

• Adrenaline levels rise.
• Heart rate increases.
• The blood pressure increases.
• Breathing becomes faster and shallower.
• There is a considerable increase in muscle tension.
• Our body’s metabolism increases.
• The immune system slows down.
• Intestinal and stomach tone decreases.
• Blood circulation in the muscles increases.

Since the proper functioning of the immune system is essential for us to live longer and better, it is easy to understand the fact that between 60% and 90% of all illnesses are related to stress.

The human body is complex, very complex. Therefore, it is difficult to establish exactly the role of stress in the disease process. However, it is known that people who face more stress in their lives get sick more often. Also, they have more accidents than usual.

The effects of stress on the organism also influence people’s attitude, personality type and way of acting. This further complicates this issue. But let’s get one thing straight: it’s not luck that decides who gets sick from stress.

Reduce stress to live longer

The stronger and healthier we are, the more stress we will be able to tolerate without posing a serious threat to our well-being. To create this stress tolerance, it’s important to maintain healthy habits. But what are these habits? Below, we will provide some guidelines in this regard:

• Try to maintain regular and adequate sleep. Get enough sleep and try to get quality sleep, that is, get some real rest.
• Exercise regularly. You don’t need to be an elite athlete. Walking 30 minutes a day is enough.
• Have a balanced diet. All nutrients are needed. Eliminate ultra-processed foods and refined sugar from your diet. Decrease your consumption of fats and caffeine.
• If you think you are consuming too many alcoholic beverages, significantly reduce your intake.
• Avoid smoking. Do not smoke.
• Get regular medical checkups.
• Take time to rest. Recognize that you are not Superman or Wonder Woman. We all need to rest, especially if we have a lot of daily activities.
• Practice optimism . Nothing is as terrible as we imagine. We suffer more for what we imagine than for what actually happens. In this life, (almost) everything has a solution.

By putting this advice into practice, you will be able to tolerate stress better. At the same time, you will feel better and your body will thank you. Reducing stress is always possible, as long as we take this goal seriously. This will lead us to live longer and better.