Stress And Women Tend Thy Self
Stress and Women - Tend Thy Self
By ezinearticles.com/?expert=Tracy_Falbe Tracy Falbe
Unless you happen to live with a massage therapist, you likely know what it feels like to have stress and tension build up in your body ? for a long time. Unavoidable daily pressures like work, traffic, children, medical bills, plumbing problems, and visits from your in-laws stress all people, but women tend to let their stress put down deep roots because of their busy lives. They do not take enough time for themselves to let their stresses ease back.
The negative health consequences of stress are becoming increasingly well documented. The Office of Women’s Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that women often carry a large burden of stress. They can experience any number of physical reactions to stress. Some physical responses typical among women are:
Headaches
Insomnia
Short temper
Stomach upset
Depression
Anxiety
Stress prevails among women and they willingly admit it. Marketing research conducted by Mary Lou Quinlan, CEO of Just Ask A Woman consultancy, revealed that stress is the number one issue in the lives of many women. Quinlan’s findings were based on approximately 3,000 interviews with women and reported in her book “Just Ask A Woman.” Of course, Quinlan’s focus was on marketing and how stress influences purchasing decisions, but the fact remains that the majority of women cite stress as a problem.
And, according to Quinlan, women young and old at all different stages of life feel stress. The image of a carefree young woman is actually not very true because many of them experience high stress too. Stress is not just a result of motherhood.
A lack of control in women’s lives is not necessarily the cause of stress either. Another marketing study that Quinlan helped to conduct produced these interesting results:
40% of women aged 25 to 54 said they had less than one hour a day to themselves.
38% of women from the same age group said they had complete control over their schedules.
It is possible that the 38 percent who have schedule control are not the same 40 percent who have less than one hour a day to themselves. But even for those women who have less than one hour a day to themselves ? regardless of their degree of schedule control ? they could use their pittance of free time to their greatest benefit. They could begin to mitigate their stress by taking control of what time they have and devoting it to stress reducing activities.
This same approach applies to those women who have total control of their schedules because some of them (you know who you are) over commit themselves and drive themselves too hard with their workaholic fervors.
Many activities help women to refresh themselves and thereby lower the negative results of stress such as short tempers and headaches. Relaxation is the antithesis of stress and how individual women achieve relaxation varies. Common approaches recommended by the Office of Women’s Health are yoga, meditation, deep breathing, listening to soothing music, or reading a book. No matter how busy women are they should try to use at least 15 minutes every day to unwind.
Women can fall into the habit of letting their stress build into physical discomfort because of how female bodies react to stress. Research begun at UCLA by Laura Cousino Klein and Shelley Taylor discovered gender differences in our physiological responses to stress. The traditional “fight or flight” stress reaction that is fueled by adrenaline occurs more often among men. Women’s bodies, however, do not react solely with an adrenaline-fueled response. When faced with stress, women will produce other chemicals, most notably oxytocin that has a calming effect. This means that women can coast along with stress. Stress coping behavior among women has been dubbed “tend and befriend” because women will naturally try to bury their stress by taking care of their responsibilities (like family, jobs, or both) and look for friends to help them.
As a woman, if you decide to take some control and commit some of your time to relieving your stress, you should consider that the “tend” portion of your natural responses can include self-tending. You need to take care of yourself. No one else is likely to take the initiative to lower your stress.
Of the recommended ways to handle stress, you will notice that most of them involve getting yourself to move slower or hold still, such as yoga or reading a book. Nurturing the habit of reading is a good way to integrate stress mitigation into your life because good and interesting books will automatically compel you to take some time for yourself and sit quietly reading.
Fiction series are excellent sources of entertainment and they will encourage you to keep reading. The Rys Chronicles [www.falbepublishing.com/braveluck/fantasy_books.html]fantasy books are a complete series written by Tracy Falbe. www.braveluck.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tracy_Falbe EzineArticles.com/?Stress-and-Women—Tend-Thy-Self
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