Being a student, teacher or anyone really, stress is a part of daily life. It isn't a pleasant feeling by any means, but everything has to have a silver lining. Our body acts to protect us, but sometimes it becomes hard to take care of it too.
Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. Our bodies see a problem coming our way, so it gears up to defend itself. When the stressor comes, your muscles tense in order to protect against injury and pain, your blood pressure elevates in order to deliver more oxygen to the muscles, your liver releases more glucose into your blood stream for energy, and for a short while, your immune system is boosted to help heal any damage that might come. In the time of cave people, this was vital. That was how they lived or died day by day. Now we call this reaction our "fight or flight" instinct. This action that our body would take protected our ancestors from predators. Being eaten alive isn't normally a problem for most Americans these days, yet we are still having stress. Granted, it is less to do with dinosaurs and mammoths, and more to do with "I have three papers due by midnight and it is nine at night", but it is stress all the same. Though the stress saved out ancestors, it is not saving us.
33% of americans have admitted to never have discussed how to properly manage stress with anyone, though most experience a considerable amount of stress on a daily basis. This takes a toll on your body. When you deal with chronic stress, you open yourself up to dealing with insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, headaches, and an increased chance of suffering from anxiety and depression. Due to the constant high blood pressure and the inflammation of the arteries, a chronically stressed person is prone to heart attack and stroke. People who suffer from anxiety and depression have twice the risk of developing a heart condition as well. When people eat, they get stressed. Connections are being drawn to the rising levels of obesity in the United States and their stress levels. Research is being done to also see a connection between levels of stress and a person's abuse of addictive substances.
Though writing your papers and working on projects are important, watching that extra episode of Gray's Anatomy could potentially be beneficial for your body. Because you only have one body, and one mind, it is important to take care of them.
