How to cope with stress

Health is wealth goes the saying. What is the greatest enemy of health in these modern times? While media stories talk of many things, the one common thread would be stress. It is the public enemy number one. The one class particularly mired in stress is the working class, the executives, the professionals, the knowledge workers who seem too bothered about the burden of their company, their family and society they assume to be carrying on their shoulders.

Little wonder the Government is thinking of strategies to provide stress resilience to this all-important class. This column is particularly dedicated to that class whose health has become a primary concern. What are the real health related issues of this class? Ask any fast-paced, often on-the-run working individual and he or she would say in exasperation ‘work-life balance’, raising both hands in helplessness.

Recent studies suggest that a significantly large number of such class of population would be reeling under stress. More than 75 per cent complain of poor work-life balance. Some boast of a 24×7 lifestyle, some claim to be workaholics and some would tell that they are constantly on the run. But these are just facades under which they try to hide their helplessness.

So 24×7 they suffer from a conditioned insomnia while the workaholics turn into alcoholics and the ultimate loser is their health and their family. Researchers are today raising loud and consistent warnings against the growing cases of stress-induced health problems.

What is this stress? As a student of psychology for the last over four decades and working in the area of stress management, the considered opinion I hold about stress is that it is nothing. Just a way to look at things which in psychological parlance can be called cognitive appraisal. But just saying that stress is nothing will not help. It is nothing that becomes something severe overtime.

The impact of health on stress is real though stress per se is surreal. The big question is can something be done? And we cannot afford to answer in the negative. Something has to be done and done by you. One because it is your health and two because medical science is more or less helpless. Medical science deals with biological problems to a large extent and managing stress falls outside its purview.

Individual coping mechanism has to be geared up. It is a two-pronged strategy. The first is to learn to look inwards and practise the art of self-awareness. This will help in looking at things from a different perspective. Usually, our problems arise because we are looking at things from our own coloured glasses. These are tinted with our own assumptions developed over the years through our experiences that we have learnt to interpret in our own way. Self-awareness will help us remove those glasses and look at things objectively.

The second is to increase stress tolerance through some practices. Try to wake up early and watch the sun rising. The energy that you will absorb will keep you fresh and fit for the whole day. Develop a habit of exercising daily. Any activity that increases the flow of blood to the vital organs, like the head and heart, is helpful. The simple solution is ‘eat right, tweet right, retreat right’, that is, healthy eating, healthy thinking, and healthy sleeping.