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HEALTH

Let's talk about caring for your health. Topics such as stress management, nutrition, and more. Always consult your doctor.

Let's talk about health.

Stress and its effects on the quality of life

It can slowly creep up on you and you never even realize it until you one day the tell tale signs become too hard to ignore: headache, hair loss, sleep problems, leg numbness, chest pains, palpitations and chest pains. You see the doctor and you are surprised when your test results reveal that you are in fact in the pink of health, nothing wrong with you. Nada.

Maybe you ought to take that vacation, doc says. He guessed right. Think about the times when you got off from work and still feel edgy because that report is due tomorrow, or times when you can barely sleep at night because you worry about the most inconsequential things, like how to squeeze in as many activities you want and yet never having the time to do it since you are swamped with work. Sound familiar?

Stress is the silent killer of all and stress-induced complaints without any identifiable somatic or bodily problem are called psychosomatic disorders—arising from the mind and spilling over to the body. We are constantly exposed to all sorts of stressors every day and generally it can be a positive stimulus for us to achieve our goals, to be as efficient and effective as we could. Up to a level of stress is deemed healthy and for those who can handle them properly, such as athletes, it pushes them to do remarkable feats.

But for those who can't handle them properly, or are overwhelmed by it, the result is a breakdown of physical and mental function when the body reacts negatively and produces signs and symptoms which interfere with our activities. We become dysfunctional. The stress becomes distress. Recurrent unmanaged stress over a period of time can actually lead to heart disease, diabetes and other medical problems called metabolic syndrome. And the higher the stress level, the greater the chance of developing metabolic syndrome. Those under stress are also prone to ill health when they acquire health damaging behaviors like smoking, heavy drinking, poor diet and lack of exercise.

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