Stress
What is Stress?
the body’s reaction to the
physical and mental
demands of daily life
How does your body
react to stress?
adrenal glands release the
hormone adrenaline which
has positive AND negative
effects
Stages of Stress
alarm
resistance
exhaustion
The Alarm Stage
- Body prepares for immediate
confrontation
- Helps you reach your goals
- Body is alert and focused
Alarm Stage- Effects
on the body
breathing increases pupils dilate
hearing sharpens
digestion slows
heart rate increases muscles tighten
more blood flow
The Resistance Stage
body tries to return to normal
Resistance StageEffects on the body
pupils constrict
hearing returns to normal
heart rate decreases
muscles relax
less blood flow
The Exhaustion Stage
Body can no longer sustain
its resistance
The risk of stress related
disease increases
Exhaustion StageEffects on the Body
headaches
ulcers diabetes
depressed immune system
high blood pressure
gastritis
heart disease diarrhea
strokes
death
Types of Stress
Short term Stress:
- Occurs with emergency situations
- Body returns to normal after the
incident
- This is NECESSARY stress and
keeps you ALIVE!
Stress
Long Term Stress:
- Occurs with continual problems
- Does not help the body adapt to
the situation
- Stress is not relieved so body
doesn’t return to normal
- This is BAD for the body!
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Ways to Manage
Pressure
Plan
blogs.zdnet.com
Managing Pressure:
Talk
Managing Pressure:
Redirect
Physical
activity!
Managing
Pressure
Relax
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Managing Pressure:
Laugh
www.sakthifoundation.org/ images/laughing1.jpg
 Laughing helps arteries and boosts blood flow･21:45 07 March 2005･
NewScientist.com news service･Andy Coghlan
 Laughing appears to be almost as beneficial as a workout in boosting the health
of blood vessels, a new study suggests."Thirty minutes of exercise three times a
week and 15 minutes of hearty laughter each day should be part of a healthy
lifestyle," says Michael Miller of the University of Maryland Medical Center in
Baltimore, US, whose team has shown that laughter relaxes arteries and boosts
blood flow.He showed clips from the comedy movie King Pin to 20 volunteers.
Before and afterwards, he made ultrasound measurements of blood flow and
dilation in the brachial artery in the arm. The scans showed that in all but one of
the volunteers, the volunteers' arteries relaxed and blood flowed more freely than
usual for 30 to 45 minutes after the film.The opposite happened when the same
people watched harrowing scenes from the war movie Saving Private Ryan. In 14
of the 20 volunteers, the artery wall constricted, reducing blood flow. Overall,
blood flow decreased by 35% after the stressful clips and increased by 22%
during laughter.Laughter liningsThe results suggest that laughter could help
keep the lining of the arteries - the endothelium - healthy and thus reduce the risk
of cardiovascular disease. "At the very least, laughter offsets the impact of
mental stress, which is harmful to the endothelium," Miller says."It's logical that
positive emotions might have the opposite effect," says Andrew Steptoe of
University College London, UK, whose studies in 2000 showed that acute mental
stress impairs endothelial function. "There is increasing scientific interest in the
possibility that positive emotional states are beneficial to health," he says.Miller,
who presented his results to the American College of Cardiology meeting in
Orlando, Florida, on Monday, now hopes to find out why laughter is beneficial.
"We don't know if there's a direct effect by laughing, or an indirect effect by
reducing stress.”
 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7103