10 Ways Stress Harms You

stress ways stress harms you

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Stress harms you in many ways. It’s a stressful world. Being time-crunched, sleep-deprived, and overwhelmed at work does not produce good health. To deal with stress, learn the ways stress harms you.

10 Ways Stress Harms You

Financial Stress Can Make You Look Older 

A study published in July 2016 in the journal Research on Aging finds that people with elevated levels of financial stress looked older and appeared to have aged more after nine years than people with a higher level of confidence in their financial control.

Stress May Negatively Affect Women’s Fertility

Research finds that stress lowers a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant, particularly stress experienced around ovulation. Stress disrupts the signaling between the brain and ovaries, reducing the chance of ovulation.

Stress Can Make Tou Fat

Stress buildup can pack on weight. That’s the finding of researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, who say that stress triggers a hormone called Adams1 which generates fat in the human body. In addition to increasing your waistline, this stress-induced fat also accumulates around organs like the pancreas and liver, which increases the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Stress May Wipe Out the Benefits of a Healthy Diet in Women

Researchers at Ohio State University found that the previous day’s stressful events eradicated any health benefits women might have gained from eating a healthier breakfast rich in “good” monounsaturated fats. The study’s lead researcher, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, said stress complicates how the body processes food.

Early-life Stress Exposure Can Lead to Adult Illnesses

Researchers at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, studied zebrafish embryos chronically exposed to the stress hormone cortisol for just a few days. They developed into adults with signs of chronic inflammation and abnormal immune systems. Early-life exposure to chronically elevated levels of cortisol results in lasting developmental changes affecting processes in adult life that are critical to immune system function and regulation.

Stress May Have the Greatest Toll on Younger Women with Heart Disease

A study of 700 men and women with heart disease found that stress was harder on women aged 50 or younger. They were four times more than men of the same age or older women to have reduced blood flow to the heart. Reduced blood flow can often lead to a heart attack. The study suggested that younger women who juggle work, family, and financial responsibilities and routinely feel stressed need better assessing life’s stressors and more support in coping with them.

Prolonged Stress Affects Short-Term Memory

A study from the University of Iowa found a potential link between stress hormones and short-term memory loss in older adults. Elevated levels of cortisol – a natural hormone present in the body that surges when a person is stressed—are the culprit. Short-term cortisol spikes help a person cope and respond to life’s challenges, but abnormal spikes like those experienced during long-term stress can wreak havoc on memory by “weathering the brain.”

Stress is Linked to Breast Cancer

Researchers at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey studied a link between stress and breast cancer, specifically in the p53 protein. The protein, researchers said, reacts to large numbers of stress signals. If p53 becomes malformed, it could spark an uncontrollable reaction, causing cells to reproduce continuously. Those cells would be considered cancerous.

About one in eight women will develop aggressive breast cancer throughout their lifetime. According to the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, more than 40,000 women are expected to die in 2016 due to breast cancer.

Depression, Emotional stress May Cause Type-2 Diabetes

Longitudinal studies suggest that depression and general emotional stress are associated with an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes.

Emotional Stress is a Trigger for Eczema

The National Eczema Foundation cautions that emotional stress is one of the common triggers for eczema, although it is not known why. Some people’s eczema worsens when they realize they’re stressed, while others get stressed because they have eczema, and their flare-up worsens.

Other Ways Stress Harms You

Note that this is not an all-inclusive list of how stress harms you. Research continues to uncover how untreated stress punishes the body and mind.

If you’re plagued by chronic stress, find effective ways to cope. This may include getting professional help, although there are many approaches you can take on your own, including meditation, mindful walking, prioritizing tasks, deep breathing, guided imagery, and more.

Related articles:

10 Tips for Less Stress During the Holidays

10 Tips to Decrease Work Stress

Combat Stress with Mindful Walking

10 Quick Ways to Beat Stress

My 10 Favorite Summertime Stress-Busters

5 Ways to Find Peace of Mind

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10 Ways Lies Hurt You

ways lies hurt you

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What are the ways lies hurt you? And we’ve all told lies from time to time. But lying always has a profound effect. Here’s a look at 10 ways lies hurt you.

10 Ways Lies Hurt You

If getting away with lies gets you ahead, it’s hard to stop lying. Half-truths count as lies, just like big whoppers. Lying is negative. Telling the truth is positive. How badly do lies hurt? Check out the ways lies hurt you.

  1. Ways Lies Hurt You: The More You Lie, the Easier It Gets

Like a sled rocketing down an icy slope, repeated lies begin to spew out of your mouth without any effort. You’ve gotten away with it, suffered no ill consequences, and have no governor on your tongue to keep your lying at bay. After a brief time, it’s easier to lie than tell the truth.

  1. The More You Lie, the Bigger the Lies You Tell

What begins as a small lie never stays that way. One lie begets a slew of offspring, sometimes related, often just hanging around like ill-tempered friends. Think of a lie as a snowball, first small and accumulating in size as it rolls downhill. It’s also impossible to make a lie smaller once it’s begun to grow. Thus, the more lies you tell, the bigger they get.

  1. Lies Destroy Relationships

No relationship can flourish on a foundation of lies. How can you trust that person if you can’t rely upon a partner, loved one, close friend, or co-worker to tell the truth? When you know someone is a liar, it creates a chasm across which you’re increasingly reluctant to travel. In the wake of lies, relationships founder and fail or become quashed before they have a chance to begin.

  1. Lies Trigger the Release of Stress Hormones

A lie isn’t just words that come out of the mouth. Precipitating the verbalization of the lie is a build-up of stress hormones. You get excited, releasing cortisol and readying to combat the effects your lies might create. Long-term spikes in cortisol are bad for your health, creating a perfect stage for developing serious medical conditions.

  1. Ways Lies Hurt You: Lying Uses Copious Negative Physical and Mental Energy

When you lie, you must constantly think of how to spin it, where there’s a nugget that others may cling to, how much they’ll be able to buy before beginning to question the veracity, and how to keep others from finding out the truth. In short, constructing this negative and elaborate form of communication takes tremendous physical and mental energy. That’s energy better spent doing positive things.

  1. Constant Lying Builds a False Sense of Reality

It doesn’t take much time for you to begin believing your web of lies. In fact, the reality you inhabit is false. It just seems real to you. The more you lie, the more out of touch with reality your life becomes. You may not even recognize the truth anymore, let alone voice it – even to yourself.

  1. Lying Creates a Vicious Cycle

It’s often been said that once a lie is out of your mouth, there’s no putting it back. What’s also true is that lying sets into motion a vicious cycle. To exist, knowing that you’ve lied repeatedly, you must perpetuate the lie and rigidly adhere to it despite all proof to the contrary. Lying is a spiral that is impossible to escape from.

  1. Ways Lies Hurt You: Lies are a Way to Avoid the Pain of Living

Many people tell lies to mask the pain they feel in their lives. They don’t like that they have no or few friends, so they create imaginary friendships and boast of their connections. Pathological liars are all over social media and everyday fabricators who seek to maximize their made-up accomplishments to make themselves feel better and convince others of their superiority. This doesn’t work overall, as constant lying is a sign of some serious deficit in the liar’s emotional well-being.

  1. You Waste Time Covering Your Tracks

While there’s much good you could accomplish in life, when you habitually lie, you’ll miss opportunities because you spend so much time covering your tracks. This is time wasted, time you’ll never get back. Covering the trail of lies you’ve told is also increasingly impossible. Eventually, you’re going to get found out. Dreading that eventuality won’t make it go away.

  1. Lies Extinguish Hope and Trust

The accumulation of negativity because of lies has another life-altering effect: It destroys hope and trust. Not only is the liar incapable of trusting others or finding hope in any situation, but he or she has also drained all hope and trust in himself or herself. Life becomes bleak and dreary when all there is to look forward to is a never-ending litany of lies.

When you think of the ways lies hurt you, it makes sense to alter your behavior and stop lying. You will be happier and better able to live a vibrant life.

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10 Tips for Less Stress During the Holidays

Photo by Toa Heftiba/Unsplash

Photo by Toa Heftiba/Unsplash

If the sounds of Christmas carols playing in the malls make you cringe, it could be you’re letting the stress of the holidays get to you. With so much to do and so little time to get it done, this seemingly-innocuous musical reminder just adds more fuel to the fire. You’re primed and ready for these 10 tips for less stress during the holidays.

  1. You Don’t Have to Do Everything

Where is it written that you must be the poster person for everything done and everything right for the holidays? If you’ve assumed this mantle willingly, now’s the time to toss it aside. It’s impossible to be perfect, so why should you pursue perfection? The biggest hurdle for you to overcome is your own self-expectations. Tell yourself – and listen so it takes hold – that you don’t have to do everything. This is the first step to much less stress this holiday season.

  1. Know Your Own Limits

You might think you’ve got everything under control, even after you’ve told yourself that you don’t have to do it all, yet you still push yourself beyond what’s realistic. When you wind up haggard and exhausted at the end of the day, don’t look forward to tomorrow’s to-do list, start shortchanging your own well-being in a constant quest to do more, you’ve got to stop. Here is where you must know your own limits and never exceed them. You’ll be tempted, but don’t succumb.

  1. Make Your Boundaries Clear

If you haven’t let others know what you will and won’t do, you need to make your boundaries clear. Let them know it’s not OK to automatically expect you to host the big holiday dinner, just because you may have done so in the past. Times change, other responsibilities may take precedence, or it’s just not equitable, besides no longer being fun. Don’t think that others can guess what your boundaries are, however, because they can’t. Most won’t want to. You must tell them.

  1. Shop Online

The best thing that ever happened with holiday shopping, in my opinion, is the ability to easily, quickly and seamlessly do almost all of it online. Free shipping, discounts, extra gifts, suggestion lists, cash for purchasing via sites like eBates.com and TopCashBack.com are all excellent for easing this type of holiday stress.

  1. Watch What You Eat

Gobbling a sandwich on the run, skipping meals, eating unhealthy snacks and eating too much are all a recipe for increased stress, if not a serious medical condition. The human body requires nourishment, not junk food. Eat sensibly, in moderate portions, at the appropriate times and regularly. Not only will you have more energy, with good self-care you’ll be better equipped to deal with the stressors you’ll encounter during the holidays.

  1. Get Some Good Shut-Eye

Just as eating too much, too little or the wrong kind of food can increase your stress level, insufficient sleep is a huge contributor to added stress. It might be tough to get 8 hours of sleep each night, especially if you wait until the last minute to wrap presents, clean the house, launder the holiday linens and make sure all the decorations are in good shape, but this is one area you can’t afford to ignore. Remember the tip about knowing your limits and not trying to do everything? When it’s time to go to bed, go. You need your sleep.

  1. Steer Clear of Alcohol

Another big culprit in holiday stress is alcoholic consumption. One drink won’t kill you and probably is fine – unless you are in recovery, do crazy things with the slightest sip of alcohol, or some other reason – but keeping up with the party-hardy folks is just going to land you in a tight spot. Maybe literally, as in handcuffs from drinking and then driving. Just say no. Drink something festive and non-alcoholic. No one will care. And this is a safe choice that will cut down on your stress level as well.

  1. Begin (or End) Each Day with Something You Enjoy

If you want to have something to look forward to, begin or end each day with something you enjoy. Maybe that’s a massage from your partner, a specially-prepared latte, a hot bath or soothing shower, listening to your favorite album, taking a mindful walk outside, working in the garden. What it is matters less than you derive pleasure from doing it. The release of endorphins you get from doing something you enjoy will dramatically reduce your stress.

  1. Enlist Help and Make It Fun

Since there’s a finite amount of time and you only have so much energy to go around, one way that you can reduce your anxiety and stress during the holidays is to ask for help. If you also make it a fun activity, there’ll be less chance others will resent the request. Furthermore, if everyone pitches in, the task or project will get done that much quicker. Be sure to let others know you’ll reciprocate. It’s more than a grand gesture. It makes them even more willing to lend a hand.

  1. Cherish the Moments

Think about what it means to you to have your loved ones and family members to spend time with this holiday season. What you take for granted, others would gladly trade places to experience. Also, time goes by quickly. The moments you cherish and share now will be loving memories later. Love is a healing balm that can magically erase stress. Be open to it and soak up every minute with those you care about.

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Related articles:

Combat Stress with Mindful Walking

How Your Memory Suffers with Poor REM Sleep

Self-Care: The Most Important Person to Take Care of Is You

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10 Ways to Make Mondays Better

ways to make Mondays better

Photo by Haley Hydorn on Unsplash

We’d all love to find ways to make Mondays better. You dread or try to avoid them, but you can’t escape Mondays. Here are 10 ways to make Mondays better that may change your mind about this day of the week.

10 Ways to Make Mondays Better

1. Ways to Make Mondays Better: Have Something to Look Forward to After Work

Nothing motivates me more than the prospect of doing something enjoyable after the workday. Put that something in your schedule.

  • Have fun.
  • Spend time with loved ones and friends.
  • Work on a hobby.
  • Participate in sports or recreational activities.
  • Engage in educational pursuits.
  • Go shopping.
  • Write.
  • Do whatever gives you a positive endpoint for your Monday

If it lifts your step and jazzes your spirit, Mondays may be one of your favorite days. If not that, at least they’ll be more pleasant.

2. Get to Work Early

Sleeping in won’t improve your Mondays. What may give you a leg up, however, is becoming an early riser — getting out of bed a little earlier. Go for a half-hour ahead of your normal wake time. That’s sufficient to help you gather your thoughts, prepare for the day, and allow for unexpected traffic, weather, or last-minute family details. And you’ll get to work ready to go. Stopping for your favorite latte along the way is another reason you might want to get up earlier.

3. Go Big

Many employees put off the tough tasks until they’re smacked against a deadline. Or the boss is banging on their door, looking for answers. Another way to make Mondays better? Tackling something you know is important and demands your full attention.

While it causes you to work a little harder than you want to first thing Monday morning, the sense of accomplishment and progress you’ll feel by getting to it boosts your self-esteem, self-confidence, and overall well-being. Besides, the boss will take notice, and that’s always good for raising your work profile.

4. Ways to Make Mondays Better: Prepare with Good Self-Care

If you’ve practiced partying until all hours from Friday night on, you are likely still hung over or feeling the effects. You can turn this around by instituting good self-care.

In addition to getting sufficient rest (go for 8 hours), eating well-balanced meals, cutting down on alcohol, and curbing smoking, find other ways to relax, restore and rejuvenate. These include:

  • Meditation
  • Yoga
  • Pilates
  • Nature walks
  • Calming music
  • Self-reflection
  • Prayer

Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it. Greeting Mondays with a healthy body-mind-spirit makes the day so much better.

5. Map Out Time Chunks

Instead of looking at your to-do list with a sinking feeling that you’ll never get it all done, try this: map out time chunks. For example, if you have a report due tomorrow, allocate one to 1-1/2 hour or so to work on it today. If it’s something critical, move everything aside until you finish it.

Set aside a half hour to tend to email at a scheduled time, not whenever they come in. If you must answer emails from your boss, give them priority with an alert. The point is to arrange your day in time chunks. This provides a sense of order and a schedule you can easily follow.

6. Ways to Make Mondays Better: Craft a Plan

Your best approach for any project or task is to craft a plan.

  • How will you arrive at the result you’re looking for – or that someone else demands?
  • What resources do you need?
  • Will you need the assistance of others?
  • Are some elements missing?
  • How will these items affect timing or delivery?

With well-crafted plans, you’ll boost your self-confidence, knowing that you’ve considered variables and have a workable approach to pursue.

7. Take Mini-Breaks

You can’t go breakneck speed without a break unless you want to risk crashing into a dead stop along the way. Exhaustion, physical or mental, work stress, tension, irritability, anger, disappointment, and other negative effects from working nonstop will take their toll.

  • Ward them off with the simple and quick practice of taking mini breaks throughout the day.
  • Walk to the water fountain on the next floor.
  • Get up and stretch.
  • Do isometric exercises.
  • Close your eyes and meditate.
  • Take the stairs to your next meeting instead of the elevator.

Walk outside instead of within the building whenever possible to get fresh air and a unique perspective.

8. Go Somewhere Different for Lunch

Having something to look forward to at the end of the workday is the idea of going somewhere different for lunch. If you always bring a brown bag, and eat it at your desk, go to a park or somewhere in your work complex to eat.

If you go out for lunch only on Wednesday or Friday, switch to Monday to give your first work weekday a change-up. Not only will this brighten your day, but it will also make it speed by.

9. Ways to Make Mondays Better: Skip Coffee and Go for a Walk

Coffee may be a workday staple, but it doesn’t have to be a boring routine you’re locked into. For one of those times, you’re headed to the coffee room or vending machine, skip the coffee, and indulge yourself with a brisk 10-minute walk.

Outside is best, but even a walk in the building will suffice. You’re getting up and moving, which is always good for mental stimulation and physical exercise.

10. Celebrate all the Things you Accomplish

While you’re busy working on Mondays, be sure to take the time to celebrate all the things you accomplished today. It may seem trivial, but giving yourself credit for your hard work is important to your sense of completion, tending to your responsibilities, seeing the fruit of your labors, and making progress. It also helps make Mondays better. What better way to start the work week than with many accomplishments?

If you try these ways to make Mondays better, your Mondays will be better. Guaranteed.

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Related articles:

10 Tips to Decrease Work Stress

5 Tips on How to Make Plans

Time-Saving Tips for Early Risers

How Do You Get Ready for the Day?

Self-Care: The Most Important Person to Take Care of Is You

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