Stress Relief for a Lifetime

How to battle stress and win!

Does this scenario sound familiar or is it a mild exaggeration? You frantically leap out of bed, smacking your flu-stricken husband’s head with your foot, as carpool honking broadcasts to the neighborhood that your family has overslept yet again. Slapping PBJ sandwiches together in your bathrobe, you refuse to process why water is dripping from the ceiling. As your son announces its school picture day, you realize that half of your daughter’s bangs are missing in action and your third child is nonchalantly hiding scissors behind his back.

We all experience stressful situations every day. The way you react to stress can play an important role in your overall health, especially your spine. No one can completely escape stress. The important issue is how you cope with that stress to minimize what stress does to your body. Ask yourself:

When you feel stressed, do you…

• become irritable
• neglect correct posture
• yell at co-workers or family
• rely on caffeine, junk food and medications
• stay up too late
• become violent and unstable

These are all unhealthy ways to deal with stress that take their toll on your mind, body and relationships and detract from your quality of life.

One important key for lifetime stress relief is to make your body more adaptable to stress. One way to man-age stress is regular chiropractic care which relieves subluxation, or pressure on the nervous system. Subluxation causes a breakdown in the body’s ability to adapt to stress. When the nerves experience pressure, the body cannot send messages and is un-able to defend itself against stress.

Other ways to reduce stress include physical exercise, yoga, and deep breathing. Studies show that these activities lower blood pressure, release healing hormones, increase productivity and even heighten creativity.

Eating breakfast is another important stress reduction strategy. Did you know that people who reach the age of 100 partake of breakfast more regularly than those who do not? People who eat breakfast consume less fat and had a higher intake of essential vitamins and minerals, and lower serum cholesterol, which leads to a lower instance of heart disease.

Sometimes stress relief can be as easy as laughing at a joke or playing with your dog. Laughing and playing releases endorphins, boosts immune cells that combat disease, lowers blood pressure, and reduces stress hormones.

You now have more control over how you respond to stress. Ask your chiropractor about effective stress relief strategies that last a lifetime!