How to Rethink The Way We Perceive Stress

Reading Time: 3 minutes

First published: 2 October 2022 @ 6:00 pm

How Stress Is Produced

Stress is a response to a stressful situation. This response is an evolutionary adaptation. It developed to help us deal with actual threats and dangers, not imagined ones.

The stress response includes three components: the fight-or-flight response, the hormone cortisol, and the sympathetic nervous system.

The fight-or-flight response activates the body’s sympathetic nervous system.

It makes your heart beat faster, blood pressure rise, blood flow increase to the muscles, and your breathing quickens.

Your digestive system shuts down so that food will not be digested during this period of heightened activity.

This is how our bodies prepare for action. When we are in danger, these systems work together to increase our survival chances.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.

Then, How Should We Manage Stress?

As humans, we are not designed to be stressed out 24/7. Instead, we need to deactivate these systems when they are no longer needed. To do this, our bodies need rest and recovery time.

Stressful situations should be managed by turning off the fight-or-flight response.

The most important step is to have a plan of action. They will take you through the stressful situation and into a place of recovery.

Learn how to manage stress by finding out what triggers it and then how you can turn off the fight-or-flight response so that you can get on with your day!