Stress Management: Techniques
for preventing and easing stress
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*Note: This report is currently being updated. Orders for the printed version will ship on September 24, 2008. Customers purchasing the electronic version can immediately download the current report (dated 2006) and will be able to download the updated report, at no extra charge, when it becomes available on September 10, 2008. You will be notified of the update via the email address you enter at checkout.
Stress Control
Stress is not all bad. It’s what keeps
life interesting. But too much stress for too
long creates what is known as “chronic
stress” which has been linked to heart
disease, stroke, and may also influence cancer
and chronic respiratory diseases. And illness
is just the tip of the iceberg. Stress affects
you emotionally, as well, marring the joy you
gain from life and loved ones. This stress management
special report can help you identify triggers
for stress in your own life and understand the
obvious and hidden ways in which stress affects
your body. Applying the practical stress control
techniques in these pages can help you neutralize
its damaging effects. The stress management report
also includes tools to help you get started,
including a checklist of the warning signs of
stress, a portable guide to reduce stress, a
meditation wallet card, and a stress-relief planning
chart.
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Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- Understanding the
stress response
- What is stress?
- The positive
side of stress
- Stress and its
toll on your body
- Stress in your life
- The major life
event stress scale
- Recognizing the
warning signs
- Unhealthy responses
to stress
- How to prevent and
manage stress
- Learning the
relaxation response
- Breath focus
- Progressive muscle
relaxation
- Guided imagery
- Proper nutrition
- Exercise
- Social support
- Nurturing yourself
- Journals: Easing
stress the write way
- Cognitive restructuring
- The role of positive
psychology
- Your portable guide
to stress relief
- 1. Mini-relaxations
- 2. Taking the
sting out of 10 common stressors
- 3. Deflating
cognitive distortions
- 4. Meditation
on the go
- 5. Learning mindfulness
meditation
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- The different faces
of stress
- Sex and stress
- Age and stress
- Caregiving and
stress
- Work and stress
- How stress affects
the body
- Stress and cardiovascular
disease
- Stress and cancer
- Stress and the
immune system
- Stress and high
blood pressure
- Stress and asthma
- Stress and gastrointestinal
disorders
- Developing your personal
plan for stress relief
- Glossary
- Organizations
- Books
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Here's an
Excerpt from this Stress Management Special Health
Report
Glance at the 10 leading causes of death in
America, and you won’t find the word “stress” anywhere.
Yet many well-respected studies link stress to
heart disease and stroke—two of the top
10 killers. Heart disease alone was responsible
for more than one in three deaths in 2002. Stress
may also influence cancer and chronic lower respiratory
diseases, which rank as numbers two and four,
respectively, in the top 10.
Stress has implications for many other ailments
as well. Depression and anxiety, which afflict
millions of Americans, can be caused or exacerbated
by stress. Stress also triggers flare-ups of
asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and gastrointestinal
problems, such as irritable bowel syndrome. And
illness is just the tip of the iceberg. Stress
affects you emotionally as well, marring the
joy you draw from life and loved ones.
What is stress? For one thing, it’s not
all bad. Your perception of a real or imagined
threat can spark the stress response, a physiological
cascade that prepares the body to fight or flee.
That swift reflex was encoded in you for survival
and can save you from injury or worse. It’s
a rush of hormones that spurs you to jump out
of the path of a speeding car, flee from a menacing
wild animal, or quickly douse a small fire. Stress
has another positive side as well. Researchers
have found that as stress or anxiety increases,
so do performance and efficiency—at least
initially. At a certain point, though, rising
stress becomes detrimental, and performance and
efficiency tumble.
Trouble usually brews when the stress response
is evoked repeatedly, causing unnecessary wear
and tear on the body for less than momentous
reasons. In a world bursting with situations
that can elicit the stress response—traffic
jams, layoffs, illness, and money woes—it’s
not surprising that many people experience stress
frequently. Certainly, no one can completely
avoid stressful situations. Yet it’s entirely
possible for each of us to influence how these
situations affect us.
This special report draws on expertise from
the renowned Mind/Body Medical Institute and
its Harvard Medical School staff. Reading it
will help you identify triggers for stress in
your own life and understand ways in which the
stress response affects your body. Applying the
techniques in these pages can help you neutralize
its damaging effects. This report provides a
variety of tools you can use to accomplish that
task. Your job is to decide which tools fit you
best and to start wielding them. (Of course,
before you use any of the techniques described
in this report to treat a health condition, you
should consult with your doctor first.)
As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built
in a day. It took much longer to raise the scaffolding
that supports the negative cycles of stress in
your life, too. Learning to dismantle it will
also take time. Yet your efforts can reward you
richly with better health, greater peace of mind,
and a smoother, more joyful course through life.
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