|
WITI HEALTH
From Bad Stress to Good
Quick, answer this question with your first thought... On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being low and 5 being high, my stress level is usually a ___. If you said 1 or 2, congratulations for having your stress under control. More likely, you're at the opposite end of the scale. Life is stressful, especially for high achievers. I know you're thinking, "What's the big deal... doesn't everyone have stress?" You may be shocked to learn that half of business people will die from stress-related illnessesÑheart attacks, strokes, even cancer. That's partly because stress hijacks healthy habits, keeping you from doing the things that you know you should to be healthy. It's also partly due to what stress does to our bodies. Let's look at some recent information regarding stress, and then we'll examine how you can avoid this. It is almost entirely avoidable, if you know how.
From these data points we can surmise that eliminating stress is an imperative for health. What does this mean to you? Please take a few moments to reflect on these questions:
The great news is that you can avoid most health risks simply by how you handle your stress. The key is in how you respond to it. Are you able to learn to love your stress by turning bad stress into good? If so, it won't have the same ill effects on you. Could boosting your levels of serotonin impact how you deal with your stress? What you eat can be a major factor. Proteins, fresh fruits and vegetables, grains, vitamins B and C, and magnesium, are important in making these brain chemicals that help your body handle stress. Avoid overloading your body with fats, refined sugars, and caffeine that can throw it way out of balance. Keeping your body constantly in overdrive lowers your serotonin, but getting enough sleep rebuilds it, as does eating turkey, bananas, walnuts, avocados, and tomatoes. I'm going out on a limb here to postulate that happy people are healthier people, but it's not such a stretch as research points in that direction. By nature, I'm an optimistic and happy person. So how come I have heart disease? At the time it happened, I was dealing with something stressful at work. I let it get under my skin and it made me vulnerable. Don't let this happen to you. Turning bad stress into good will help you live a long, healthy life. Learn to love your stress and become the happy, healthy woman you were meant to be. www.saveherlife.com The # 1 Female Health Hazard Nearly Killed Mellanie Ð Now She Fights Back. Mellanie True Hills www.mellaniehills.com, author of A Woman's Guide To Saving Her Own Life: The HEART Program For Health and Longevity www.saveherlife.com, is a heart disease survivor, nearly dying in emergency heart surgery. Using her second chance, she coaches individuals on creating healthy lifestyles and works with organizations to create healthy, productive workplaces. She is also the founder and CEO of the American Foundation for Women's Health, a non-profit organization dedicated to education and awareness about women's health issues. A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life is her story and a workbook designed to guide readers through the process of making permanent and life-saving changes. It is a winner of the Readers Preference Editor's Choice Award for 2005 and was listed in Publisher's Weekly as a nominee for the Quills Award Debut Author of the Year.
Recent Posts:
|
|
 |
|
Have you ever missed the alarm clock and awakened late the morning of a big meeting? Did you throw on makeup and clothes, speed to work while fighting traffic, whip into Starbucks for your coffee fix, spill it on yourself while lunging back into traffic, and then arrive late for your meeting only to find out that you're supposed to make a presentation that you didn't even know about? Were you stressed? Or were you able to go with the flow and laugh it off?
