by Svetlana Konnikova

Stress is additive and cumulative. This “phenomenon” of our century has its negative effects on individuals, organizations and societies. Workplace stress continues to grow. More than ever before, employee stress is being recognized as a major drain on their lives, on corporate productivity and competitiveness. Experts at the Centers of Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Healthcare found that $300 billion is spent annually in the United States on stress-related compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, health insurance costs, direct medical expenses, and employee turnover.

Statistics from a recent global stress study show that increased stress is felt worldwide, and stress affects women differently than men. Women who work full time and have children under age 13 report the greatest stress. Nearly one in four mothers who work full-time and have children under age 13 feel stress. Globally 23 percent of women executives and professionals say they feel “super-stressed.”

Can you prevent stress and its negative effects on your well-being?  Yes, you can. At first, you need to know how to differentiate between healthy stress and distress. Then you can develop simple practices to control your stress and make it working for you.

Stress is known as the impetus behind many neuroses and cardiovascular problems. It is a fact and it sounds scarry. Where this “phenomenon” of our century comes from? Stress comes from tension in your everyday lives. You are not always happy with your jobs, your bosses, your achievements, your responsibilities or the relationships you have with your children, your spouse, or your friends. C’est la vie!

What can stress do to you? Stress can influence you in a positive or negative way. Did you notice that heightened tension is common among most of us? It seems that many people do everything with a great amount of unnecessary effort. Even the simple act of listening to others is difficult for most people and often met with anxiousness or uneasiness–the result of too much unmanaged stress, no doubt.

How do you recognize stress? Typical symptoms of stress are chronic headaches, high blood pressure, tightness in the chest, sleeplessness, or restless sleep. You experience stress on a physical level as well as on mental and physhological levels. But there is a difference between healthy stress and distress. By other words, stress can be good or bad, positive or negative.

Do you know that happiness and even the anticipation of a happy event such as the birth of a baby are stresses, but certainly they are good stresses?! This kind of stress doesn’t promote illness. On the contrary, it brings you positive emotional and physical strength. I call this stress, ”a good exercise for heart and soul.”

Distress is different. Distress is experienced in emotional, epigastria, fetal, mental, and respiratory forms. All too often, when people talk about stress, what they are actually referring to is distress.

When you feel discontent, dissatisfaction, and irritation, it means you are  in distress. Distress is caused  by many things, including arguments between spouses, friends, lovers or between parents and children. Ups and downs in our lives are normal, frequent occurrences. At times, you can feel as though life demands too much from you. You do not have any time to relax, to stop and smell the roses; to ease or even eliminate the tension and stress you have stored throughout the week.

As you scurry around tending to your overwhelming responsibilities, very often you run out of time to tend to yourselves. The stress you feel has become distress.

It does not have to be  difficult to make stress working for you. It simply takes a little planning. I developed simple concepts and tips that will help you to turn your stress into “a good exercise for heart and soul,” to recover from distress and rebalance your internal, psychological health. Read my next post, Manage Stress Before It Manages You!

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