LIVING WELL 34
LIVING WELL 34 NetJets
MAINTAINING SPIRIT LEVELS Experts from Mayo Clinic analyse the causes of stress in modern life and outline the best ways to deal with it JÖRN KASPUHL WHEN ONE TALKS about stress, it’s considered a negative thing. The pace, challenges and noise in most of our lives today add stress to even the most mundane situations and can lead to feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. What we sometimes forget is that even happy times cause stress. Stress is an inevitable part of life. What we have to do is figure out how to manage our stress levels for optimal health. It helps first to define stress. At Mayo Clinic, we define it as a normal psychological and physical reaction to the demands of life. Some stress can be good, motivating you to perform well. But many daily challenges, such as sitting in traffic, meeting deadlines, and paying bills, can push you beyond your ability to cope. And while the effects of stress may seem temporary – you finally unwind after making it home after a long day at work and then an extra hour added on to your commute due to a traffic jam – we understand that continual stress can have lasting negative impacts on health. “When stress becomes chronic – lasting weeks, months or even years – then this stress can change the equilibrium (homeostasis) within our bodies by affecting our immunological, hormonal and other biomarkers of health,” says Dr Moain Abu Dabrh, a physician-researcher-coach with the Mayo Clinic Executive Health programme in Jacksonville, Florida. “These imbalances can lead to negative impacts on our physical, emotional, mental, social, environmental and many other aspects of our well-being.” His colleague, Dr Adam Perlman, agrees. “Stress can impact every system in your body and increase your risk of developing not only issues like depression and insomnia, but also heart disease, chronic pain and even the common cold.” While there’s probably no way to eliminate negative stress for most of us, we can learn how to better manage our reactions to stressful situations and lessen the impact stress has on our bodies. The best part is that the most common ways to decrease the impact of stress on our lives are pretty easy to include in our day-to-day lives. NetJets 35
