Stress And Social Anxiety

Title:
Stress And Social Anxiety

Word Count:
486

Summary:
One of the major symptoms associated with social anxiety is stress. Stress works two ways - the social anxiety can cause it, and the stress can intensify the social anxiety. Stress can be a big problem, because it leads to other health related problems, such as high blood pressure or heart attack.

Stress can also cause headaches, ulcers, insomnia, excessive fatigue, and muscle pain. When a person who suffers from social anxiety is contemplating a social interaction or situ...


Keywords:
Social Anxiety, Symptoms, Autogenic relaxation


Article Body:
One of the major symptoms associated with social anxiety is stress. Stress works two ways - the social anxiety can cause it, and the stress can intensify the social anxiety. Stress can be a big problem, because it leads to other health related problems, such as high blood pressure or heart attack.

Stress can also cause headaches, ulcers, insomnia, excessive fatigue, and muscle pain. When a person who suffers from social anxiety is contemplating a social interaction or situation, they experience stress. When they are actual in a social interaction or situation, the stress level increases to extreme levels, and triggers a variety of other symptoms.

Stress plays such a big role in social anxiety that, in many cases, once a person learns how to control their stress levels, they literally overcome their social anxiety as well. There are many methods that can be used to control stress levels. Exercise is one of the best ways to reduce or eliminate stress, because believe it or not, stress can create energy. This is the fight or flight response that we were all born with. This fight or flight response was used by our ancestors for their survival. We don't typically use this fight or flight response for our survival today, but it is still there, and it does create energy that needs to be used. Exercise is the way to use it.

You can also employ other methods for dealing with long-term stress and it's side effects. These methods include: Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR), Autogenic Relaxation, and Imagery Relaxation. These methods can be used along with exercise to greatly reduce your stress levels.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation is a technique in which you tense, then relax, groups of muscles. The ultimate goal of PMR is to be able to relax your entire body all at once. When you can relax all of your muscles, stress disappears from your muscles, and it is either reduced or eliminated.

Autogenic relaxation is often used for the relief of chronic pain. Since stress can cause chronic pain, autogenic relaxation is used to treat stress as well. Autogenic relaxation combines deep breathing exercises with imagery and positive verbal statements to control and master a problem that is causing stress.

Imagery relaxation also involves deep breathing, but instead of dealing directly with what is causing the stress, you use your mind to take you away from the stressful situation - to a happier, more relaxed place. This can be done with the use of tapes, or on your own.

Whether social anxiety is causing your stress or something else is causing your stress, it is important that you deal with the stress as soon as possible, before it leads to other more serious health problems and takes over your life. Even if you are not able to deal with other issues just yet - such as your social anxiety - your stress levels can still be greatly reduced.

BONUS : Title:
Stress and the Immune System

Word Count:
498

Summary:
Stress and the immune system play a vital role in your life and overall health. Day-to-day stressful events affect how your body responds to fighting illnesses. Stressful events that occur on a short-term basis can change the way your immune systems responds temporarily.


Keywords:
immune system, immune system stress


Article Body:
Stress and the immune system play a vital role in your life and overall health. Day-to-day stressful events affect how your body responds to fighting illnesses. Stressful events that occur on a short-term basis can change the way your immune systems responds temporarily. Responses from the immune system to short-term stresses can actually be helpful in some cases, redistributing cells in a positive manner to help your body adapt as a quick-fix. Moderately stressful events, however, can have a damaging impact on your body’s immune system, while traumatic and chronic stress can compromise your immune system’s ability to perform.

Individuals react differently to stressful situations: some experience more physiological changes when under pressure than others. Stress and the immune system can bring about conditions in which your body’s cells can actually be suppressed and rendered unable to engage in their useful functions of protecting your body against infections.

From one stressful presentation you have to make at work, to the everyday traffic congestion that can turn into road rage, stress and the immune system play a significant role in your overall health. If your body’s immune system isn’t functioning properly, all sorts of germs, bacteria, viruses, and diseases have the opportunity to pass into your system to cause you more grief.

Diabetes, ulcers, heart attacks, and asthma are just a few conditions made worse by the effects of stress and the immune system. Increases in chemicals produced by your body that help with nerve conduction cause changes in your heart rate and blood vessels, compromising the immune system's response when you enter situations that cause you stress.

To help lower the chances that stress and the immune system will negatively affect your daily life, you can take steps such as eating right, getting regular exercise and getting plenty of rest. Your body needs you to take care of it so that it can help take care of you. Eating healthy and nutritious foods is a good place to start. Consumption of foods such as orange vegetables (carrots, pumpkin, squash, and sweet potatoes) help with the Vitamin A your skin needs to help prevent bacteria from getting into your body. Lean, low-fat beef and certain types of mushrooms containing zinc promote the building of white blood cells to help fight infection. Tea, fortified cereals and yogurt also aid in keeping your immune system functioning well.

You can also try to keep your stress levels at a minimum -- easier said than done for a lot of people. Practice deep-breathing exercises and other anxiety-calming techniques to try to reduce your stress levels. Stress and the immune system can negatively impact your body’s health and well being when stress gets out of hand and your immune system isn't up to its job. Stress is a physiological process, but you can take psychological steps to rein it in and get control over the situation before it gets out of control and causes an illness to befall you.