 Impact of Stress on Individuals It has been proven that 70% - 80% of visits to medical doctors are due to stress related illnesses. New research shows that continued exposure to stress can depress your immune system, lowering your resistance to illness and in extreme cases be a major factor in the development or aggravation of problems such as anxiety, coronary heart disease, cancer and many more. Unfortunately, few doctors are trained in identifying or treating stress. The result is that millions of people develop illnesses or diseases when they don’t have to. Modern medicine has little to offer when it comes to stress management. Although the importance of anti-anxiety drugs cannot be underestimated during a crisis, after a major stressful event or anxiety disorder, but they do nothing to combat the problems of long-term stress. Long-term use of anti-anxiety drugs can lead to dependency on them. Stress causes difficulties in marriage, relationships, handling children, performing regular chores. It also affects the performance at work and in severe cases may lead to loss of job. Stress cannot be eliminated from our personal and professional life. But we can learn skills and techniques to handle it appropriately. Life should not only be about survival and passing every day but should also be about enjoyment, emotional satisfaction, self-expression and creativity. Learning to relax makes all these things easier. A Stanford University Medical School study of 1012 men and women who suffered from a first heart attack and then were followed for up to 8 years showed that those men who were most aggressive and hostile at the outset suffered the highest rate of second heart attack. A similar study was done at Yale School of Medicine and came out with the same results. The Yale researchers pointed out that it was not only hostility also but also rather intense negative emotions of any kind that regularly sends surges of stress hormones throughout the body, that lead to heart attack. In a 1993 review in the Archives of Internal Medicine of extensive research on the stress- disease link, Yale psychologist Bruce McEwen noted a broad spectrum of effects:
|
