Stress Can Weaken Our Immune System

Stress, we all have it in our lives however, many of us do not know why we have it, what causes it, what it can do to our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being or how to get rid of it! Dealing with stress in our daily lives is a process, one that we can acknowledge, embrace, reduce, and manage, or we can attempt to ignore it and allow it to invade every aspect of our lives, destroying our sense of well-being, relationships, and even our health. The simple fact is, stress can weaken our immune system and body and if ignored can lead to physical and psychological issues such as anxiety, irritability, guilt, withdrawal, depression and suicide, chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes, cancer, lupus, coronary artery disease, intestinal issues, migraine headaches, muscle tension, and insomnia to name a few possibilities. Why would anyone want to allow such an insidious component in our lives to actively remain and cause such destruction to our physical and emotional selves? Maybe it is simply we do not know what stress really is, how to determine what causes our stress, and if we know what causes it perhaps we have no idea how to manage and relieve it (Seward, 2012).

Let us take a look a look at what stress is. According to Seward (2012), “The word stress is frequently used to describe the level of tension people feel is placed on their minds and souls by demands of their jobs, relationships, and responsibilities in their personal lives” (p. 5). That sounds like just about everything we encounter in life, but not all stress is bad for us. There are three different types of stress, eustress, neustress, and distress. These range from good to neutral to bad. Eustress is the good stress in our lives that essentially motivate us...

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...iously, I am not going to be as young as many of the competitors that I will be competing against in the job market after graduation. Considering my age and what I see as my physical limitations are factors in my stress-filled life. I certainly do not have the stamina that will be needed to compete, my body, well let me just say it has about 30 additional years of wear on it than the young college students graduating. I know I need to start exercising now, working on my appearance and confidence, it is going to take some time and I now only have about eight more months! Let me see, where am I going to find a few more hours in the day for this?

References

Seaward, B. (2012). The art of peace and relaxation workbook. (7th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Oxford American Thesaurus (2nd ed.). (2008). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.