Stress – that anxious feeling you get when your boss is breathing down your neck, the traffic is bumper to bumper, and the “to do” list at home is piling up. But stress can also be felt from positive changes such as a job promotion, your wedding, or a move. Either way, the stress you feel can have a negative impact on how well you age, especially if the stress is ongoing and not dealt with.
Stress does take a toll on your physical body, but to make matters worse, some studies suggest that continual stress hastens the aging of your brain as well.
What, then, can you do? Everyone has stress, but there are ways to cope with it in a positive way. If you boil it down, you need to move from a stressed-state to a feel-good state as early and as often as you can.
Exercise is a huge-stress reliever and anti-aging weapon that’s good to have in your cache. Exercising can release endorphins that make you feel better. Going for a brisk walk or hitting the gym also allows you to step away from your problems and perhaps come up with workable solutions. Coming up with solutions helps you feel in control, rather than a victim.
Laughter really is the best medicine. Think about how you feel after you laugh – relieved and relaxed. Laughing helps you put things in prospective, especially negative things you may have worried about to the point where they were blown up to a disproportionate level of stress. Cracking jokes in the middle of an argument can diffuse the argument and the stress.
Make it a habit to pamper yourself with what feels good as often as you can. It might be a candlelit dinner, a night out on the town, a bubble bath, dancing with your honey, or a massage.
Take regular vacations. It may seem like you never have time for a vacation, but take one anyway. You need time to recharge; this will actually make you more productive when you get back to work. Maybe you don’t have a week to spare or can’t afford to go anywhere exotic, so take a weekend and get out of town to someplace relaxing.
Get rid of long-term stress. It may take a lot of courage to make any big changes that are required to get rid of ongoing stress so consider getting outside help. Maybe you need a mediator, friend, counselor, attorney, financial advisor or real estate agent to see you through it.
Stress is not something you can erase from your life, and indeed it’s the body’s natural response to danger, but there are positive ways you can deal with stress so it doesn’t age you prematurely.
