Stress out

How stress can affect your body, mind and soul?

YOU can’t hold it and yet it manages to stifle you with its monstrous power. It is a catalyst that can induce a host of ailments in one’s body, mind and soul. We are talking about stress. Not just cardiac ailments and heart attacks, u n h e a l t hy stress, if unchecked, also gives rise to Generation Rx.

Many school children suffering from burnouts due to acute stress, thanks to the competitive academic atmosphere and the constant pressure to live up to their parents’ expectations. Consequently, they are more prone to mental ailments like depression and withdrawal symptoms. Given the intense pressure in one’s life due to blind ambition and reckless consumerism, today there are more Type A personalities in the world. These people are aggressive, irritable and frustrated, and are more susceptible to the pitfalls of stress.

Stress can cause very serious medical ailments too. “For the last five years, there has been a significant increase in the incidence of tuberculosis in the young adult population. And worrying is one of the main causes for it.”

It’s not only the indigent population, but even people working in places like IT, call centres and media, who often deprive themselves of proper food, sleep, exercise and sunlight, are falling prey to TB. “About 80 per cent of them are in their twenties. They mainly suffer from tuberculosis of the lymph node seen in the neck. Add to that the latest fads, specially among young women — to go on a diet, thanks to the proliferation of careers (modelling, anchoring, jockeying, acting) that, while giving an image boost, busts the immunity mechanism”

How most people think ailments like asthma and respiratory problems are primarily courtesy pollution, but in reality, stress is as much responsible. “Suppression of emotions and lack of love and protection, another evolving urban feature causing stress, also results in the incurable but treatable autoimmune disorder like systemic lupus erythematosus (where immunity turns against parts of the body it is designed to protect). A spurt in skin diseases like psoriasis and allergies like eczema even among kids and an increase in the gastrointestinal disorders like peptic ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome (constipation alternating with diarrhoea) are also fallouts of stress”. Today, even young women (18-25 years) are suffering from polycystic ovarian disease, a condition linked with stress. It makes them prone to infertility, mood swings, weight gain and irregular cycles. Then there is obesity, which can be stress-related and can lead to further stress. Stress also aggravates conditions and ailments like acne, alopecia areata (bald patches seen as young as eight-yearolds), hair-fall, breast cancer and muscular spasm.

So, don’t give in to stress, no matter what. There are ways galore to keep it at bay and deal with it on occasions it gets to you.