We all know the easiest ways to self-destruct, and yet some of us blindly race to the finish line at the earliest time we could.

A lack of some things can kill. Obesity, diabetes, and cancer are only some of the serious problems caused by inadequate sleep or sleep that is less than 7 or 8 hours a night. Mental fatigue can kill. On the other hand, the degenerative brain disease called Alzheimer’s may be avoided by engaging in mental activities and exercises such as reading, doing crosswords, mind games, and solving puzzles. Snooze the brain and risk physical destruction.

A lot of some things can kill. Driving a lot is an example. In the US, for instance, ‘driving kills more people aged 1 to 35 than anything else, a statistic that could drop to near zero if everyone just stayed home.’ Everyone knows that excessive alcohol consumption kills. Drinking a lot can be deadly. Alcoholism causes liver damage, period. A lot of stress is also destructive. Being stressed out is a guaranteed path to all kinds of diseases that attack the body. ‘When you’re chronically stressed, the adrenal glands are forced to work overtime and eventually exhaust themselves, inhibiting the immune system.’

Some indulgences can also kill. We all know the deadly aftermath of smoking and eating junk food. They taste good or feel good that is why some of us indulge in them, but they are definitely not good. ‘Just one cigarette will immediately increase your blood pressure and decrease the circulation to your extremities.’ On the other hand, heart disease is the US’ number one killer, for example, and ‘most of it is due to fat-laden, sugar-heavy’ junk food. Indulgence in too much sex can also be a path to self-destruction especially if one ‘doesn’t use protection, ignores the partner’s sexual history and shuns the annual medical exam.’ The result is STDs. One of the most mindless indulgences is watching too much television that gives one a sedentary lifestyle resulting in obesity.

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Via Live Science

Normally, stress can make us grab some ice cream or a bar of chocolate, not knowing that such foods can eventually lead to more stress. They only relieve the malady for the moment. Comfort food, after all, is to make us feel better and give us some sense of well-being.

Unfortunately, what have been known as comfort food are laden with unhealthy fats and sugars that give temporary brain chemical boost or psychological betterment but eventually make us ‘come crashing down again.’ So, nutritious food to relieve stress is the best way to go. This is the new comfort food.

Colorful fruits provide antioxidants such as vitamin C that slow down the aging process, as well as endow a person with energy boosters. Also, fruits can address your sweet cravings that commonly happen when you’re under stress.

Green vegetables ‘are natural sources of B-complex vitamins and folic acid, all of which work to influence mood. Greens like spinach are also rich in magnesium, a stress-fighting mineral that can relax the body and mind.’

Nuts are easy and accessible comfort foods. They are also rich in vitamins and minerals, all energy boosters and stress busters. ‘The magnesium in almonds can be especially calming.’ Nuts can also be filling, helping a person stave off hunger and, thus, regulate blood sugar.

Fish such as salmon and tuna are rich in omega-3 fatty acids that ‘help regulate stress hormones.’ ‘Tuna also contains natural B vitamins that combat stress.’

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Via Natural News

A person’s temperament can have impact on his or her physical health. According to Stephen Boyle of Duke University Medical Center, “The idea that behavior or personality traits can influence health is one that’s been around for a long time. We’re just now getting a handle on to what extent they do.” Fact is mental health affects physical health. There are deadly mental attitudes that impact a person’s state of bodily health.

Cynicism, the tendency to be suspicious and mistrustful of others, increases the risk of developing heart disease in a person. Hostile individuals tend to be under more stress, and this in turn ‘can cause spikes in an immune-system protein called C3 that has been linked with various diseases, including diabetes.’

A person who lacks a sense of purpose or meaning in life has his physical health in danger. On the other hand, purposeful and motivated individuals ‘readily derive meaning from and make sense of the events of their lives, and likely engage in behaviors and activities that they deem important.’

Fretful people who are constantly worried and anxious are said to be highly-neurotic, and are prone to depression. Also, they have most likely taken up the destructive habit of smoking.

Those who are more conscientious, organized, and self-disciplined live longer than those who lack self-control and are impulsive. Conscientious individuals are less likely to smoke, drink, or lead stressful lives.

Anxiety kills, literally. The risk of dementia was found to be 50 percent lower for calm people with mellow demeanor than with those who are frazzled and prone to distress. Dementia can be caused by Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses.

People ‘suffering from peripheral arterial disease (plaque buildup in the arteries) with so-called type D, or distressed, personality, have increased odds of dying sooner than other people. Type-D people are more likely to experience negative emotions while at the same time hold in their feelings.’ These are the gloomy and inhibited people who always doom themselves to doom.

Highly-stressed people are ‘nearly twice as likely as others to develop type 2 diabetes, in which a person’s body becomes resistant to the sugar-regulating hormone called insulin.’ They are under severe mental strain.

Via Live Science

When life’s irritations and frustrations build up, one can feel stressed or even experience some amount of anger. These can manifest immediately through one’s mood. The quality of mood is the ‘prevailing emotional tone or general attitude’ that can almost always dictate one’s day, and how he or she will relate to the activities of the day.

One always has the choice to change bad mood into a positive one. There are various ways to alter bad mood. One of these is through physical activity. Exercising to beat the blues has been quite effective for many people.

According to Elizabeth Scott, M.S., in her article ‘Exercise and Stress Relief: Using Exercise as a Stress Management Tool,’ exercise can be an extremely effective stress reliever for several reasons: it is an outlet for frustrations, a means to decrease ‘stress hormones’ like cortisol, a way to increase endorphins (your body’s ‘feel-good’ chemicals that give your mood a natural boost), and a tactic of distraction.

More high-energy forms of exercise like boxing, martial arts or weight training can also provide an effective release of these negative emotions, turning these otherwise potentially unhealthy emotions into motivation for increased health and well-being. You will notice that a person who sulks is, more often than not, one who is physically stagnant.

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Via Stress-Relief-Exercises

According to Brooks (2000), workplace incivility translates to operational expenses for a business organization. The phenomenon goes through an entire downturn process that can be ugly for the company. There are victims of workplace incivility who suffer from stress, paranoia, anxiety, embarrassment, and fatigue. These may cause sleeplessness that, in turn, translates to tardiness, absenteeism, even sickness. Some victims suffer from anger and depression that, in turn, may translate to mental, psychological, and emotional imbalances resulting in anger and violence. Organizational processes are hindered and hampered, resulting in poor human resources production and company performance.

There are casualties in this regard, as employees simply opt to resign from their jobs and transfer to another company. There are instances when some victims of workplace incivility just choose not to report their victimization and also merely opt to quit their jobs and transfer to other companies. This phenomenon of employee turnover is an unnecessarily evil which the company bears the brunt of, ultimately. Disorder at the workplace occurs when these factors exist. Work is disrupted, to say the least.

There are many instances when incivility in the workplace transforms into some form of violence. Atkinson (2000) enumerates some measures by which to address incivility in the workplace. These strategies are meant to avert the possibility of it happening, mitigate the results if it has, indeed, been happening, and drawing a pro-active stance against it. Employees, as well as their business organization, should accept the fact that the workplace is not a totally safe environment. Hazards can happen during the performance of occupations. These hazards can, oftentimes, be behavioral and attitudinal.  The business organization, if it wants to be progressive and pro-active, should have a firm anti-workplace violence policy in place. This policy should be non-negotiable. The foundation for such a policy should be the basic recognition of human rights.

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Via Workplace Bullying Institute/Workers Health & Safety Centre

There’s an irony to the current raging recession. While millions have lost their jobs, livelihood, and their healthcare plans in all probability, getting promoted at work may also be hazardous to one’s health. Upward mobility at the workplace may not augur too well with one’s physical and mental health.

The logic is simple if we are to go by the findings of a research done in Britain: ‘when people get promoted, they suffer on average about 10 percent more mental strain and are less likely to find the time to go to the doctor.’

But haven’t we known that all along? Of course, we know that higher rungs on the corporate ladder really mean bigger responsibilities and extended working hours, thus adding to stress and subtracting from personal time to even go see a doctor.

The research used information from a yearly survey of British people, including data on Brits who had been promoted. The study is obviously inconclusive and no way global. Among the findings is the 20 percent drop in doctor visits for those who were promoted, attributed to lack of time.

Work stress, though, is a serious matter. And it comes when there is a palpable imbalance between professional and personal life. If unattended, it can lead to mental and physical fatigue that can further deteriorate to disease and absenteeism from work.

So, those who get promoted at work would do well to balance their heavier workload with their personal life lest the new and brighter job position vanish in the light of poor performance turn out due to symptoms and manifestations of stress, counting among them poor memory, poor concentration, irritability, and distress – all things associated with poor employee performance. Just relax for success.

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Via Live Science

When life and work become too cumbersome, we experience the manifestations of stress. The effects of work stress on individuals affect different people in different ways. The experience of work stress, for instance, can cause inferior performance at work, deteriorate physical health, contribute to poor mental functioning, and produce dysfunctional behavior in personal and professional dealings. In extreme cases, long-term stress may lead to psychological problems resulting in recurring absence from work. The body and mind can only take so much.

Work is an imperative for living, yet ironically, it has diminished the quality of life for most people. Stress has become the common attendant result of the imbalance. When affected by work stress, people may become increasingly distressed and irritable, become unable to relax or concentrate, have difficulty thinking logically and making decisions, feel tired, depressed, anxious, have difficulty sleeping, experience serious physical problems such as heart disease, disorders of the digestive system, increases in blood pressure, headaches, musculo-skeletal disorders such as low back pain and upper limb disorders, and become unable to fight infections due to a compromised immune system.

If you are ‘married to your work,’ it simply means that stress has ‘invaded’ your life. Globalized trade and internationalized businesses have redefined the usual work hours of 9-to-5. Work hours have presently become extended and irregular. Work is also now done outside of the workplace because of the availability of information and communication technology. The downtimes at work have become shorter and fewer in between. Hard times have also pushed people to try to earn more, often taking on more than one employment.

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Via MayoClinic

For some people who think they are sick, the worst situation is for the diagnostic results to stay pending. Awaiting the verdict of an examination causes anxiety levels comparable to those of an unfavorable response. The anticipated outcome of a diagnostic examination causes considerable stress. The anxiety of the medical response after a biopsy, for instance, can involve something more than sleepless nights. Waiting to know if you are sick or not can induce biochemical alterations that can compromise the immune system and hamper healing.

In particular, the level of cortisol that is often called “stress hormone” increases its concentration in response to stressful stimuli. Cortisol helps the body combat acute stress by adjusting blood pressure, sugar levels, and immune response when necessary. But when stress becomes chronic, the secretion of cortisol goes into overproduction, rendering the immune system and other functions vulnerable.

Doctors should be encouraged to speed up the analysis and presentation of results of biopsies. Patients, in turn, should ask who will communicate to them their results and how much time it will take before full results can be disclosed. If possible, schedule for biopsy should take into account any delays associated with weekend or holiday. For health professionals, it should no longer be a case for stressful long delays to be regarded as merely the patient getting just a little nervous.

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The Programme of Occupational Health by the World Health Organization (WHO) published a series of occupational health documents entitled: Protecting Workers’ Health. These contain the implementation approaches of the Global Strategy on Occupational Health for All, a result of the Fourth Network Meeting of the WHO Collaborating Centres in Occupational Health. The WHO, along with the International Labor Organization (ILO), recognizes stress as a world-wide major challenge to workers’ health and the wellbeing of their organizations.

In many countries, legislation mandates employers to take care of the health and safety of their workers. This duty includes the management of stress-related hazards, work stress, and basic mental and physical health of employees. Employers are advised to familiarize themselves with the relevant law in their country.

Corporate stress management is a complex process that includes the prevention of stress at the workplace, and where employees are already experiencing stress, the prevention of further and more serious damage to workers’ health by stress. Corporate management has seen the debilitating effects of work stress to the general health of their organization, as well as to the company’s bottom line.

Poor worker performance, increased absenteeism, decreased commitment to work, and increased staff turn-over are just some of the concrete manifestations of the effect of stress at the workplace. These manifestations subtract from the company’s ability to be competitive. That is why many companies and corporations have joined the work stress relief bandwagon, seemingly spoiling their employees in the process.

And most importantly, the uptrend in the relief of work stress has spawned an entire global industry of health professionals, occupational therapists, fitness instructors, dieticians, and the like to service the needs of thousands of corporations across the globe.

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Via Clarity Seminars

Indeed, music is a good stress buster. It often soothes our minds and many of us do rely on music when we feel low. Well, to add to the power of music, the modern and unprecedented ‘music therapy’ seems to be working wonders to soothe the broken souls and the stressful minds.

Music therapy could be just suitable to fight the stressful and monotonous life that we all seem to be the victims of in today’s modern world. This innovative therapy is gaining pace and is gradually giving a tough competition to other therapies such as ‘aroma therapy.’ Music therapy is practiced using a massage table which utilizes the musical vibes and the waves produced by the titanic sub woofers. Your senses will be completely swallowed by the magical music coming from the speakers around you.

If you are planning to lay your hands on this massage table then you might have to wait for a while until its price is given. This therapy is an added brownie point for the music lovers as you can enjoy your music while you experience the massage. So, treat yourself with a music therapy and bust your stress.

Via: LuxuryLaunches\MathewAudio