Stress seems to be the modern 'disease.
' The faster our lives run, the faster runs stress, eager to catch up and envelope us with all its attendant horrors.
Before we go any further, let's explain the difference between fear and anxiety.
Fear is the re-action to something actually happening to you now.
There's a knife-wielding lunatic chasing you around the house, so you're frightened.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is the response to something imagined and/or anticipated in the future.
Both conditions, of course, can cause extreme stress.
So stress can be real or imagined, but to be under stress, we must have a stressor.
Stress itself can be extremely serious, or just a feeling of annoyance.
I'm late for an appointment, and all the traffic lights are against me.
In these days of cell phones, this needn't be a nuisance.
Just phone the person you're supposed to be seeing and explain the situation.
When stress has taken over your life, though, the results can be devastating.
You may be physically sick, unable to think clearly, depressed, even suicidal.
Your body's less able to fight disease or bacteria, you can't work and sex becomes a distant memory.
Stress, like depression and panic attacks, is a selective condition.
By this, I mean that what will cause one person to suffer most terrible stress, that same thing will leave other people cold.
They won't feel any stress at all.
For example, if a person's one week late with their mortgage payment, they work themselves up into an awful state.
They have visions of the mortgage company, or the bank, descending on them and snatching the house from beneath their feet at any moment.
Now, being one week late with the mortgage isn't the most desirable of positions to be in, but it certainly isn't drastically serious.
So other people can be a week behind, and they don't lose a moment's sleep over it.
I often think how stressful it must have been in a Tudor court, say that of Elizabeth the First, or Henry the Eighth.
Intrigue was endemic.
You had to watch your back at all times, because anyone could be stalking you, ready with a knife to plunge into it, either actually or metaphorically.
So there we see the example of stress through fear.
You could end up in the Tower at the drop of a hat.
These days, it's more the sheer speed of life that causes stress.
The fact that so many people are never truly away from work.
The devil's in the cell phone.
At any time of the day or night, it'll chirp, tweet or buzz, waking you from what little sleep you've managed to grab, so that you can work on some report or other, to be ready the next day.
Our brains simply can't keep up and because of this, stress sets in with a vengeance.
' The faster our lives run, the faster runs stress, eager to catch up and envelope us with all its attendant horrors.
Before we go any further, let's explain the difference between fear and anxiety.
Fear is the re-action to something actually happening to you now.
There's a knife-wielding lunatic chasing you around the house, so you're frightened.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is the response to something imagined and/or anticipated in the future.
Both conditions, of course, can cause extreme stress.
So stress can be real or imagined, but to be under stress, we must have a stressor.
Stress itself can be extremely serious, or just a feeling of annoyance.
I'm late for an appointment, and all the traffic lights are against me.
In these days of cell phones, this needn't be a nuisance.
Just phone the person you're supposed to be seeing and explain the situation.
When stress has taken over your life, though, the results can be devastating.
You may be physically sick, unable to think clearly, depressed, even suicidal.
Your body's less able to fight disease or bacteria, you can't work and sex becomes a distant memory.
Stress, like depression and panic attacks, is a selective condition.
By this, I mean that what will cause one person to suffer most terrible stress, that same thing will leave other people cold.
They won't feel any stress at all.
For example, if a person's one week late with their mortgage payment, they work themselves up into an awful state.
They have visions of the mortgage company, or the bank, descending on them and snatching the house from beneath their feet at any moment.
Now, being one week late with the mortgage isn't the most desirable of positions to be in, but it certainly isn't drastically serious.
So other people can be a week behind, and they don't lose a moment's sleep over it.
I often think how stressful it must have been in a Tudor court, say that of Elizabeth the First, or Henry the Eighth.
Intrigue was endemic.
You had to watch your back at all times, because anyone could be stalking you, ready with a knife to plunge into it, either actually or metaphorically.
So there we see the example of stress through fear.
You could end up in the Tower at the drop of a hat.
These days, it's more the sheer speed of life that causes stress.
The fact that so many people are never truly away from work.
The devil's in the cell phone.
At any time of the day or night, it'll chirp, tweet or buzz, waking you from what little sleep you've managed to grab, so that you can work on some report or other, to be ready the next day.
Our brains simply can't keep up and because of this, stress sets in with a vengeance.