by Izabella Tabarovsky for Woman Around Town
We are a nation of highly stressed-out people. We can see signs of stress in others, and recognize them in ourselves: there is that sense of exhaustion (“I’m wiped out!”), taut facial muscles, dry skin, and irritability; there may be heart palpitations or the sinking feeling in our stomach or the sense that we are drowning in an endless sea of chores and obligations.
Stress is hard to define in scientific terms, and yet it is one of the biggest culprits in our worsening national health crisis. An estimated 90 percent of all primary doctor visits are said to be related to stress. Chronic stress disrupts nearly every system in your body and is considered to be a precursor to such serious conditions as type 2 diabetes, depression, weight-gain, back pain, and heart disease. At work, it leads to productivity losses and growing medical costs.
The problem is that sometimes reducing stress seems as stressful as, well, the very problem that had caused the stress in the first place. I regularly hear this from women for whom scheduling a 90-minute relaxation appointment with me is tantamount to performing a feat of organizational genius.
But the truth is that you can find your way to reducing stress without joining an ashram, blowing three months’ rent on a spa vacation or passing up on a new, exciting project at work. When it comes to stress reduction, you can do a lot in small increments – and on a small budget.
Here are some strategies that you can take to the office, on a business trip, or anywhere else your busy life happens to take you. The results to look for are more energy, sharper focus, a greater sense of peace and equanimity and, ultimately, better health.
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