As you know, April is Stress Awareness month. For those who suffer with migraines, stress is one of the most prevalent migraine triggers there is. Unfortunately, in today’s society, with the busyness of our lives, stress is something we don’t seem to be able to avoid. Yet, as migraineurs, we certainly need to learn how to deal with our stress so that we can minimize our migraine intensity and occurrence.
If you experience stress, you are one of millions of people worldwide. Your body is actually designed to feel stress and react to it, so that you are alert and ready to avoid danger. However, when stress persists, the body begins to break down and illnesses, such as headaches and migraines, can occur. The most effective way to cope with stress is to identify the stressors in your life. After you’ve identified your specific stressors, then you need to learn ways to reduce and manage your stress. In doing this, you will find great benefit with migraine and headache relief.
What Is Stress?
Simply put, stress is your reaction to any change that requires you to either respond or adjust. Basically, stress is the result of how you respond to stressful events.So, it’s important to know that you can control stress.
What Causes Stress?
Causes of stress are different for each person, just as the way our body responds to that stress is unique to each individual. It can be caused by anything requiring you to adjust to a change in your environment and life. Your body reacts to these changes and circumstances with physical, mental, and emotional responses.
Here is a list of some of the common causes of stress, which is by no means a comprehensive list:
- A change of location
- Money problems
- Accidents
- Death of a loved one
- Crowds
- Confrontations
- Marriage
- Pregnancy
- Deadlines
- Legal issues
- Loss of job
- Heavy traffic
- Divorce
- New job
- Retirement
- Sickness
Sometimes it is hard to be sure of the exact cause of your stress. Keeping a journal of what’s going on in your life can be helpful. Besides using a journal, it also helps to know the warning signs of stress. These are important steps because when you can identify the warning signs, you can learn how your body responds to stress, so you can then take steps to reduce it.
What Are the Warning Signs of Stress?
Your body is so miraculously fine-tuned to you and your stressors that it sends out physical, behavioral, and emotional warning signs of stress.
Emotional warning signs of stress include:
Emotional warning signs of stress include:
- Anger
- Inability to concentrate
- Unproductive worry
- Sadness
- Frequent mood swings
Behavioral warning signs of stress include:
- Over-reacting
- Acting on impulse
- Using alcohol or drugs
- Withdrawing from relationships
- Changing jobs often
Physical warning signs of stress include:
- Stooped posture
- Sweaty palms
- Chronic fatigue
- Weight gain or loss
How to Cope With Stress.
Be realistic in your expectations, and accept that there are events and circumstances you can’t control. Here are a few suggestions which you can use as coping mechanisms:
Be realistic in your expectations, and accept that there are events and circumstances you can’t control. Here are a few suggestions which you can use as coping mechanisms:
- Asking others for help
- Taking responsibility for the situation
- Trying some problem solving
- Expressing emotions that are distressing
- Being assertive and not aggressive
- Maintaining relationships that support you emotionally
- Staying emotionally composed
- Engaging in attempting to change the source of stress
- Putting distance between yourself and the source of stress
- Learning to relax
- Eating and drinking sensibly
- Exercising regularly
- Learning to practice a healthy sense of self-esteem
Seek Help for Managing Stress.
If you feel you just are getting nowhere managing your own stress, and you feel you are going down the same downward spiral over and over again, seek help.
By working with me in one of my programs, you will:
- Learn to recognize your stress triggers
Decrease anxiety levels - Learn to cope with the demands of your daily life
- Learn techniques to help you remain calm
- Replace bad habits with good ones
- Have a healthy self-esteem
- Learn relaxation techniques that will help alleviate your stress
- Recognize irrational fears
- You will learn preventative measures for migraines
- You will recognize your migraine triggers and how to avoid them
- You will learn techniques to incorporate into your daily life to minimize the migraine pain and prevent frequent occurrence
Learn to live free from stress and pain, and minimize and reduce your migraines. I would love to help you minimize and relieve some of your migraine symptoms and occurrences. For your free consultation, click below.