Modern day stress health concerns
October 10, 2007
The adverse side effects of a frenzied pace and pressured 21st century lifestyle are our top health concerns, according to researchers who compiled data based on answers given in determining what people are worried about when it comes to health.
The way we live, not what we are doing in the form of habits such as smoking and drinking, are causing us the most anxiety. We don’t think we are getting enough exercise or sleep in what has become a lifestyle that never seems to slow down or shut down. Our society is open for business 24 hours a day, seven days a week — and this fact is spilling over into the pace of individual life.
In Britain, where the study was conducted, the reasons for worry were, in descending order — lack of exercise; lack of sleep; fatigue; lack of dental care; stress; food additives; and then smoking and drinking. But the results would apply to the population of any industrialized society. We have real cause to be concerned about the stressors of modern life. Long-term stress suppresses the immune system and can lead to a host of maladies and more seriously, to disease.
Dr Weil, in Stress and Relaxation: Ten Ways to Relax and Reduce Stress, offers tips on ways we can reduce our stress levels and achieve a relaxed sense of inner calm. The methods he describes involve breathing; progressive relaxation; exercise; massage and body work; visualization and guided imagery; biofeedback; meditation; mantram; hypnotherapy; and herbal remedies. To learn more on these tips, visit Dr Weil’s page on ways to relax.