Women And Stress

How Stress Differs Among Women; Ways for Relief

It is well established that women are busier than men. It also seems that they experience higher levels of stress than their male counterparts. Women are typically seen as the ones who are always in a hurry since they tend to juggle more activities. But to what extent is this perception true?

The School of Family and Consumer Resources of the University of Arizona conducted extensive research on the stress patterns affecting women. The study included 166 couples. The couples had to maintain a diary over a course of 42 days. The couples had to record their daily events of stress in them. The results showed that women were more likely to experience days that they perceived as distressing. Men on the other hand recorded fewer stressful events.

The aspect of the study that is of interest is that women who experienced a higher level of distress episodes were more likely to have their entire days turn stressful. The distressing episodes triggered the stress response of the body. Thus, they were not in a stressful state that lasted for days. In simpler terms, women do not tend to hold on to their stress. They were experiencing more stressful episodes.

This has thrown up some crucial issues on the correlation between women and stress, which every woman needs to know:

• Learn Gender Differences in Stress

  Experiencing more stress than men is not a sign of poor stress management. Research has proven that women are likely than men to experience stressful events. Take credit for present stress management techniques and prepare for the next step.

• Eliminate Stress

  Generally, women particularly mothers find themselves at the receiving end for lending their time for organizing birthday parties at the office or being part of the Parents Teachers Association. Although some of these activities can bring some element of joy, they can have a huge impact on the already busy schedules. It can be very challenging to refuse or say a firm ‘no’. But constantly condescending to such demands will leave you with a lack of sufficient time for other healthy activities such as hobbies, exercise, or some soothing time alone. Women need to prioritize themselves and their activities and learn the art of saying ‘no’ in a firm manner.

• Change Your Perspective

  Most of the stressful events that are experienced everyday can be reduced by altering your outlook toward life. This may sound easy but is difficult to practice. Changing the way you perceive events can be an effective stress management technique. Implementing this technique would mean that threat turns into challenge and a crisis turns into an opportunity. The body’s response toward stress is controlled or is less likely to be triggered in the first place, if this stress management technique is followed. Thus, chronic stress can be avoided. In more formal terms, this technique is called cognitive restructuring.

• Learn Some Quick Stress Busters

  Learning some effective ways to beat stress is important because complete elimination of stress is impossible. Also impossible is the complete elimination of the occurrence of stressful events. Stress busters can reverse the body’s stress response immediately. This will help in the occurrence of chronic stress.

• Practice Stress-reducing Activities

  You can arm yourself with stress-reducing activities to prevent your body from getting into a situation that is overwhelming. This state where the body is overwhelmed makes you more prone to stressful events. Practicing yoga and breathing exercises make the body less immune to stressful events. Exercise has great benefits both physically and emotionally. Maintaining a journal or diary is also a good habit. It is very healthy to inculcate some of these activities in your morning or nightly routine.

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