As the old Cheers theme went, "making your way in the world today takes everything you've got," but the wellness educators at Castle Medical Center can provide some help. First, a definition - what is stress?
"When that happens, you actually start thinking there's danger. Your body reacts that way and so it starts producing chemicals that speed up your heart rate and make you breathe faster and give you bursts of energy," says Allie Yamada, wellness educator.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
"Exactly. That's called "use stress" and that kind of stress is actually positive because it can help you accomplish a task, win a race so we definitely need good stress in our lives to motivate us," Yamada explains.
But too much of a good thing can end up doing harm. That's the case with long-term stress.
"Their muscles start to tense up. Are you clenching your jaws? Do you feel tightness in your shoulders and other parts of your body? Is there tightening in your chest?" Yamada says.
One other sign of long-term stress taking its toll - a feeling of exhaustion. At the wellness center, specialists are prepared to help individuals feeling stressed. Every body's stress level differs.
"Ahead of time you already have a plan in place to deal with different stressors. So that when it actually happens, you're not going to panic, you actually know what you can do to start relieving that stress," Yamada says.
One thing they stress at the wellness center - put things in perspective. There's a famous quote - it's not how many times you fall down, it's how many times you get up. Allie has another quote from Abraham Lincoln.
"Most of the people are as happy as they make up their minds to be. And positive attitudes definitely increase your resiliency. Resiliency is so key to dealing with stress on a long term basis," she says.
