Stress


Some time ago it was found in a survey, every second child in primary school undergoes stress and tension. This leads to hypertension in coming years of his/her life. What exactly is stress and tension? The dictionary describes tension as difference of views and opinions between two people. Stress is the emphasis on some point or the other, a pressure of any kind.

Who is responsible for creating this tension? You, me or someone else? We just conveniently put this blame on the society, but what is the society? Who constitutes it? I do and you do, right? As a responsible person of the society, we also contribute to the mounting tensions and stress in the society, which subsequently results in health problems.

According to 'Ayurveda', "if health is lost all is gone, no amount of money or any kind of therapy can rebuild any sort of tissue that is damaged by trauma or some disease. Ayurveda is an ancient Indian medical science, which was written thousands of years ago. It says self control is the mantra for good life, all kind of stress can be avoided by control, by channeling it into something productive.

The irony today is even the most developed countries are trying to exercise these rules for living. They've adopted some fundamentals from the Ayurveda to ensure proper food habits, which they are inculcating in everyone these days.

Previously 50 percent of the medical schools did not teach the students the importance of nutrition, which subsequently enforces eating mostly junk food. Result: bad health which is seen in their performance at office and home. Deadlines are to be met, child is to be fed, mother isn't well, father is nagging over some thing or the other, wife is not trying to understand anything, and one fine day we crumble under the pressure.

The body, which lacks nutrition, has to overwork mentally, physically and emotionally and crumbles no matter what the circumstances are. It is said the more we are close to nature and the more natural in our approach toward life or ourselves, the happier and more joyful we shall be.

But in the pursuit to be someone other than who we are, we trigger the pressure to act artificially. This builds up pressure on us physiologically and psychologically. Our body stops to emote and react to basic phenomena as laughter - which gives rise to clubs like comedy clubs - teaching people to laugh. In these clubs, people do know the importance and significance of laughter. If they didn't, only hyenas would be allowed to laugh.

The pressure is immense on all of us to excel and be perfect, which at times we fail to do what is actually required in a particular situation. The biggest irony is we all know there is only one number one, all can't be there, still we do have insatiable want to excel and be prefect in all spheres of life.

They say destiny can't be changed and more over, we have only one destiny. So why not make full use of this opportunity to live it right? When destiny can't be changed, that which can surely change is our attitude towards our life - being positive in our approach under all circumstances. That surely helps in reducing the stress and tensions considerably.

Written in 2004 by Vikki K. --- Maharastra, India

Stories / Articles 2005



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