Women and stress

• Verónica !, she works, studies, is married and takes care of her mother who has a chronic degenerative disease.
• Alma! She takes care of her house: she washes, irons, cooks meals, fixes the house, takes care of her three small children and of course her husband.
• Mary! She is an executive in an important company, she spends all day fixing work problems and her hours do not allow her to rest, she even has no vacation for more than two years, so most of the time she feels tired.

What do all these women have in common: they constantly live with stress.

The enormous importance of the participation of women in different areas of life has a cost not only economic, spiritual and social, but also physiological. Being teachers, doctors, perfectionists, nice, intelligent and multifaceted is reflected in your body and mind.

Who is affected by stress?

It can be said that stress does not respect age, race, education, profession, culture, or economic position, of course neither gender. We are all exposed to experiencing some stressful situation at some point in our lives. However, there are people who are more susceptible to experiencing its effects in a more negative way, such is the case of sick people, children, who are very shy and of course women who do not have any method to counteract it..

In the sixties the psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, elaborated a scale of social readjustment which contemplated stressful factors, listing some of them due to their validity: the death of a relative, separation or divorce, getting married, dismissal from work, reconciliation with the couple, confrontations with the couple, pregnancy, retirement, when a child leaves home, vacations, the change of address or school of the children. Others are like a constant trickle and are associated with the chronic stress that some women experience: washing, ironing, making food, taking their children to and from school, shopping at the supermarket, keeping an eye on services of the house (water, electricity, telephone, etc.), the minor or major repairs of the house, the homework of the children and more.

A situation that causes us tension generates a series of physiological and psychological changes at the same time.

Shakespeare said: "things are neither good nor bad, only the mind makes them so." In the same way, stress being a response of confrontation or flight to stressful events, each human being will register it in his mind and body in a different way..

Respiratory, gastric, dermatological or heart conditions can be sequelae of an emotional imbalance, conditions that are known as psychosomatic and that in Mexico are present between 10 and 40 percent of the population. Specialists from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) indicate that, eventually, emotions can deteriorate health and even generate physical ailments such as: bronchial asthma, colds, obesity, gastric ulcer, rheumatoid arthritis, dermatitis, and high blood pressure , which could actually be a manifestation of unresolved emotional conflicts. (They affect people's health emotional problems).

A person who under stress can become ill from head to toe and will present the following reactions in his body:

• Decreased peripheral blood flow, with the consequent increase in blood pressure (skin, viscera, etc.) for greater blood supply to the brain, heart and adrenals, essential for survival.
• Increased heart rate (tachycardia).
• Increased breathing rate (tachypnea).
• Iridodilation or miosis, to widen the visual field.
• Temporary stopping of intestinal transit.
• Contraction of internal sphincters.
• Inhibition of urination and defecation.
• Inhibition of sexual arousal mechanisms.
• Increased perspiration or sweating as a cooling mechanism for the body.
• Piloerection (creeps). (Selye cited in Barrera, 2004)

Some reactions seen:

• Isolation.
• Behaving quieter or more reserved than usual.
• Feeling very sleepy, insomnia, or any sleep disturbance.
•  Lack of appetite or overeating (usually from anxiety).
• Feeling afraid of doing everyday activities
• Feeling bored or not wanting to do some activity.
• Appearance of pimples or hives (dermatitis) with no apparent cause and only in stressful situations.
• Feeling sick (vomiting, diarrhea or various pains) in anticipation of events that were previously pleasant to you (somatizing problems).
• Constantly arguing or being upset and intolerant.
• Express being afraid of something unspecific (anguish).
• The urge to run or disappear for a while.

Reactions not seen:

• Sweaty feet or hands.
• Increased heart rate.
• Sweat cold.
• Experiencing negative thoughts.
• Nervous colitis.
• Anxiety (nervousness, even though they physically look fine).
• Anguish (fear of something unidentified).

Among others, because the list is endless.

What are the consequences later?

Generally little attention is paid to stress; however, the consequences can be very serious and can occur, and last from childhood to adulthood, such as:

• emotional instability or poor ability to control your emotions,
• shyness or social phobia: meeting new people, speaking in public, using public toilets, eating in public, asking a person for information or street, etc.,
• Eating disorders: anorexia or bulimia,
• Unsafety,
• Low self-esteem,
• Nervousness,
• Depression,
• Learning problems associated with stress,
• Unconsciously creating psychosomatic illnesses,
• Substance abuse,
• Complex: inferiority, greatness, etc..
• Obsessive compulsive disorders,
• Antisocial behaviors or various personality disorders.

To do?

Four easy steps to balance stress

1. Identify sources of stress: It is worth taking an inventory of the things that stress us.
2. Restructure priorities: If I need to do twenty activities, I need to start with one, it can be the simplest or the most complex, but do one at a time.
3. Change responses to stress: If I cannot change my job, my children, my family, then I need to learn to live with the people I have or are around me.
4. Find methods to manage it: use different activities to balance stressful events (exercise, read, play, watch TV for a while, listen to music, learn relaxation techniques, give yourself a massage, etc.)

It is important that we be able to detect the signals that our body sends us when it is in a stressful situation. If we learn to manage our own stress we can help even our family to manage it as well. It is very convenient:

• Learn relaxation techniques:
  • Breathe slowly and deeply
• Visualize by positively solving stressful situations (creative visualization)
• Practice activities with your children or your partner that allow you to have a healthy coexistence: walking in the forest, playing board games, inventing games, practicing a sport just for fun, etc. Stressed parents have stressed children.
• Listen to music (music therapy).
• Attend a show: theater, dance, cinema, museums (some activities on Sundays are free).
• If the mothers themselves do not know how to handle their stress or that of their children, they can seek professional help.
• One more alternative is to take a brief treatment with low frequency pulsed electromagnetic field technology. It is a therapeutic, painless, completely natural, without side effects and low cost.