Stress: It’s time to take action

PROBLEM: THE BODY CAN’T COPE WITH ALL THE HORMONES

This is the perfect time of year to stop and reflect. Not on the past, but rather on the remaining 13 weeks of the year. That is not a typo error; you have 92 days left in the year. Stop for a moment, OK, now start breathing again, deep breaths, deep breaths.

I have made you aware of an external stressor, and that is time. And time humans will forever be chasing. Stress, however, is a big concern at this stage of the year and in a few short months the suicide rate goes up due to the pressures of the festive season. On average 23 South Africans commit suicide each day – or over 8 400 a year. The scary part is that the attempted suicide rate is 20 times that each year.

One of the reasons I asked you to reflect is that you need time now to pause, be by yourself, reflect and strategise a game plan to tackle the remaining bumpy days ahead.

Christmas is marketed as the time to be jolly, but the reality is that it is more stressful than ever because of all the money for presents you have to fork out. Then if you have managed to survive that then there are the family issues. Who do you spend Christmas with? Which daughter-in-law doesn’t like their mother-in-law and so the tyranny continues.

Some 40% of American workers admit to experiencing office stress and one quarter say work is the biggest stress in their lives. In South Africa, the biggest stress people have would be being unemployed and not being able to provide for their children and extended families.

The problem with stress and specifically long-term stress, is that your body doesn’t know how to cope with all the additional hormones running through your system. The body is designed to keep you in a state of harmony, and stress takes you out of that harmony. Eventually your body won’t know how to get back to harmony and it acts out at you with the following symptoms: The question then begs is how do you help prevent stress from happening. The simple answer to this is first, find out what is making you stressed, and then the second is finding a way out by yourself, or through expert advice, to take that stress away. If money is your problem, unfortunately a magic wand is not going to help you, a financial planner will, reading financial books will and taking action the same day will, even if it is putting away R50 a day. It might mean nothing today but in a year you will have more options because you will have more choices than a year ago because you saved. This principle can be applied to most stressors. Your main goal is to take action.