Even though stress alone does not cause heart disease, it may contribute to one's chance of developing heart disease. Cultivating a more balanced attitude towards life while reducing other risk factors such as, lack of exercise, smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and obesity is the most sensible approach.

People have always suffered from stress. Today, with the increasing pressures and demands in life, stress builds up to intolerable levels, which can cause illness.

Stress is not only caused by negative situations or experiences, but by happy occasions too. As we experience the ups and downs of every day life and whenever there is a major change in our lives, be it a wedding, death, divorce, a birth or a change in work situation stress occurs. If one can cultivate a positive attitude towards stress, one can reduce it instead of letting it ruin one’s life.

Stress affects a person's body, mind, feelings, and behaviour and can cause teeth-grinding, high pitched or nervous laughter, trembling, shaking, excessive blinking and other nervous tics. Other symptoms include a fast pulse, a thumping heart, hyperventilation , sweating, dryness of the throat and mouth and difficulty swallowing, dizziness and a lack of energy. Stress often aggravates disorders that are already present.

Healthy Stress?
It is important to say at this point, that not everybody has negative reaction to stress. In fact, most people need a little bit of stress to keep their lives interesting and prevent them from becoming bored, however, stress becomes unhealthy where there is too much stress for too long. Many people ignore the signs of stress in their lives. They may believe that stress is not really harmful, they may feel guilty if they take time to relax and undo the effect of stress, may feel that they have no choice but to live with it or they may feel that they are not reaching their full potential if they do not push themselves to the utmost.

Work Stress
Job anxiety can be harmful, in that it causes physical and emotional problems that may damage a person’s health and performance. If not managed, this stress grows.

Stress can cause a lack of concentration, vague anxiety or fear for no apparent reasons and periods of irritability followed by depression. Good diet is a good stress coping mechanism. This is because certain nutrients are used up more rapidly when one is under stress. The body therefore, needs extra B vitamins for a healthy central nervous system and vitamins C and zinc foods for resistance to infection.

The dietary requirements can be met by eating the following f ood s: green vegetables, potatoes, fresh fruit, wheat grain, cereal, eggs, dairy products, yeast extract, seafood, lean meat, liver, kidneys, poultry, pulses (peas, beans and lentils), nuts, seeds and dried fruit.

Another important way of reducing the level of stress in one's life is to turn away from negative stress building thoughts and to concentrate on positive stress busting ways of thinking. Combating negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones takes practice but the results are worth it. Once one adds stress busters to one's work life, the ability to handle difficult challenges in the workplace will increase and the benefits will transfer into other areas of one's life as well.

Reduce Stress in your Life

• Regular exercise for at least 30 minutes, most days of the week.
• Sleep: We all need to rest in order to cope with stress situations. We have to sleep for at least 5 to 10 hours per night.
• Follow a healthy balanced diet, one low in fat, cholesterol and salt but high in fibre. Eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and avoid too much refined and processed food.
• Decrease your intake of caffeine, such as that found in cola, coffee, tea and chocolates.

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