Lifestyle Changes to Manage Stress

Hello everybody. I am Dr Ashish Kumar mittaal. I am MD psychiatrist and I am practising in Gurgaon

Today we are here to know the management of stress and anxiety and its treatment.

The first question is what is stress?

Stress is that how our body and mind reacts to the life situations. So it may be Eustress or Distress.

Sometimes it helps us to move forward in our life. For example, during exams, we develop stress but due to that stress, our attention, concentration increases and we are able to finish things fast, we can learn fast and we can perform well. So this kind of positive stress is called Eustress.

But when the stress level increases, suppose, you have a capability of 10 and you have given work of 13 magnitudes, then your performance will go down and you will not be able to work or concentrate properly. So, this excessive stress is called Distress.

We can do something with our lifestyle to help reduce stress.

• Switch off television and the internet at least one hour before sleep so that your mind is at rest before sleep.
• Don’t use excessive caffeine. Caffeine is there in tea, coffee, cold drinks and chocolates.
• Do not take more than two cup of tea. If you are taking more cups of tea there will be more anxiety, lack of sleep which will further increase your anxiety.
• In student we see such a thing. In exam they remain awake, take excessive caffeine in the form of tea and coffee develop excessive anxiety which reduces their concentration and disturb their sleep. So we need to watch it over.
• We need to take some exercises like cardiac exercises in reducing stress and anxiety, some yoga technique we can follow.
• Fix your meal timings and engage in some sports activities.
• Many people think ayurvedic and homoeopathic treatment bring a cure. So I am not denying their role in managing these things but if you are not getting benefit then switch to allopathic treatment. There is no harm in that and it brings great relief within one or two months. We have many patients who have improved like anything.

The third barrier in the treatment is stigma. People think if we are going to the psychiatrist for treatment we are mad. Actually you are not. The person who develops stress and anxiety problems actually are smarter than other person and that is why they have developed anxiety problem, that is why they are worrying and anticipating more. Whenever you will go to the treatment you will see with good doctors huge number of persons are coming for treatment. So you can rely you are not alone. Others too are seeking treatment. But what happens is nobody tells each other that we are seeking treatment. Don’t worry about stigma. Worry about your health and seek the treatment. Treatment is easily available. If you will search you will get good doctors nearby.

If you want to consult me you can consult me through lybrate.