Take Charge Of Your Stress

By Michael Kowalski, A.P., Dipl.Ac. (NCCAOM)
Jacksonville Acupuncture Physician
@ Acupuncture & Holistic Health Center

We all deal with stress. Daily we are faced with a greater variety and amount of stress from many sources. Our lives are more fast-paced and more connected to devices, with less down time or time spent just “being.” Negative stressors can come from many different settings.

Some of the most common stressors are:

• Work stress
• Financial stress
• Relationship stress
• Family stress
• Social stress
• “Too much to do” stress
• Worry
• Anxiety
• Impatience
• Frustration/irritability
• Grief/loss

When our stress starts to mount up, or we don’t seem to get enough breaks from the stress, it becomes chronic stress. We are often not even aware how much stress we are dealing with because we get so used to it. Chronic stress can have a real negative impact on our physical health and mental well-being. An abundance of evidence proves that chronic stress can contribute to many health problems, including:

Common effects of stress on your body

• High blood pressure
• Heart disease
• Thyroid disease
• Obesity
• Diabetes
• Headache
• Muscle tension or pain
• Fatigue
• Change in sex drive
• Stomach upset
• Sleep problems
• Auto-immune disorders

Common effects of stress on your mood

• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Lack of motivation or focus
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Irritability or anger
• Sadness or depression

Common effects of stress on your behavior

• Overeating and weight gain
• Undereating and weight loss
• Angry outbursts
• Drug or alcohol abuse
• Tobacco use
• Social withdrawal
• Exercising less often

How can we learn to manage all of this stress in a balanced way? April is Stress Awareness month, so this is a good time to pause and take stock of what stresses us. It’s important that we really look at how we deal with our stressors. Just becoming more aware of how we handle our various stresses can help us deal with them in a better way. If we honestly admit to ourselves that we are stressed and need help to manage it, we can begin to find solutions.

Here’s the good news: there are many natural solutions to stress management! At the Acupuncture & Holistic Health Center, we are a great resource for helping you better manage your stress. The style of acupuncture we practice – Five Element acupuncture – is well-suited to develop personalized treatment to address how stress affects you physically, emotionally and mentally. We also offer Functional Nutritional lab testing to delve deeper into how stress affects your endocrine, digestive, immune, and other body systems. We use natural nutritional supplements, herbal medicine and dietary changes to balance your body naturally.

Take charge of your stress this month. Call us for an appointment to help you stress less at (904) 296-9545.