STRESS affects every organ of the body. In the brain, for example, the effects include change in mood, irritability, temper tantrums, hand tremors, headache, changes in eating and sleep habits (failure to sleep insomnia).

On the skin you may get rashes, itchness, allergies and cancers. On the heart palpitations, high blood pressure and chest pain. On the respiratory system coughing, wheezing, breathlessness and loss of voice.

In the gut you may get diarrhoea, vomiting, constipation and peptic ulcers. The immune system becomes disrupted and leads to increase or persistence of infections such as malaria.

In the reproductive system you can get loss of periods, low sexual drive and impotence. In the muscle you may get joint pains, weakness, fatigue, muscle cramps, tension headaches and migraines.

3. How can I manage stress better?

Stress has a cyclical pattern and it feeds on itself. This is called the stress cycle.

The stressor will first cause a lowering of the mood or a psychological effects this leads to the release of the body chemicals described earlier which leads to the physical effects and round in a circle again.

In short the more you are stressed the more anxious you become and the more the stress effect worsens. Studies have shown that women deal better with stress than men do.

People in developed countries suffer the effects of stress more than in developed countries. This is evident in the increased divorce rates and suicide rates in developed countries.

However, rapidly urbanising countries like Zambia are also suffering increasing levels of stress.

This is because of the loss of the social family safety net that is an important buffer for stress. To manage stress, begin by identifying the major cause of stress for you. There are three key sources of stress, these are:

1. Money – in many surveys most stress (73 per cent) centres around issues of financial stress.
2. Managers – the second most common cause of stress in many surveys is office or work related stress (62 per cent).
3. Marriage – the third most common cause of stress is marriage conflict or domestic related stress (50 per cent).

You must identify the stress trigger for you. The stress trigger is that combination between the event (loss of a job) and the feeling of personal failure that initiates the stress cycle.

This is the weak link in your stress cycle. Deal with the stress trigger. Common stress triggers are events that causes a feeling of personal helplessness or personal humiliation or personal failure.

In many cases you can do little about the external events that cause stress. These may often be outside your control. However, you can do something about the internal events or what we have called here the stress triggers.

Let’s start by some wrong ways people try to do this.

1. Smoking – many people try to deal with stress by smoking. This appears to work. However, smoking is addictive and compounds the organ damage caused by stress.

2. Alcohol – alcohol causes only transient relief of stress. Since it is a depressant it worsens the stress cycle, causing both alcohol addiction and more stress. It also worsens the financial, domestic or office problems.

3. Drugs– light or heavy drugs are no better. Common ones are marijuana, amphetamines, glue sniffing, blue diamond, valium and so own.

The euphoria felt on these drugs is short-lived. They create a dependence that requires higher and higher doses for longer and longer periods, hence worsening the organ damaged together with stress.

4. Physical abuse – some people attempt to deal with stress by letting out their frustration on others such as their spouses, their children, their secretaries. This abuse may be verbal, physical and even sexual.

The consequences of course are even worse resulting in dismissal, divorce and sometimes a court sentence.

So what works? Exercise is a good remedy for stress. It uses up the excessive hormones released by the stress, strengthens the physical and psychological well-being.

This makes you less sensitive to personal failure, personal humiliation and personal helplessness which are the internal triggers of stress.

Try to let your life centre more on others, give to the needy spend your time doing some voluntary work.

See the difficulties of others and you will find your problems look smaller. Share yourself more with others and you will build a strong inner resolve to deal with bad stressful events.

Be happy with the small successes that you have achieved by being less competitive with yourself life is not a race. Be happy for the success of others.

Develop habits looking out for your weakness and learning from those who are stronger in that area. A lot of stress triggers are the result of you attempting to hide your weaknesses rather than correcting them.

Spend time developing your hobbies, these should be interests outside your work. Discover music poetry, art, coin collecting and sports. Make the habit of taking as many of your allocated holidays as possible.

Try to be adventurous list 40 things you must do before you die and try and do one each time you are on holiday. Rediscover the pleasure of living. Some people have called this activity developing emotional intelligence.

The more you get on better with others such as your spouse your work mates the less stress you will have at home, financially and at work.
A diet rich in vitamin C such as fruits helps to neutralises the chemical effects of stress.

Stress produces a lot of its chemical effects through lactic acid and super radicals. The vitamin C reduces or neutralises these effects. Take one tablet of 1,000gs of Vitamin C daily.
Conclusion

Many of us are suffering the effects of stress. This is because our social family structures have broken down due to rapid urbanisation and the effects of diseases like HIV.

The financial stresses and low unemployment have also created amazing financial, domestic and work-related stress.

We are suffering headaches, ulcers, chest pains, high blood pressure and unusual cancers. These stresses are eating away at our internal organs where our body is one big sore. So the lion of stress is devouring us slowly.

What can we do to tame this lion? The secret to reducing personal stress include exercise, diet, paying more attention to others, being less self-centred.

In this way we will build the emotional intelligence that protects us from the triggers of stress that make financial, domestic and work-related stressor throw us into a vicious stress cycle.

(The author is Professor of Urology at the Copperbelt University. He is Dean of the Copperbelt University School of Medicine. He is author of the popular motivational book ‘Making the Cut’)