Stress can come from different avenues of your life. You might be stressed out from work, or after a long family argument or even as a result of bad traffic jam. And as these stressors add up, it impacts your health. The stressed-out lifestyle will soon show up symptoms such as mood swings, grey hair, weight gain, joint pain, fatigue and many more to add. These might sound the symptoms of getting older but the majority of them are because of a stressful life.
Severe stress can have a drastic effect on the quality of your life, expediting the aging process. Therefore, stress management is an important part of the anti-aging therapy.
How stresses influence the aging process?
People with chronic stress often indulge in unhealthy diet to battle their anxiety. They mostly rely on the fatty and sugary food for comfort. This eventually leads to weight gain and increase the risk of obesity-related diseases
The most dangerous effect of stress is its ability to ruin your long and short term memory, causing mental fatigue and impairing the learning process
Stress impacts sound sleep in a number of ways. It makes it harder to get sleep and make you incapable to cope up with problems. Stress can also cause sleep disturbances like night terror and nightmares
Several studies have revealed that work-related stress significantly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s and other cardio-vascular diseases. In addition, it also causes high blood pressure
High stress level can cause blood vessel to compress which can lead to vision and hearing loss.
How to cope up with stress?
We often treat our mind and body as separate entities. To keep the mind strong we often read, learn and do stimulating activities and to keep the body strong we hit the gym. But this is a completely wrong attitude. The best way is to work your mental muscle. Brain is a part of your body and therefore, exercise can have a significant impact on how well it functions.
Research has shown that exercise is more beneficial for cognitive functioning than mental workouts such as crossword puzzle. In addition, exercise combined with anti-aging program is a great way to maintain a healthy body and in a way a healthy mind.
Physical exercise:
It has been observed that physical activities influences mental health. The right exercises keep the mind active that can help to prevent dementia, memory loss and decrease in mental acuity that occurs with age. Those exercise the most have retained brain mass, higher volume of crucial thinking cells like grey matter and a better neutral connection.
You need not have to start with body-building or running a marathon to keep your mind healthy and strong. However, regardless of age and fitness you can protect your brain and keeps it active with a few following activities-
Yoga:
Practicing yoga regularly can help you build flexibility and strength. Yoga has stress-reducing attributes that is directly related to your brain. It helps to safeguard your mind.
Walking:
As there is no restriction to pick your pace and as you can go as far as you like, walking is the best cardiovascular activity for all age. All you need is a pair of good walking shoes.
Weight training:
Take help of your gym instructor if you are interested in weight training. This form of exercise requires strict guidance and should not be tried without the trainer.
Meditation:
Meditation is said to be the perfect way to enhance your concentration. A 20 minute meditation on a daily basis is enough to keep your mind strong and active.
However, too much of exercise have a reverse effect. Do not stress yourself while you work out. Exercise stress test can show your stress level during exercise. The test shows if the blood supply is reduced in the arteries that supply the heart. No matter, how you choose to exercise during the anti-aging therapy, always keep yourself active –both the body and the brain will benefit.
Author Bio
Stuart Parker is a health consultant and a wellness expert. He writes for many online publications where he covers topics like cosmetic procedures, wellness regimen, weight management and weight loss program. Stuart runs a small clinic at his residence which is a family-owned business.