Hundreds of emotions we have bottled up inside the mystery called human brain. We feel them all but recognize just a few. In this turmoil we forget and many times choose to ignore most of the emotions succumbed within. The one emotion that we have never added to our dictionaries is STRESS… Call me crazy or technically incorrect, but yes I feel stress is just another expression or an emotion and is indeed the jack of all…
At the age of 24, I face extreme stress almost thrice every year which many a times has turned in to the disease called depression. The funny thing about the emotion stress is that it somehow makes everybody around you a doctor and an expert on emotional STRENGTH. Every time I feel extreme stress almost every second person comes to me (with all good intentions) and chants these words “YOU NEED TO BE STRONG AND THEN YOU WILL NEVER BE STRESSED” or that “STRESS IS FOR THE WEAK PEOPLE.” But, surprisingly what nobody, no book, no yoga instructor, family member or friend has ever told me was what was to be told…
Yesterday, sitting in the office cafeteria I was listening to a TED talk by Kelly McGonigal which made me look at stress from a very different angle.
“IT IS OKAY TO BE STRESSED”
Just the way you are happy, proud and angry, you and I have the license to be stressed too and it is okay to accept it. Imagine what would your world around be if you only saw creepy smiling faces everywhere you went?
It’s simple, ACCEPT! Accept it as a part of your life, as a part of you…
Of course I am sure there will be the very obvious argument that stress is indeed bad for health and accepting that it is okay to be stressed will in turn affect your life expectancy and physical strength…
Well, till yesterday I too believed the same but, that’s where the TED talk comes into play. According to Kelly McGonigal, recent studies show that people who believe that stress affects them physically end up facing physical ailments as a product of stress. Whereas, people who do not believe that stress has anything to do with them physically have the heart activity of a healthy person even under stress. Instead, the hormone called oxytocin also popularly known as the “love hormone” is actually a stress hormone which results in more empathy inside a person.
So see? The major disadvantage of stress can be chucked out now…
Now, the second factor which majorly affects anybody under stress is the social stigma attached to it. But, remember the society will always make you feel low as long as you yourself do not accept the person that you are… It’s simple, stress is just a human reaction and an emotion which cannot be eliminated from our lives and it’s OKAY… It’s irrelevant of how mentally strong or weak you are, it cannot be a measure of your mental strength ever. Most of the greatest minds in the history of world have been under depression and severe stress for major parts of their lives and yet it did not stop them from becoming legends. These situations always end up with you emerging as a winner.
So, just keep walking on the road you took, the career you have chosen or the families that belong to you. Things might seem tough but remember the grass will be greener…
“LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, SAVOR IT! :)”
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