Stress Relief Essay Example for Free

Stress Relief Essay Stress affects human performance in so many ways that just to list the impact upon work would take half of this page. People under high stress become forgetful, are often late for work, miss appointments, have more sick days, have lower competence levels, are more irritable and difficult to get along with, are more likely to break things (by accident or intention) and are great candidates for the kinds of stress-related illnesses and accidents that drain Workers Compensation benefits. Stress reduction must be a constant, on-going process in all our lives. It helps us avoid pain, illness and accident. And, a low-stress (or low-distress) lifestyle is certainly the most pleasant. Once a client who was under a great deal of stress at the time said to me, urgently: Look, all these options youve shown me for stress management are getting to be too much. Its like using a technique to put a patch on me here and another to put a patch on me there. I dont need to get better six months from now after Ive learned a whole bunch of new things I need to be better now! The strength of that response varies with the kind and strength of the demand and the circumstances under which the demand is made. For example, a ringing phone is a demand. It gets a different strength of response depending upon when it rings. If you are taking a usual number of calls at the office at times you expect them, the demand is relatively low and your physical reaction is probably minimal. If the phone rings in the middle of the night when youre worried about a seriously ill loved-one in the hospital, the demand and your response are going to be high. The response is generally called the fight/flight response. It should be called the fight/flight/freeze/faint/fumble response, since those are the usual possible outcomes. But, whatever we call it, heres basically what happens in your body: * Your heart rate goes up. * Your blood pressure goes up. * You begin to perspire to help keep the body cool. * Blood is directed away from hands/feet/digestive system to power large muscles. * Your diaphragm (the muscle that works your lungs like a bellows) locks and your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Your pupils dialate to help you see the enemy better. * Your awareness of hearing becomes more focused. * Your digestive system shuts down so the energy expended there can be used where its needed. (Or, alternatively, the system may attempt to void its contents, so youll be lighter and move faster. ) * Your immune and self-repair systems go on standby. After all, the processes of these systems are incompatible with heavy action. Besides, you need the energy to fight or run. If you really need to meet a physical threat, all this is great. It prepares your body to do the job. Then, after doing the job destroying or avoiding the stressor your body returns to normal. However, almost all our stressors (stressors are whatever cause stress) today are what psychologists call psychosocial. That is, they come from how we experience our selves, our work and other activities, and our relationships with other people. So, if your boss yells at you, your body is likely to react exactly the same as if you had to deal with a charging rhinoceros. Yet, you cant literally do what your bodys prepared to do: you cant throw your spear at him and run. That means youre going to carry some tension from the encounter around with you until you find a way to discharge it. Furthermore, you are likely to face many daily psychosocial stressors that cause the fight/flight response. If you dont find satisfying resolutions to your stressors, or if there are too many stressors, or if the response is too intense, eventually youre going to experience symptoms of stress-related illness. Stress symptoms may be physical or psychological. Physical symptoms range from muscle tension and headaches through high blood pressure and gastrointestinal ulcers to heart attacks and cancer. Psychological symptoms range from chronic anxiety through recurrent depression to complete nervous breakdowns. Physical activity is necessary to stress relief in helping to dissipate the stress reactions the flight/fight response. In addition, it helps you to: * Reduce muscular tension of sedentary functions. * Promote relaxation. * Sleep easier and better. * Concentrate better. * Reduce pain. * Raise mood. (Very important in anxiety and depression. ) * Reduce fatigue/restore energy. * Increase stamina, strength and suppleness to help make you stress-fit i. e. the fight/flight response is taken with greater ease and shaken with greater ease. Understanding this, you can see that a bit of physical activity might be worthwhile as a system of discharging the tensions of that fight/flight response. What exactly do you mean by physical activity? Exercise is a great idea if you can do, dont mind doing and dont overdo. A regular exercise program helps manage physical stress buildup, make s you feel better over all and probably live a longer and healthier life. But, if you really hate it and resent it, youre not going to follow through with it. You might as well try something else you find more pleasant. Participating in sports is a more enjoyable way of releasing stress and tension for many people. Regular participation is as good as a regular exercise program. Yoga, in a class or on your own, can also provide the benefits of a regular exercise program. It is, however, far less demanding for beginners, allowing the practitioner to slowly ease into the various stretches and poses. Moreover, you feel good while you are doing it and afterward. Done properly, yoga leaves muscles pleasantly stretched and stimulated. You want to say that in English? How and what you think determine how you feel (emotionally) and how you behave. If you have awareness of and control over your thinking process, then essentially you have control over everything that happens to you. In regard to the management of stress, this means that you can seize control of your reactions at the time of the flight/fight response and take the time to understand whats happening and what you want to do. (You must remember that the flight/fight response will occur automatically its a built-in survival mechanism. But you can reduce the occasions upon which it occurs in reaction to imaginary threats and you can reduce the intensity of the response to real threats that nevertheless do not affect your life, health or general well-being. ) Furthermore, since your body doesnt know the difference between real events and imaginary ones, you can use your thoughts to directly change whats happening in your body. For example, in self-hypnosis you can imagine your hands and feet becoming warmer and warmer. They will do so and at the same time you will be balancing the flow of blood throughout your body. What do I do to be a mind master, O Swami? There are a number of methods of gaining the ability to focus and control your mind, but no matter what approach seems to fit for you, they all accomplish the same tasks for stress management: Physical Benefits * Breathing slows and becomes deep and rhythmical. * Heart rate slows and blood pressure drops. * Brain waves slow to relaxed but alert level. * Muscle tension eases. * You become well relaxed. Psychological Benefits * Distressing emotion is inhibited remember, you cannot be relaxed and anxious or angry at the same time. * Calm envelopes you. Awareness is heightened and/or focused, depending on the method used. * Thought clarifies or is dispensed with, depending on the method of used. Meditation. Meditation is the method I most recommend to achieve focus and control in your thinking processes. There are many possible ways to meditate including Zen-style, chanting, mantra-repetition, awareness-training and contemplation. I recommend Zen-style. Its simple, quickly-learned, compact and easily portable. Well, O. K. , its simple to explain and you can learn how in less than a minute. But it takes a lifetime to master. However, you dont have to master the method to get the benefits you need for stress management; you just have to practice every day. Heres how: find a quiet, comfortable place to sit. Either close your eyes or allow your gaze to fall unfocused on the floor about three feet in front of you. Breathe normally and count your breaths thus: breathe in, do nothing, breathe out, count 1, repeat until you reach 4, then start over again from 1. Do nothing but breathe and count. Dont think, dont talk, dont look, dont listen. Just breathe and count. Continue for about ten minutes. Visualization. Instead of not thinking about anything, you think very specifically about one thing by making an imaginary movie in you head. For example, you might imagine yourself sitting on a tropical beach at dawn. You could see the changing colors in the sky as the sun rises, feel the soft warm breeze lift your hair away from your face, hear the plaintive cry of a gull, smell the saltiness of the water, hear the surf hitting the rocks beyond. If you can become proficient at putting yourself in such scenes, you can put yourself in scenes that make you feel anything you want to feel and you can modify any experience. Self-Hypnosis.

Digital Age Essays -- Essays Papers

Digital Age Looking back in the past several years, we can see that technology has contributed an important role in our society nowadays. It changes the way people work, the way people live, and also the way people treat each other. Knowing the important of the development of technology, scientists and engineers are constantly inventing and exploring the world of technology to build a better society for everybody. Can you imagine your life with technology in the next thirty years? Do you prefer to work at the office and chat with your co-worker face to face or just stay home, transfer files to your computers and chat with your co-worker through the web camera from home? Do you prefer to have a little chip implanted in your body, so your family will easily find you? Or do you prefer to have a private life, so nobody will know where you are or what you do? I can see clearly the heat of the discussion right now in every student in the CSC 4735 - Computers Societies and Ethics teach by instructor John Clark at University of Colorado - Denver lately. Some choose the new technology and some against it totally. It rises to the question that whether technology will improve the life of everybody or just makes it worst. A little chip implanted in your body will make you feel safer or make you feel less privacy? Participating in the discussion room in class, reading the article "Only disconnect, A taste of life in 2033" from the Economist print edition on January 23rd, 2003, and skipping through lots of frequently ask question about life with new technology, I myself believe that the exposed of digital technology in the near future will change the ethical, moral, and legal issues in every human being. ... ...iew. With the advantage of the digital world, women will have more opportunity in life and participate in her favorite clubs. If she have the chance to hang out with her husband and her kids in the real world, her relationship and the bond between her children and she will be better. Also, if Dick stop worrying about his privacy life, his life will be better since he did not do anything wrong. Anyway, what does your life look like in the next 30 years? WORKS CITED 1. "Only Disconnect, A Taste of Life in 2033" http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1534295 2. "Now Digital, Spy Camera Technology Widens Gaze" - Laurie J. Flynn http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/technology/21CAME.html 3. "Technology to Meld Chips into Humans Draws Closer" - Paul Eng http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/chipimplant020225.html

Should Obese People Have Higher Premiums

Guoyi Chen Should Obese People Have Higher Premiums The Obesity epidemic affects millions people of the United States every day. According to the National Institutes of Health, â€Å"obesity† refers to any individual with a BMI of more than 30 and BMI is simply a calculation that assesses weight relative to height (NIH). In the past decades, the number of obese Americans has increased dramatically. Based on the data from Nation Health and Examination Survey, about one-third of U. S. adults (33. %) are obese and approximately 17% (or 12. 5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). It is well documented that people who are obese are more likely to have so-called â€Å"obese-related† health problems such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the government has spent about 122 billion dollars annually to cure people who have obese related health issues and this number is still increasing.Because obesity costs so much annually, some people suggest that people who are obese should pay higher insurance rates because they place a heavy burden on the government and use more health care resources than non-obese people. On the other hand, others hold the opinion that it is unfair for people who are obese and it is kind of discrimination if they need to pay higher insurance rates than non-obese people. The important question that worth to notice here is that what causes obesity?Some people suggest that obesity is more about â€Å"nature†. It has something to do with genes because obese people would transfer their â€Å"obese gene† to their offspring. Other people believe that it more about â€Å"nurture† because an unhealthy life style could leads to obesity. However, according to NIH, â€Å"obesity is mainly caused by consuming more calories than the body needs – most commonly by eating a diet high in fat and calories, living a sedentary lifestyle, or both. † (NIH).That being said, most people who are obese that way are because they do not care about their health so much and prefer an unhealthy lifestyle, therefore, those people should pay higher insurance rates because they choose to behave in ways that pose risks to their health. To begin with, people who are obese should pay higher insurance rate because they choose to ruin their health by choosing unhealthy food rather than healthy food. The choices on food have a close connection with people’s health problems. Based on the definition that was given by NIH, obesity is caused by eating a diet high in fat and calories.That is to say, people’s choice on food affects this problem significantly. Nowadays, people have lots of choices on food. There are always many health options available to people besides unhealthy food. However, some people would like to choose food that contains high calories rather than fres h vegetables, fruit etc. They are more likely to eat food such as cheeseburgers, pizza, soft drinks and fries. It seems like these kinds of food are relative inexpensive, faster to get and even more delicious in some degree.But from a different point of view, these kinds of food contain many calories, which could causes obesity problems later on. One possible reason that people choose eat those unhealthy food might because they think fresh vegetables, fruit and even fresh proteins are expensive for them so they have to eat things like fast food instead since they do not have high incomes even if they want to buy those healthy food. But a good question that worth to think about carefully here is that â€Å"Are these â€Å"healthy† food options really more expensive than â€Å"unhealthy† food? † Take â€Å"fast-food† as an example.According to Mark Bittman, the author of the article â€Å"Is Junk Food Really Cheaper†, which published in New York Time s, a typical order for a family of four is two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas, which cost about 28 dollars. But the home-cooked meal of chicken, salad, potatoes and milk cost on average about 13. 78 dollars and a homemade meal of pinto beans and rice is even cheaper at $9. 26. However, the calories that people get from having fast food is definitely much higher than having healthy goods.With the time goes along, there is a big chance that people’s eating habit will be changed into unhealthy way and finally leads to obesity and even results in obese related problems. That is to say, eating health does not mean eating expensive. It is about what you choose to eat. Some people might argue that they want to cook at home but the grocery stores are far away from them and some of them are even do not know how to cook. However, according to research conducted by Department of Agriculture, 93 percent of those with limited access to supermarkets do have access to vehicles.That being said, even if taking the long route to putting food on the table may not be easy, but for most Americans it remains a choice. The idea is that if you can drive to McDonald’s you can drive to Safeway as well. Cook a health meal is not a complicate job. There are lots of books on the cashier that teach people how to cook the health food. Why don’t you take the responsibility to learn how to prepare a health meal and protect your family or yourself from obesity related health issues? Beside, it is understandable that people live in fast pace society now and barely have time to prepare health meals.But why don't you spend less time watching TV everyday? Your time is there. By spending less time watching TV, you could not only prepared health food but also burned extra calories while preparing the food, which is also helpful. That being said, money, time and cook skills might not the excuses for people who choose to eat unhealthy food and ruin their healthy this way. Choosing what kinds food to eat is totally a personal choice, of people have the unhealthy eating style they have, they are more likely to become obese and get some obese related problems such as diabetes.As we discussed above, government spent huge amount of money to cure those people. In another words, people who care about their health and choose a health eating habit pay tax dollars to government every years just can get less benefits than what they should have because there is a part of their tax dollars go to cure those people who ruin their health by choosing unhealthy life style. In short, obese people should pay higher insurance rates for themselves than non-obese people because the diseases they get is caused by their obesity and their obesity caused by the unhealthy eating habit they choose.Another reason why obese people should pay higher insurance rates is because they barely take some actions such as, do more exercising to control their weight. Doing some exercises could help them stay away from obese related health problems and then save huge amount of money every year. We should take two different situations into consideration. One is that people who are obese but already taking some exercises to lose some weight. Those groups of obese people might already understand that obesity could results in many health diseases and would bring negative externality to society.However, another group is the people who are obese but still do not want to take actions to keep them away from health diseases. Those groups of people are the people who need to pay higher insurance because they do not care about their health in the beginning and do not even care if they will bring negative impact on society. Moreover, those people perhaps think that government will pay expensive expenses for them when they get sick because they have health insurance like anyone else do.That is to say, it en courages those people to not take actions to help themselves away from obese related health problems if the insurance rates stay the same for anybody. Some people might say that it is kind of discrimination that requires people who are obese to pay higher insurance rates than non-obese people. It seems reasonable in some degree. Why should insurance rates depend on people’s appearance? However, in order to look at this problem fairly, let's consider two important questions.The first question is â€Å"do obese people have a choice between being fat and not fat? † This is a very important question to think about before deciding whether obese people should pay higher insurance rates or not. If being obese is more about â€Å"nature† thing that has something to do with â€Å"genes† and people who are obese do not have controls on that, then, they should not pay higher insurance than non-obese and if they are required to do so, it is definitely a discriminatio n and it would just end up punishing people who are already punished by their health.According to ObesityinAmerica. org, obesity is not always caused by simple behavioral issues, it has something to do with genes. For example, genetic determinations such as the way a body expends energy, hormones that affect the way calories are processed, and other organ systems in the body can all affect appetite. These groups of people do not have control on how they will be born, but they do have controls on whether they want to take initiative to have a healthy eating habits and life styles, which could help them away from obesity related problems.The idea is that as long as they realized the potential health issues they might have and helping themselves away from these dangers, they should not be required to pay higher health insurance rates since their behaviors could ease heavy economic burden on government. However, other type of people, who have choice on being obese or not, should pay hig her health insurance rates if they â€Å"choose† to be obese by having unhealthy eating habits and sedentary lifestyle because they choose to place a negative externality to society, then, we should ask that for those people who â€Å"choose† to be obese, do they impose an cost on other people?Unfortunately, the answer would be yes. Those people believe they have the right to choose their own lifestyle even though it is bad for their health, but what they didn't noticed is that their â€Å"right† would impose an cost on people who have a health lifestyle. It is common sense that obesity can cause many diseases. Author Yves Engler, who is a Canadian writer and political activist, mentions in his article â€Å"Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations† that â€Å"Researchers claim there are links between obesity and more than 30 medical conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancers and possibly Alzheimer’sâ₠¬ .In other words, obesity is not just about how you look like physically, it actually causes many fatal diseases, which cost much to cure. Yves Engler points out in the same article that â€Å"The U. S. National Institute of Health estimates that the annual costs of treating obesity-related conditions are at least $120 billion†, that is to say, larger proportions of tax dollars were used to treat people who are ruining their own healthy by choosing a bad healthy life style.Then, why should people who care about their health and choose health life style paid the money for those group of people who claims that they have their own â€Å"right† to choose what they want. It does not make sense that someone who doesn't care about their health by eating excessive amounts of unhealthy food and spending few time exercising pays the same insurance premium of a person who makes it a priority to keep their health in the best possible shape they can. In some degree, requires obes e people pay higher health insurance is just like require dangerous driver pay higher car insurance rates.The driver could have options to drive safely, but he/she choose drive dangerously instead and because of his/her dangerous driving, it would put others life and properties in a risky place. So, is it kind of discrimination if car insurance companies charge higher rates to those dangerous drivers than drivers who drive safely? It is probably not. The idea the require obese people tp pay higher insurance rates is not because government want to take advantages from obese people, it is because it is a good way to encourage obese people control their life style.That being said, requiring people who obese pay higher insurance rates is not discrimination. It is a fair way that redistributes health care expenses and encourages them to pay attention to their health. All in all, those people who realized they are obese but do not want to take initiative do to control their weight should pay higher insurance because their own â€Å"choice† brings a negative externality on society. Because of their unhealthy ifestyle, they would more likely to get obese related health problem than non-obese people and then demand more health care resource than non-obese people, they should responsible for the cost that resulted by their own choices. Work Cited â€Å"U. S. Obesity Trends. † Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 May. 2012. . Nilsson, Siri. â€Å"Good Luck If You're Searching for Good-for-You Eats. † ABC News.ABC News Network, 26 Sept. 2006. Web. 27 May. 2012. . â€Å"Obesity In America: What's Driving The Epidemic?. † Harvard Men's Health Watch 16. 7 (2012): 5-7. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 May. 2012 â€Å"2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. † : Contents. 1 Jan. 2008. Web. 27 May. 2012. ;http://www. health. gov/paguidelines/guidelines/default. as px;. â€Å"Understanding Obesity. † Understanding Obesity. 12 Jan. 2008. Web. 28 May 2012. ;http://www. obesityinamerica. rg/understandingObesity/index. cfm;. Bittman, Mark. â€Å"OP-ED COLUMNIST; Is Junk Food Really Cheaper. † The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012. ;http://www. nytimes. com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper. html? pagewanted=all;. Engler, Yves. â€Å"English 1022 Online–Spring 2010. † : Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations. N. p. , n. d. Web. 11 June 2012. ;http://spring2010online1022. blogspot. com/2010/02/obesity-much-of-responsibility-lies. html;.

Hannibal A Great Carthaginian War General And The...

Hannibal Barca â€Å"Hannibal Barca† was a great Carthaginian War general and is renowned as being one of the greatest strategists of all time by many. Hannibal was born in 248 B.C in the ancient city of Carthage which is in modern times is known as Tunisia. Hannibal was born into a Carthaginian military family known as the Barcids. His father was the Carthaginian military general â€Å"Hamilcar Barca† who was taking part in the â€Å"First Punic war† with the city state of Rome at the time. Hannibal was born when the Punic war was coming to a close with the Romans emerging as the victors. During the closing years of that war his father Hamilcar had enacted a devastating guerrilla campaign in Sicily against the Romans. This is what earnt him his nickname Barca which meant â€Å"thunderbolt†, a name that Hannibal adopted at a young age. Hannibal was very young compared to his sister and brothers in which the former had already married and the latter were assisting their f ather in numerous small campaigns. Although not much is known about Hannibal’s early life and education, due to the fact that when Carthage was eventually conquered by the Romans the majority of its texts and manuscripts were burnt and that Hannibal made his prominence as an adult, it can be determined that he did accompany his father on numerous conquests as a young boy. His most notable accompaniment was after the conclusion of the first Punic war. His father set out to repair the economy and growth of Carthage and after heShow MoreRelatedHannibal and the Second Punic War Essay1406 Words   |  6 PagesHannibal, son of Hamilcar, was a Carthaginian military commander and tactician who is popularly credited as one of the most talented military commander in history. In his early life he was made to swear oath of hatred against Rome, which lead him into starting the Second Punic war. During this time he transformed Carthage from being a lowly place into a military superpower. Although he lost the war, his tactic s were far beyond any other person at the time, which had won him many battles even whenRead More‘His Career Was a Failure but of the Most Glittering Kind.’ Is This a Fair Assessment of Hannibal? Analyse Hannibal’s Greatness and the Reasons for His Ultimate Failure.1885 Words   |  8 Pageshis military achievements glittered and shone because he struck fear into Rome and he also earned himself a place in the modern world as the father of strategy. Hannibal will always be remembered and regarded as one of the greatest military tacticians and strategists in all of European history and is considered one of the greatest generals of the Ancient World. It was his superior strategy and tactical skills that allowed him to compete with and almost defeat Rome, but this greatness prevented himRead MoreReligion And Its Role Within Societies 600 B.c11006 Words   |  45 Pageswere built for people to pray and perform sacrifice in, giving the people a common cause to live f or and thereby creating personal relations between people even before you got to know them. The unique features of ancient religions were that they were all polytheistic, meaning that they recognized many gods, instead of one main one. And the problem with this was that in the ancient history, before the invention of writing, nothing was written down: stories were told verbally, laws were passed on verballyRead MoreContemporary Issues in Management Accounting211377 Words   |  846 PagesContemporary Issues in Management Accounting This page intentionally left blank Contemporary Issues in Management Accounting Edited by ALNOOR BHIMANI 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico