Vitalia Senior Residences at Strongsville Explores Stress and Anxiety Management

Each day we go through our lives making decisions, worrying about the future, or maybe having concern about our health. It is only natural that we experience both stress and anxiety in some form at some level. Stress is defined as any demand placed on your brain or physical body, while anxiety is specified as fear, worry, or unease. Although defined differently, they are connected and share the same symptoms. Most of us experience stress, anxiety, or both at some point, whether from work or our personal life.

At Vitalia Senior Residences at Strongsville we are aware of proven techniques to help ease the symptoms of stress and anxiety, including lifestyle changes, such as exercise and diet. We also know unmanaged stress and anxiety can interfere with your daily life and affect your physical and mental health.

Stress can feel like an overwhelming sense of an inability to complete everything. Anxiety can feel like, an overwhelming sense of the need to do multiple things at once, but it can also have an emotional factor when one is unable to meet that goal. Some causes or triggers to stress or anxiety could be work, family or school expectations, testing, and setting and meeting goals.

The symptoms that stress and anxiety can cause include a racing heart rate, increased respirations, hand shaking, sweating, and fatigue. These symptoms could last minutes to hours depending on the individual. A technique to reduce the symptoms is to take slow, deep breaths to ground oneself and decrease the respiratory rate. A lifestyle change that could assist in reducing symptoms would be to quit smoking and/or take more time for oneself to self-reflect and relax periodically.

Some stress and anxiety are expected, but if you feel it becoming unmanageable and affecting your daily life, a healthcare professional can help you develop new coping skills.