Final Post

I have learned so much about the effects of stress throughout this research process. There are so many ways that stress can take a toll on your body, but there are also many strategies that people can take to reduce the stress. What helped me understand most about relieving stress was the book I read for my last SSR, The Stress Cure. Not only did it help me find more varieties of stress relief, but it also gave more information about stress, such as signs to look for, how you would feel, the effects on your body, and preventions. After reading this book, I got in touch with my friend Jordan’s mom and made me an appointment for a massage as my interaction. This has to be my favorite part of the project! Although it was raining that day, it was very relaxful. It was a new experience for me doing something like that, and I hope to do it again soon! The massage really helped me relax and let go of my worries and I feel that it really helped with my grades and things going on in my life.
The whole project was very interesting! I do not think that I could choose one thing that interested me the most. I was constantly learning things that I did not know about stress, such as how it affects your health in a really big way! For my interaction, I wish I had gone and spent a long time trying many of the different types of stress relief and chosen my favorite method or the one that worked the best. That way I could test out what works out best for me. I don’t really feel like I went into real detail of this specific subject. I know I did but it just doesn’t seem right to me, although I’m pretty happy with how this project turned out and the things that I learned about stress. It’s like I’m not really happy with the outcome of my project. I wish I could go more in depth of stress and the effects it has on the body physically, mentally and health wise. Maybe I may continue doing so on my own.

Massage Therapy

This is a hideous picture of myself with no make up one Saturday morning at 9am ha. I took a little trip to Griffith's Chiro Care in Clay to see Jordan Ray's mother who performs massage therapy for many patients, and told me she would love to be a part of my project as the live interaction. Before starting the massage, I asked Ms. Ray a few questions as she was getting the room I would be in ready. I began asking my questions, the first one being how massages help when dealing with stress.Ms. Ray described massage therapy as more of a relaxer. It loosens up the tension in your muscles which reduces the pain and ache you get in your muscles that causes the discomfort that may have a part in the stress your body is under. I then asked her how bad stress can effect the body and her response was that it could possibly cause the following problems: "heart disease, memory loss, immune function decrease, fatigue, less energetic and not able to enjoy life as much as you could". I also asked if you could tell a person is stressed when giving a back massage but she said no. She explained that everyone has stress in their lives that causes their muscles to tense up, so when giving a massage a back will always be tensed up, hints the job of a massage therapist to work the tension out of the muscles to de-stress a patient.

I learned that I love massages! No, I'm just kidding. Although I really enjoyed getting the massage for my interaction, it helped tremendously! As I have mentioned before, I chose this topic because I am the queen of pressure. I am always putting myself under a whole lot of stress to achieve the best that I can, and the massage I for that day was tremendous! I have to be honest and say that I had my doubts on if the massage would actually help ease my stress, but it honestly did. I had never felt so great the rest of that day and the whole week afterward. I am definitely already planning my next visit to see Ms. Ray! I am not certain that this is the best method for easing stress. They all seem to work about the same. It may be a quick 30 minutes or an hour, depending on which package you get, but in just that little bit of time, you will walk out of the office feeling like a new person and stress free.

How to Relieve Stress the Right Way

WWW.WebMD.com is a very trustworthy website that has information on anything and everything that is medically related, whether it be a disease, or an issue mentally or physically. I turned to this website to see what they had to say about stress relief. At the beginning of the article I found, "Stress Relief and Relaxation- Overview", starts off with bullets consisting of many ideas to do such as yoga, meditation, listening to soothing music, performing in any physical activity, soaking in a warm bath, taking slow deep breaths, and so much more! It gives you a few more bullets that suggest a few things that you might could possibly change in your every day life that will work as a stress reliever such as getting plenty of sleep, not consuming alcohol, not using tobacco, and getting regular exercise. It then goes into certain areas of the body and the relief methods for those areas in particular.

I was really glad that I was able to find what i did in this article for my last small print. Whenever I have any medical assignment or something that I would like to learn more about I always turn to this website. This has to be the best turn out by far! I found a tip that was very interesting that said "Don't drink or eat anything that has caffeine in it. Caffeine can make you feel more "wound up" or stressed." I never knew that about caffeine. I mean I knew that it wasn't healthy for you health wise and orally, but I never knew it had a connection with stress. I definitely plan on cutting back. I have been so covered with stress this year, which is why I chose this as my topic, and learning all of the techniques that i have has benefited me so well. I hope it helps someone else as much as it has helped me.

"Stress Relief and Relaxation- Overview." WebMD.
WebMD, LLC, 21 Jan, 2009. Web.25 Apr 2010. /stress-management/tc/stress-relief-and-relaxation-overview>.

San Diego Medical Center

I was looking for an article about any different stress therapy strategies when I came across this article about helping navy soldiers to identify, cope with, or recover from post- traumatic stress disorder, or to keep from getting stressed all together. Going to war, killing people, seeing innocent citizens killed or tortured such as in the war in Iraq has got to put a lot of stress on a soldier. Not only would they have to learn the tactics to win the war, but they also should learn how to cope with seeing those kinds of events take place and maybe dealing with the loss of a good friend who has been with you since day one. Those are the kinds of things that have been happening to every soldier that has fought for this country; seeing things that they will never forget and will need help dealing with. This is what this article is about; telling about a center that was established in San Diego at the Medical Naval Center that is supposed to do all of those things.
I think that this is a very good idea! Seeing the soldiers who come home and hearing about all of the nightmares and long nights they have because they have those recollection of memories that they have witnessed or done and feel kind of guilty for. That is definitely something that I would not be able to live with, even if it is in the name of my country. Some of the people I would not feel bad for, such as the ones who have joined to fight us back. It would be the innocent citizens who can't help the things that their country does. I have a friend who is in Iraq right now (who is coming home the 16th of May!!) and he told me that he feels bad sometimes because he controls the gun on top of tanks and said that they were told that even if a citizen runs out in front of the tank, you have to keep rolling even if it means running them over because the Iraqi soldiers use that as a way to get us to stop so they can ambush the tank. Things like that just beat all that I have ever seen. I would love to be able to fight the world and teach others such as the people in Iraq how you should treat people and how things should go, how you should live, manners, show them our customs, and things like that for them to have better lives. But sometimes it just isn't worth it. Sometimes there is just nothing we can do. The stress control program for our soldiers IS something that we can do though to help the soldiers attempt some of those things. That is a start.

Citation
Cragg, Lt. Jennifer. "Stress Management Important Throughout Military Careers."
United States Department of Defense (2008): n. pag. Web. 15 Apr 2010.

Documentary of Stress

This video is a documentary made by a group of students for an AP/ Lang. Comp. class. It goes through a regular day of high school asking students what stresses them out and why. They go through the average issues of what students face in their day to day lives, discussing why those issues are stressful and who the ones who cause the most stress are, along with getting the faculty's opinions on stress on teens and how much things have changed since their times as high school students.

I really liked this video. In the description it had a warning label, "WARNING: This video may move you to tears". I was tearing up a little bit at times, but I can personally relate to a lot of those stressful situations. It kind of scares me knowing the effects that stress can have on your body but not having a way to control what I let stress me out and what i don't. Although I suffer from a good bit of those issues from school and home, I can honestly say that I have never done any type of drug, drank alcohol, or have done anything that I am going to regret now or later on. I was also kind of surprised hearing some of the teachers responses about how stress has increased greatly from when they were in our shoes and how complicated it is to get into college. My favorite quote was from one of the female faculty members, where she says that "I believe that they believe that my class is stressing them out, but I don't believe that it should be." It's like there is nothing anyone can do about the stress from school, so maybe someone will be able to do something about where students get stress from, other than school, so they can focus on their educations and getting into the college they want to, and achieving their goals.

Citation

"Stress Documentary." Youtube. Web. 15 Apr 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuZUTURqcgc.

Book-length Review

I found this book, The Stress Cure , in the public library while looking for one to read for the book-length assignment. The author, Vern S. Cherewatenko, M.D., is a family physician who has founded and started many organizations and programs that help patients with a variety of health issuess. Cherewatenko says that he has "introduced hundreds of women to The Stress Cure and helped them balance their lives"(7) and that "Within days of starting The Stress Cure, they felt as though a mysterious veil of gloom had been lifted" (7). This book starts by discussing the term of stress, and the effects stress can have on your body in the first four chapters. As it gives you the facts, such as women have more stress than men, it also gives little statements Cherewatenko's patients have described to him over his career that all relate. One example is, "I find myself lashing out at things, people and situations that I shouldn't even be upset about" (14). The seven steps then start with chapter 5, going through the end of the book at chapter 10. The steps consist of: 1.Dehydroepiandrosterone, 2. Supplemental Nutrition, 3. Taming the Tiger, 4. Rekindling Relationships, 5. Effective Exercising, 6. Sensible Eating, and 7. Sound Sleep. It was a lot of information, but I have to say that I have learned so much about stress in this book than i did all the other posts put together.
The Stress Cure was really informative when it came to stress in general! Not only did it explain stress in great detail, but it gave a lot of case studies and examples that really illustrated what exactly he was trying to say. It wasn't exactly blunt and boring either. He put in every day personal stories that he has heard from real patients, and that made it easy to relate to and easy to comprehend. I also learned many new facts such as the comment that women are more easily stressed than men; "University of Michigan found that estrogen may increase cortisol secretion and decrease the ablity of cortisol to shut down its own secretion" (33).
I really liked the self assessments in chapter 4 that Cherewatenko added that he calls his "inventory". When I finished the book, I got a piece of paper and went back to the chapter and went through each of his assessments and added up my total and have realized how stressed my body is. After reading the effects stress can have on your body, I am so glad that I also read the steps he knows can de-stress someone so I can put step 1 into play for myself. You don't always realize how much stress you have on your body, so it may be best to be going ahead and having the physical activity or just a break time to just relax and do another one of the de-stressors Cherewatenko has suggested so stress doesn't have any affect on your body at all. If you feel that you are under stress and need a break, I GREATLY recommend this book. It has really opened up my eyes and has taught me a lot about stress.


Cherewatenko, Vern S. The Stress Cure A simple 7-step plan to balance mood, improve memory, and restore energy. 1st ed. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2003. Print.

Personal Experiences With Stress

I was going through youtube trying to find any form of information on stress therapy and came across a video showing the effects that stress can have on your body. This happens to be the third video of a set of six, but I thought I would choose this as my first multimedia post to show the severity of what stress can do to your body, and the importance of stress management.

This video goes into great detail of which parts of the body stress can affect and what it can do to the body. The woman in the video was the perfect touch to the video, it being a recap of a personal experience for her that was being shared with whoever views this footage. True stories of real experiences are what help people most in my opinion. They are real events that some may never notice could be signs of being overly stressed or that some may just find interesting if they are wanting to know more about the subject.