INTRODUCTION:
LUKE22:44
And in his distress (Strees) he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
PSALM 143:4
My spirit is cast down within me, and my heart is troubled within me.
These two Bible verses demonstrate that there are evil days when you will be anxious (stressed), your spirit will be cast down, your soul will be troubled (agitated). We call them days of stress. This teaching is here to help you understand what stress is, what its symptoms are, its mission, where it comes from and how to manage it or how to heal from it.
DEFINITION:
WHAT IS STRESS:
Stress is the result of several negative factors or events affecting our brain that we cannot control.
ACCORDING TO THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION:
Stress is a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation in life.
ANOTHER DEFINITION:
Stress is a natural human reaction to a difficulty or problem. It is not always bad because it is sometimes important in human life because it forces us to get out of our comfort zone to face our daily challenges, difficult times and threats that we face in our daily or professional life and forces us to look for a solution or a way to survive.
ATTENTION:
As an individual living in a corrupt and troubled world, you must know that everyone experiences stress to some degree. However, the way we react to stress varies from person to person and stress management has a great influence on our daily well-being.
WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF STRESS?
Signs of stress?
Here are some of the physical and emotional symptoms of stress:
1.Headaches,
2.Stomachaches,
3.Fatigue,
4.Anger,
5.Sadness,
6.Skin problems,
7.Weight loss,
8.Poor appetite,
9.Obesity,
10.Disorders
11.For some people, this leads to drug and alcohol abuse.
12.Uncontrollable sexual appetite
13.Inability to take care of yourself and your home.
14.Mental health problems.
15.Depression and anxiety disorders.
16.In addition, uncontrolled stress can even make you a difficult or moody person.
17. Body aches and pains
18. Lack of sleep
19. Eating more than usual
20. Increases addiction to sex, alcohol, tobacco, and other harmful substances such as drugs.
21. Chronic stress can worsen pre-existing health conditions or mental health issues, most commonly anxiety and depression, which require access to health care.
22. Difficulty concentrating
23. Feelings of fear
24. Inability to relax
25. Increased heart rate
26. Difficulty breathing
27. Changes in eating habits.
NB: Symptoms of untreated stress can affect your body and change your thoughts, feelings, behavior, physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. A person affected by stress can be recognized by emotion-related symptoms such as agitation, irritation, indecisiveness and decreased libido, anxiety, melancholy, depression and low self-esteem.
WHAT IS THE MISSION OF CHRONIC STRESS?
The mission of stress when it becomes chronic and prevents you from relaxing, concentrating and causes a range of negative emotions, including anxiety and irritability. Ultimately, it prevents you from enjoying your life.
When a person has a mental health problem, it may be because their stress symptoms have become persistent and have started to affect their daily functioning, especially at work or school.
BE CAREFUL! STRESS IS A GREAT ENEMY OF YOUR DESTINY:
It is a silent killer of destiny, many people give up on their dreams, men and women of their destiny, jobs that could bring them more money, very high positions just because of stress when it attacks your goal if you are not wise to handle it, it will eventually paralyze and destroy you.
Stress can often force you to react in a horrible way and not control yourself, which can sometimes cause a lot of damage in your life or even in your marriage if you are married or in your relationships with others or your partner.
It can even sometimes push you to divorce, quit your job, break up an important relationship and regret it later, once you are healed. When you talk to your partner, boss, parents or even friends, look at how you reacted. If you are very stressed, it is likely that you will turn the conversation into an argument, that is why the bible talks about self-control, so if you feel stressed, it is better to ask God to help you control yourself to avoid giving an answer that will lead you to an argument or a decision that you may regret later.
Stress is a big problem that should not be neglected because it is the cause of many divorces, many bad decisions and even many family, marital, friendly or professional conflicts. And it causes enormous damage in people's lives if it is not well managed.
Because the majority of people who have done bad things in their life or made sudden decisions under the influence of stress end up regretting it later when they are healed from their stress.
And sometimes it may be too late to repair the damage that stress has done in our lives or even correct it or change our decision or even take back our words, so we must be very careful and above all know how to handle this difficult moment wisely.
WHERE DOES STRESS COME FROM?
WHAT ARE THE MAIN SOURCES OF STRESS?
1.NEGATIVE EVENTS:
Negative events (Bad Memory) that you have experienced or are going through in your life and that you cannot stop thinking about and that you cannot turn the page on will end up distressing and affecting your brain and turning into daily stress.
HOW DO NEGATIVE EVENTS AFFECT US AND CAUSE STRESS IN OUR DAILY LIFE?
First of all, you should know that when stress attacks you, it first affects your brain, which is one of the most active organs in the human body, before affecting your entire being, including your soul and mind. Because untreated stress ends up becoming a psychosomatic illness. And the brain plays a very important role in surviving depression, stress and psychosomatic illnesses.
How does our brain work when we go through difficult times?
In general, the negative events that we have experienced in our life do not disappear in our head, they are stored in the brain and all this information is intended to protect us from future danger or to help us avoid making the same mistakes in the future, so it becomes like a kind of red flash in our head that alerts us to future danger.
But the bad news is that all these negative events stored in our brain cause us to pay more attention to bad news than to good news. That is why it is easier for us to remember bad things, because our brain releases hormones that reinforce these bad memories, which end up reminding us of what we have experienced in the past. And as a result, we have more stress in our lives, and for some people who fail to turn the page on their lives and live happily, this leads to endless periods of stress in their lives.
Examples of negative events:
Disappointment, rejection, rape, divorce, romantic disappointment, abuse and many other traumatic events.
2.WORRY ( CONCERN, AGITATION :)
What does worry mean?
Disturbance ( trouble ) caused by fear, uncertainty.
Synonyms: panic, agitation, fear, uncertainty, anxiety, terror, anguish, preoccupation.
Worry is often the cause of much of the stress and depression in many people's daily lives. Due to the global economic crisis and the social, family and other realities of life, many individuals and families are living under financial, sexual and emotional pressure that forces them to endure sometimes prolonged and endless stress.
Stress-producing worries can be triggered by loss of a loved one, loss of a job or lack of work, rejection by society or community, divorce, lack of husband, lack of wife, lack of sexual activity, loss of health, infertility, lack of money and unpaid bills and many other traumatic events etc... This list of daily events or challenges, if you do not handle them well in your life, can lead you to prolonged stress without end.
It is written in the Word of God in Philippians 4:6
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Instead of worrying, we can trust God through prayer with faith, He will eventually comfort us or answer us.
PHILIPIANS 4:5-7
Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
MATTHEW 6:25-34
25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink? or what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Consider the birds of the air: for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, but are like thistles. 29 Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewith shall we be clothed? 32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: for your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
3, LACK OF ADAPTION TO YOUR NEW LIFE:
(THE LACK OF ADAPTION TO THE RHYTHMS OF YOUR NEW LIFESTYLE.)
The other thing that brings stress into our life is the lack of adaptation to our new life or social status. Some people have a hard time adapting or moving from one life to another.
It is important to know that moving from one life to another is not an easy thing, especially when you have not been well prepared, it creates a lot of stress and pressure in your brain. Abrupt and unprepared transitions from one life to another can be stressful for some people.
A new life or social status that one is not well prepared for can become a nightmare and a source of daily pressure for some people, which can cause stress that can become chronic if not addressed or managed as soon as possible.
That is why it is important in life to know how to adapt to the rhythm and demands, even to the whims of your new lifestyle or social status. Otherwise you risk that this new lifestyle or social status, whether professional, marital, family or social, will turn into an endless chain of stress.
That is why you see that the first five years of marriage are often very hard to live because we try to adapt to each other in this new life that sometimes requires a lot of tolerance, patience and compromise to finally arrive after a lot of effort to create a family atmosphere of peace, joy and tranquility and it takes time and those who succeed in finding this balance sometimes do so at the great cost of the chains of stress that they have triumphed over.
Similarly, someone who is moving from one job to another imagines that you have been unemployed for 5 years and you are used to sleeping until 12:00 and suddenly you find a job that requires you to get up at 5:00 in the morning to start at 6:00. This will create a lot of pressure on you because your habit of getting up will be abrupt. And if you are not able to handle it well, this situation can put you into stress.
BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF LACK OF ADAPTATION TO THE NEW WAY OF LIFE:
In the Bible, the people of Israel were stressed by the change in lifestyle because suddenly, without being well prepared, they found themselves in the desert and were forced to adapt to this way of life and survive until they entered Canaan. And those who could not adapt to this way of life began to murmur against God and Moses, to the point of preferring to be slaves in Egypt rather than to be free in the wilderness.
EXODUS 16:1-4
1Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from Elim and came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of the land of Egypt. 2And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3The children of Israel said to them, Would to God that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, when we did eat bread to the full! for you have brought us into this wilderness to kill all this multitude with hunger. 4The LORD said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. The people shall go out and gather day by day as much as is necessary, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
In conclusion to this story of the desert, many died in the desert without seeing the promised land because they could not adapt to the life of the desert which was their new life.
4. POOR TIME MANAGEMENT:
The other thing that generates stress in the lives of some people is the lack of time management. Because when the life you lead is much faster than the capacities of your brain, and you do not have good time management, it will cause you more stress because you will often find yourself with too little time but too much to do in your daily life. and because of the pressure of time, it is possible that you have more and more stress in your life. If you are in this situation, you must learn to manage your time properly.
The best way out of this situation is to start planning your day well by having a to-do list of things you want to accomplish at the end of each day and good time management for each thing you need to accomplish at the end of each day.
5. LACK OF REST:
You should know that your brain is one of the human organs that needs a lot of energy to function properly. That is why, often, after working hard, it needs rest for its resources. Because the more boring and intense an activity is, the faster your brain will get tired, and this can happen in just four minutes or up to an hour or two depending on the person.
That is why it is so important that you understand when your brain is tired by detecting the signs that indicate that your brain is tired because your brain does not have pain receptors and you understand that it is tired when your eyes are tired and you start making mistakes. Or you become inefficient, you lose your will or you notice a drop in energy. If you feel this way, it means that sometimes you need to take a break for a few days to relax properly, eat enough and above all get enough sleep to allow your brain to refresh itself.
You should know that brain fatigue causes stress and stress causes fatigue. It is also very important to manage stress because too much stress can lead to chronic diseases.
6. CONFLICTS:
It is proven that conflicts are a great source of stress because they can cause you to accumulate resentment and anger that can generate stress in your life. Whether it is marital, family, friendly or professional conflict, you must learn to quickly negotiate conflicts and seek peace with everyone as the Bible says.
Because unmanaged conflicts are often a great source of stress and knowing how to manage conflicts and especially forgive those who have hurt you will bring you great relief from the pressure that weighs on you.
7. DEMONS:
We must not neglect the spiritual side, because devils, demons and evil spirits are also the cause of a lot of stress in people's lives. A witch testified during a soul cure that her mission was to send troubles and stress into people's lives to push them to hate themselves and commit suicide.
BIBLICAL EXAMPLE:
King Saul was possessed by evil spirits that tormented him by agitating his spirit and he had no peace because he was troubled and stressed by the presence of evil spirits.
1 SAMUEL 16:14-23
14The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord agitated him. 15The servants of Saul said to him, Behold, an evil spirit from God is agitating you. 16Let our lord speak! Your servants are before you. They will seek a man who can play the harp; and when the evil spirit from God is upon you, he will play with his hand, and you will be refreshed. 17Saul answered his servants, Find me a man who can play well, and bring him to me. 18One of the servants answered and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, a Bethlehemite, who can play; he is also a mighty man of valour, a warrior, well-spoken and handsome in countenance; and the LORD is with him. 19Saul sent messengers to Jesse, saying, Send me David your son, who is with the sheep. 20Jesse took an ass, and laden it with bread, and a skin of wine, and a kid of the goats, and sent them to Saul by David his son. 21David came to Saul and stood before him; he pleased Saul greatly, and he was appointed to bear his armor. 22Saul sent to Jesse, “Please let David remain with me, for he has found favor in my eyes.” 23And when the Spirit of God was upon Saul, David took up a harp and played with his hand; and Saul’s breath was easier and he was relieved, and the evil spirit left him.
NB: Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations, and people’s coping styles and symptoms of stress vary. It is natural to feel stressed in difficult situations such as a job interview, a school exam, an excessive workload, an unstable job, or a conflict with family, friends, or coworkers. For many people, stress lessens over time as the situation improves or they learn to manage their emotions.
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