Life is filled with tension but a certain amount of stress is natural and cannot be avoided. It can even be beneficial as it can spur you on to achieve things you'd never think were possible, and you can make it work for you if it is counterbalanced by sufficient rest and relaxation. That is the important thing being able to effectively put your body and mind at rest to recuperate both physical and mental forces. The problem is that very few people can do it, and this is what this chapter is all about. I'm not going to dwell on the woeful side of stress as we all know its negative results, but I'm putting forward various ways and means for self help.

         Who suffers from stress? Anybody and everybody, we all have different levels of tolerance, but no matter to what degree, stress is present in all lives. Routine jobs can be as stressful as high powered ones, and the bored housewife is equally as susceptible as the business tycoon. It has a lot to do with our society being success orientated, and the constant reminders by the media about the achievement of others. It is often the exposure to the facts of what others are achieving that makes one feel inadequate. Before sophisticated communications revealed how the rest of the world lived, most people were reasonably contented in their slot. Now no more, the pressure is on. 

         Women are subject to more psychological strain than ever before. Ironically, fighting for equal rights has produced a whole new set of pressures, which many of us feel we would be better without. Women have got themselves in the position of trying to be all things to all people. We are in constant conflict between the old traditions and what are basically nature and the cultural preaching of ardent feminists. This in itself is a tremendous stress, and there is no way one can say what is right and what is wrong. It is entirely up to you to work out the balance, to decide where your personality and priorities stand. Personally, I feel it is terribly wrong for a woman who is perfectly happy being a wife and mother to be made to feel inadequate and unfulfilled by not accomplishing something on her own. In fact, it is nonsense that she should feel it necessary. Divided loyalties can cause incredible stress and result in divided families. Such a situation, however, does force you to look closely at your personality and desires, to make yourself aware of how you function as an individual and not in the shadow or context of others. What do you want out of life? What are you happiest doing? What are you doing for yourself? Then balance these with your obligations within relationships. The secret of alleviating stress is to balance your needs with those of others nearest and dearest to you, and to balance the liberated woman with the passive one.

         Stress can be productive. A moderate amount of it can improve efficiency, urge you on to creation, and force you into action. The plus things are that the mind becomes clear, reflexes are quicker, energy increases and speech can become more fluent. All these are assets, and some people need stress to function at all. Only you can establish your optimum stress level and you can only do this through experience. You can tell through observation what really gets you going and what makes you fall apart. Once beyond the peak, stress is destructive you will feel agitated, tense, jumpy and be unable to think or act clearly. On the other hand, if stress falls below a certain level you will feel frustrated, bored, unfulfilled and void of energy. That is also a form of stress. The ideal is a level at which you feel your happiest, function to capacity and end the day feeling fulfilled at what you have achieved. Acquiring this level is not automatic; it demands realistic observation, assessment and readjustment. You've probably never looked at stress this way before, but if you do, you can use it to your advantage. Learn to distinguish between positive and negative stresses and work out the optimum balance for you.

         What happens in your body during a stress situation? Practically every metabolic function is affected as the original animal fight or flight syndrome is instinctively put into action. It is our response to danger, though today's dangers stem more from mental and emotional sources than from actual physical threat. The response is totally automatic - the temperature drops and sweating increases, the heart beat rises by as much as one hundred per cent in order to increase blood supply to the muscles; the muscles tense and lactic acid is released into the blood stream which causes anxiety to increase; cholesterol is produced by the liver for fuel; the adrenal glands release hormones; breathing becomes faster and shallower, sugar is released from the liver into the bloodstream for energy, so is the subcutaneous fat: digestion closes down, the salivary glands stop and the mouth becomes dry. All this happens very quickly and studies show that these changes occur whenever the body is threatened regardless of the nature of the threat, be it physical or emotional. Danger is a primitive instinct and the body immediately becomes alert. If the body can physically let go at this point, it will quickly return to a calm relaxed normal state, but if not - which is usually the case with emotional stress - the body remains in a state of partial tension with all the consequential reactions and this is when the trouble starts. The tension that results from stress must subside, if not automatically, by training the body and mind to relax and let go. Otherwise, a continued state of arousal quickly leads to many disorders, initially manifested in headaches, digestive problems, general aches and pains.

         Stress can turn off sexual desire and if you are ultra competitive in your work, this can almost negate your female sexuality and you'll find it difficult for both mind and body to submit to sexual responsiveness.