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Heaven? Nasa Heaven Ako! - How to Handle Stress

  • Shawn Sabala
  • Jan 24, 2022
  • 3 min read
By Shawn Sabala

Stress is normal, we all experience some sort of stress all throughout our lives. It isn’t all that bad either, stress can also help us by giving us that extra burst of energy to help us in many things like sports or public speaking. The problems start when we get stressed out for long periods of time. The way we handle stress is different from each other and it’s good that we are able to relieve our stress. What this vlog seeks to help you with is the management of stress through a more scientific and general approach to it.



According to a lesson by Madhumita Murgia, Chronic stress can affect the brain’s size, structure and functions. Stress is started by interactions between endocrine glands in our brains and our kidneys, this is called Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal Axis or HPA Axis for short. This controls our body’s reaction to stress, for example, your homework will be passed within an hour and you started rushing it because you forgot about it. Your body will release cortisol because of that stressful situation, cortisol is something the HPA Axis produces to get our body ready for quick action. Like all things, too much can be bad for you. Long term exposure to cortisol can start damaging your brain.



Continuing Murgia's lesson, in this picture, we will focus on the Amygdala and Hippocampus. The Amygdala is the fear center of the brain and the Hippocampus which is the part of the brain associated with learning, and stress control. Too much cortisol can affect the Amygdala and start damaging the Hippocampus. The Hippocampus getting damaged can weaken your stress control which can lead into an endless loop of stress. Stress also damages other parts of your brain like the prefrontal cortex which is the part that controls judgement, decision-making, and social interaction. The damage stress can cause can lead to more severe problems like depression or Alzheimer’s.





How to handle stress? This is the question that we have all asked ourselves and each of us came out with a different answer to it. Here’s some general tips to help you deal with stress. According to a talk given by Kelly McGonigal, we need to stop thinking of stress as something bad for our bodies but as our bodies preparing to go into action. She showed that doing this gives us a better reaction to it like the expanding of blood vessels. Another one of her advice is to connect with other people more, oxytocin is the hormone that helps people connect with others to try and limit stress. The last advice for dealing with stress I’ll give you comes from the lesson by Madhumita Murgia, exercise and meditation helps with dealing with stress.


These are some ways to deal with stress. Sometimes the stress can get to us so hopefully some of these can help you deal with the stress. Paraphrasing from a talk by Laura Vanderkam, time is elastic and what we do is based on what we prioritize. The message I’m giving to you through this quote is for you to prioritize yourself more, schoolwork can take a break for a minute so that you can relax and not burn yourself out. Take some time off the things you’re working on make time for yourself to destress and live a healthy and full life.



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