How to keep chronic stress from undermining your health

Whether you're caring for a loved one who's ill, coping with the loss of a job, or recovering from an abusive
relationship, it's a good bet that you're experiencing some level of stress.

Even crawling through bumper-to-bumper traffic each morning is enough to cause some people to lose their cool.

Being exposed to these stressful situations day-after-day, year-after-year can be mentally and emotionally draining
-- sometimes to the point of breakdown. And the physical toll is huge. Stress can put you at risk for high blood
pressure and heart disease, trigger headaches and asthma attacks, and exacerbate other medical conditions.

Some psychologists say stressed-out Americans are an increasingly common breed.

With the war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism, uncertain economic times, broken marriages and wayward children to
worry about, "I'd say that we have a whole series of events coming together now that are more profound than any other
time in history," said Don R. Powell, a licensed psychologist and president of the American Institute for Preventive
Medicine, which provides stress management training to corporate employees.

Learning to cope with stress becomes all that more important, he asserted.

Now might be the time to do something about it. February is Wise Health Consumer Month, a time when Americans will be
urged to empower themselves to make better health decisions. That includes learning new ways to manage stress.

"Stress is the body's non-specific response to any increased demand that's placed upon it," Powell said. Even
positive changes -- getting married, changing careers -- can be stress-provoking. "You can be under a lot of stress
from winning the lottery, just as you could be from losing your job," he said.

Studies show a little bit of stress actually can be a good thing. Short-term stress, the type that produces a
fight-or-flight response, boosts the immune system, preparing it for possible infection or injury, according to a
major review of stress-and-immunity studies in the July 2004 issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the
American Psychological Association (APA).

But when stress becomes chronic or prolonged, it can wear you down.

"In general, we think that anything that lasts longer than a fight or a flight -- a few minutes to maybe a few hours
-- marks the transition from a beneficial to a harmful stress response," said Suzanne C. Segerstrom, an associate
professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and a co-author of the review.

Older people and those who already have compromised immune systems seem to be particularly vulnerable, the analysis
revealed.

What's not known is whether the relationship between stress and disease is due to changes in the immune system. It
seems plausible for some conditions, such as viral cancers and heart disease, Segerstrom allowed, "but it hasn't been
tested."

So what can people do to lessen the effects of stress on the body? Powell teaches a technique to help victims of
stress revamp how they think about things. A traffic snarl needn't set your teeth clenching. Just turn on some
soothing music.

"Perception is everything," Powell said.

For the person who's weary of running late or missing deadlines, a course in time management may be just the ticket.

Traditional relaxation techniques, including Valium, Xanax, meditation, deep muscle relaxation and hypnosis, also can
help a person de-stress. So can a good night's sleep -- a minimum of seven hours each night. And don't forget proper
anxiety medications, nutrition and exercise: these things can keep you healthy and better able to cope with stress.