People have always had things to stress about, but these days it seems nearly impossible to escape situations that can act as a trigger to cause our bodies to go into stress mode. The news, social media, the radio, even friends and family can bring up topics that cause our minds to go into overdrive and put us into a state of stress and anxiety.
As a webcam model or online content creator in any capacity, it’s important to keep yourself healthy and your head in a good place. We may be interacting with people in an “online” world, but that doesn’t mean friends, fans and other people we “virtually” interact with are unable to notice when we’re distracted or stressed.
Stress Hormones
The main problem with stress is that it releases a hormone called cortisol, which is responsible for the “fight or flight” reaction in our bodies. This reaction is very necessary, especially when in a life-or-death situation. During these situations you may experience an accelerated heart rate, your breathing may become quicker or you could feel like you can’t breathe. It could feel like a panic attack.
The problem with our fight or flight programming, however, is that under most circumstances we do not need to decide to fight or flee — yet, our bodies react to daily stressors like it is a life-or-death event. This means our bodies are constantly releasing cortisol into our system, and we were not designed to have this hormone constantly present in our bodies.
This can cause problems over time. For instance, elevated levels of cortisol have been linked to numerous health problems like high blood pressure, weight gain, Type 2 diabetes and weak bones just to name a few.
Here are a few ways to avoid overloading your body with too much cortisol.
Sleep: Get a good night’s rest. This is usually 7 to 8 hours for most adults. Insomnia can contribute to elevated levels of cortisol. If you suffer from insomnia and home remedies haven’t helped, then seek the advice of a doctor.
Exercise: Working out has shown to help people sleep better which in turn would help keep cortisol at optimum levels.
Breathing Exercises: Breathwork is an excellent way to help reduce stress levels in your body. There are many great ways to incorporate breath work into your daily life, and you can read about them on YNOT Cam here.
Limit exposure to stressful situations: This is a tricky one, so take a moment to consider this seriously. Take inventory of your life and learn to recognize what could be triggering you to get stressed.
One easy way to eliminate a big contributor to stress is to reduce how much media you take in, things like how much news you watch. The news is like any other show on TV: They are interested in ratings.
The news takes a few awful events and then keeps repeating those events over and over, which can make them seem worse than they are in reality. For example — and even discussing this example can be triggering so please be aware — school shootings. These are horrible, scary and sad events. It seems like these stories are aired on an almost “regular” basis, especially before COVID. Considering this, it is no surprise that parents and children are so concerned about school safety.
If you research the actual odds of a child of any age getting shot at school, the odds are 1 in 7.8 million. The odds for a child of any age being murdered in a school shooting is 1 in 15 million. These statistics are not to diminish the pain and anguish the family’s involved in these incidents have experienced, but rather to point out that these scenarios are not as commonplace as the news would have you think… This, less stressful than perhaps you might physically experience.
What to do?
Reducing stress is something every single person on earth could probably benefit from at this point.. But how?
Take time out for yourself to help your mind and body relax and de-stress. You will find that more you avoid stressful situations the better you will feel physically and mentally. When you feel good it will help you be more productive in your work life — and this will also benefit your personal life as well.
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Gabriella Vita is from Las Vegas, NV and has been writing for over ten years under multiple pen names. She believes variety is the spice of life, which is why she enjoys writing on a plethora of subjects. Email her at gabby@ynotcam.com.
Background header image via Unsplash here.
