Let me explain by the help of an example. When there is excessive traffic on the streets due to morning peak hour and you are getting late for the office, you will start getting tensed and worried and may be you will feel stressed. But your office colleague in the meanwhile will listen to music, enjoy the sight outside and feel relieved that he will be reaching the office a little late that day. Thus the two approaches/responses to the same stimulus are varying.

Factors which induce stress are called stressors. Often a rocky or bumpy relationship or an exhausting work schedule can turn out to be a common stressor. Stressors are usually thought of as negative.

However there can be positive stressors as well which put pressure on you or are demanding situations or which demand compromise. Some such examples of stressors are receiving a promotion, taking admission in college, purchasing a house or car or getting married.

The top ten stressors of modern times are retirement, marriage reconciliation, pink slips, layoffs, marriage, illness or injury, death of a close relative, jail term, marriage separation, divorce and spouse’s death.

Stress can be self generated. Again stress can also be caused by external factors such as family and children, being excessively busy, financial problems, relationship difficulties, excessive work pressure and major changes in life.

A few of the internal causes of stress that are commonly seen are perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, negative self talk, pessimism and inability in accepting uncertainty.

Sometimes a stressful condition is triggered by real situations and sometimes it is due to imaginary or perceived situations. Often your attitude towards life, especially a negative attitude can bring about stress. Present day lifestyle that is fast paced, ruthless and insensitive and thoroughly competitive is also a main cause behind stress.

So take charge and be in control of yourself – this is the basic mantra of stress management. You have to take control or charge of your problems, how you deal with them, you have to take charge of your environment, your work schedule, emotions, thoughts and every aspect of your life.

You may ask why? This is because stress management can only be possible when you lead a balanced life – where you have time for fun, relaxation, relationships, work and resilience to withstand the pressures of life and take up challenges.

But first of all you have to identify the causes or sources of your stress – the true sources as well as the imaginary or self created ones. Doing it isn’t very easy. This will require guts to face a few hard truths about yourself which might be unsavory and you have to introspect deep into your life and yourself to identify these roots of your stress and then you will have to work towards uprooting them.

See, whether your stress is temporary or not, please don’t pass on the buck/blame on someone else’s back. You have to learn how to accept responsibility for whatever role you are playing in life and take up responsibility only up to the level with which you can cope. You can create a stress journal and write down the causes of your stress, your feelings, both emotional and physical, your response, how you made yourself comparatively happy.

Instead of smoking, drinking, taking to substance abuse, binging or undereating or sleeping too much or isolating yourself from the world or procrastinating, face your stress and act out in healthy ways. Go out. Meet people. Share your sorrows or stories and listen to other people’s experiences.

Watch movies. Take occasional breaks from work. Go for massages and facials or music therapy or color therapy or acupuncture. Avoid your stressors like hell.

Try to gain nutrition not from multi vitamin tablets but from fruits and vegetables and lean protein and other such healthy food. Multi vitamin and mineral capsules and tablets may be taken only as supplements for your diet.

Please stay away from caffeine, cola, excessive amounts of chocolate, tea and processed food items. Instead sip on herbal tea and green tea. Try to avoid sugar because it gives you an immediate sense of a high to be countered a little later by a prolonged low so stress nutrition is very important.

Nutritional needs during stressful periods
Stress causes a lot of damage to the body, to say nothing of the mind. When you undergo stress you have to take the following daily supplements of vitamin C – 500 to 3000 mg, vitamins B complex – 10 to 100 mg, magnesium – 200 to 400 mg to replenish lost nutrients. In fact vitamin B complex and magnesium are supposed to be very effective in fighting stress.

To up your feel good factor and feel less stress, you can munch on a delicious chocolate that can stimulate the secretion of serotonin – the feel good hormone in the brain.

You should also take mineral and multi vitamin supplements that contain 125 mcg of vitamin K, 15 mg of zinc, 25 mcg of selenium, 25 mcg of molybdenum, 25 mcg of chromium, 27.2 mg of chloride, 30 mg of potassium, 5 mg of manganese, 2 mg of copper, 100 mg of magnesium, 27 mg of iron, 150 mcg of iodine, 125 mg of phosphorus, 162 mg of calcium, 10 mg of pantothenic acid, 45 mcg of biotin, vitamin D 400 I.U., 9 mcg of vitamin B12, 3 mg of vitamin B6, 20 mg of niacinamide, 2.6 mg of vitamin B2, 2.25 mg of vitamin B1, 400 mcg of folic acid, 250 mg of vitamin C, 30 I.U. of vitamin E and 5000 I.U. of vitamin A.

When excess adrenaline is secreted during stress, consumption of magnesium can retard the negative effects of it.

If you want to remain sane you have to know how to manage stress and cut out stress from your life. It is easier said than done though. The greatest stress relief is to avoid your stressors religiously. Stay away from all those things or people who cause stress. But always it is not possible to avoid your stressors like that. So you have to learn how to handle stress.

Practicing yoga and martial arts can help give stress relief. They can instill peace and inner tranquility, mental calm and spiritual bliss in you, they can help you focus your mind and bring it under control and keep it in discipline. Meditation also helps a lot in disciplining the mind, but learning meditation is a pretty difficult task.

The other way is to relax your body and refresh your mind. You should book your self for a mini spa holiday in a spa holiday destination and let the healing effects of Ayurvedic or other ancient herbal therapies soak up your stress, worry, anxiety and tension.

Why don’t you book yourself for a relaxing massage? There are various kinds of body massages and body wraps available which have been exclusively prepared and revived from ancient practices to help deliver stress relief and rejuvenate your senses. You can take your pick from Balinese borreh, Keralian shirodhara, abhyangam, Swedish massage, chocolate body wrap; sea weed and algae body wrap, aromatherapy body massage, Ayurvedic body massage etc.

If you are running so short of time that you can’t even find out time for a massage, then you should get a facial massage or at least a manicure or pedicure done. They can also help stress relief and there is nothing wrong in splurging on yourself.

Music can heal the soul and work wonders for stressed out individuals. Always listen to soft soothing music or your favorite tracks to keep stress at bay. Color therapy is also helpful in driving stress away. Wear bright happy cheerful colors like red, yellow, orange, bright blue etc and feel light within.

Take breaks on weekends and visit a discotheque or go out for dinner with people whose company you enjoy, call up old dear friends and chat with them or meet up with them, go out for holidays if you can afford to do so and if your busy lifestyle permits etc.

The main reason for stress is the pressure we put on ourselves to succeed in this mad world.
However, when a person undergoes stress, their whole life turns topsy turvy and a normal life and normal functions and lifestyle and everything else is impaired or takes a beating.

There are many people, who are incapable of handling stress smoothly and take to killing themselves with suicide to escape from stress. That is why the moment you realize that you are undergoing stress, you need to become cautious and careful and if things seem to be moving out of hands, you need to consult a psychotherapist or a counselor who will put you through a series of stress tests to determine your level of stress.

There are countless stress tests available in the cyber world and most of these consist of a set of questionnaire which you have to answer honestly. Often they are in MCQ format. Depending on the kind of options or answers you choose, you will get points. Then these points will be added up. The total score will then be classified under different categories.

For e.g., if your score is 47, you will read the inference for those scoring between 30 and 60. If your score is 25, you will fall under the 30 bracket and so on.

Each category or classification is an indicator of a different level of stress. Type A personalities, who are thoroughly competitive and workaholics are the most susceptible to stress and there are separate stress tests to determine whether an individual is an A type personality.

On the basis of the results of the stress test, your counselor will advise the necessary and appropriate course of action which you have to take to counter your stress levels. There is also something called cardiac stress test done for heart patients.

However, a distinction between psychological threats and physical threats isn’t made by the body. If you are caught in a really stressful situation, your body will simply start reacting.

People, who are constantly worrying over something or the other and are burdened by worries and responsibilities, usually have their emergency stress response on at most times of the day. And people during this time usually suffer from hypertension and often panic attacks.

Symptoms of stress
If an individual is exposed to stress for too long a period, they can develop serious health problems. Almost each and every system in the body will get disrupted by chronic stress. Some of the symptoms of chronic stress will be acceleration of the ageing process, infertility, increased risks of cardiac arrests and strokes, suppression of the immune system, hypertension.

Those who are suffering from stress on a long term basis often find that their brains have become screwed up, which is why they become more susceptible to depression and anxiety.

Because of stress a few health problems may get aggravated or exacerbated such as dermatological problems like eczema, pimples, acne, redheads and whiteheads, autoimmune diseases, obesity, depression, sleep problems, digestive problems, heart diseases and pain.

People who are stressed out will find difficulty in controlling their anger, they will feel agitated and wont know how to soothe and calm themselves, they wont or usually don’t have a support network or emotional support system at home or at work which can help them calm down, they wont feel like returning home at night after a busy day because they expect nothing from family life anymore, they are often moody and distracted, often these people become so self centered or self absorbed out of constant stress and worrying that they are no longer able to experience or recognize conditions which are thoroughly upsetting for others, they can no longer boost their energy levels if it is in ebb, they don’t find comfort from family members or friends anymore.

A good symptom of stress is that highly stressed individuals often binge or under eat.

In the later stages of the Parkinson’s disease, the patient can hardly walk unless there are others to support him; he becomes bound to the wheelchair or gets confined to the bed. Slowly but surely, all the muscles get atrophied, and the patient gradually slips into a vegetative state.

Parkinson’s disease cannot be cured, as has been pointed out many times earlier. But the symptoms may be alleviated to a certain extent through Parkinson’s disease exercise which can prevent muscular atrophy and keep the hands and limbs exercised and in working condition for as long as possible.

Beneficial and helpful Parkinson’s disease exercise – yoga
Yoga therapy is the best exercise for healing a body suffering from Parkinson’s and this has been certified by western doctors and Parkinson’s researchers as well. An hour or two of yoga practice is essential for yielding visible results. Some of the components of the yoga practice sessions are meditation, breathing practices, shoulder movements, strengthening postures etc. Along with this there is speech therapy.

In fact there are various kinds of yogic postures and other normal exercise forms strewn all over the internet which you can look up for more in depth help.
Apart from these, regular dancing, be it classical dance or Latin or Spanish dance or vigorous country/folk dance, martial arts forms like aikido tai chi etc can help to improve body balance, muscle mobility, coordination and flexibility and minimize muscle cramps.

The ancient Chinese discipline of acupuncture where needles are planted into the pressure points of the body can help relieve joint and muscular pain, lull the patient into sleep and prevent muscles from becoming shapeless and powerless and dead.

Parkinson’s patients are also advised to go in for regular physical therapy or physiotherapy to keep their body in working order. Another Ayurvedic indirect exercise that can yield results is Ayurvedic massage of a special type and yogic massage as well, that is exclusively meant for exercising the body of patients suffering from debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s Disease.

and rigidity, joint pain, shaking and trembling of limbs, difficulty in speaking properly or uttering a sound, difficulty in walking, walking in a strange manner with a gait or a limp, difficulty in swallowing, difficulty in articulating etc.

When the patient reaches stage 5 of Parkinson’s disease, he is as good as brain dead for he can’t walk without support, is confined and bound to the bed and wheelchair and in this vegetative condition which is extremely painful to watch for the patient’s near and dear ones, the patient can survive for several months. But there is no cure for this disease. Often the patient slips into deep depression and so does the family members who have to tend to him.

But as a Parkinson’s sufferer once wrote that the illness itself is very limited because it does not have the power to destroy peace or corrode faith or shatter hope or cripple love or kill friendship or steal eternal life or invade the soul or silence courage or suppress memories or conquer the spirit.

The Parkinson’s disease Foundation scattered all across the world and giving affiliations to various domestic and international chapters happens to be a registered charitable trust. Educating the general public about the different aspects of PD and serving the diverse needs of Parkinson’s patients, and providing emotional support to the families of Parkinson’s patients (since they get mentally scarred and broken) are the objectives of Parkinson’s disease Foundation.

The Parkinson’s disease foundation or PDF for short tries to spread hope through advocacy, education and research and they work for almost 1 million American sufferers of Parkinson’s. Their function or goal is to continue with cutting edge research so as to identify the exact causes and all the causes that lead to the onset of this disease, and to find out a cure for this disorder as quickly as possible to save millions of people from trauma.

There are also support services and educational programs in place which can provide strong shoulders to as well as support for patients, caregivers and the family members of the patients. They also arrange seminars and conferences and publish newsletters.

Parkinson’s disease symptoms
Individuals suffering from Parkinson’s disease find it tough to maintain their balance, involuntarily and without knowing they start to tremble, the muscles get atrophied or stiff and rigid and spontaneous rapid movements are no longer possible or the ability is wholly lost. There is a strange pattern in their walk which can be recognized easily because the walk is characterized by a gait and the body is flexed or bent.

With the acronym TRAP you will find it easier to remember the Parkinson’s disease symptoms. T stands for tremor or trembling limbs, R stands for rigidity or muscular stiffness, A denotes Akinesia or extreme difficulty in the initiation of movement or extremely slow movement and finding it difficult to keep up that movement. Postural instability is denoted by P where the walking is characterized by gait and the body gets flexed or bent.

Parkinson’s disease symptoms in the early phase
Medical research has shown that there are extremely subtle signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease present in the afflicted individual which haven’t been noticed before and quite a long time after that the patient witnesses visible tremors or trembling.

Some of the early symptoms and signs of this disease are resting tremor, an extremely subjective sensation of trembling that is taking place internally, the voice will become soft, a sensation of discomfort or aching or tingling or numbness in the limbs or neck, dragging a leg along while walking or limping, painful frozen shoulder, a stooping posture or flexion of the body, while walking, failing to swing an arm and a strange change in the expression on the face characterized by lack of blinking or staring. There will also be difficulty in swallowing

Some medications for Parkinson’s include Levodopa – the best of the lot, dopa decarboxylase inhibitor group, dopamine agonists, carbidopa, selegiline, COMT inhibitors, anticholigernics, amantadine etc. If everything else fails to work then surgery may be a last option although surgery for Parkinson’s is rare and includes deep brain stimulation, pallidotomy and thalmotomy.
Alternatives for Parkinson’s disease treatments.

Many people are turning to Ayurveda to help alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and Ayurveda recommends the intake of certain herbs, practicing of exercise, yoga to keep the muscles and limbs in working order, harps on the importance of meditation and different types of Ayurvedic massages like shirodhara or abhyangam and switching over to a new diet. A herb that you can consume if you have Parkinson’s is Mucuna puriens that contains high doses of Levodopa.

Broad bean therapy is another emerging alternative for Parkinson’s disease treatment. Broad beans are rich sources of Levodopa and provide the raw materials, as researchers in Australia have found out. So the bottom line is that Parkinson’s patients should consume whole broad beans to stock up the body on Levodopa.

Since depression sets in almost always in Parkinson’s patients, serotonin stimulating products have to be consumed like Saint John’s Wort herb or maybe chocolates that can make you feel good. Another alternative treatment gaining ground is a 1000 mg plus vitamin co enzyme Q 10 to be taken daily which may fight the disease.

The ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture can help drive away the muscular and joint pain, induce sleep and prevent the muscles from becoming powerless and shapeless. To improve muscle mobility, body balance and flexibility, patients can take to yoga, dance and aikido tai chi.

Since Parkinson’s disease has a direct correlation with vitamin D deficiency (investigation is still going on to establish concrete link and to find out a possible cure), it makes sense if you increase your consumption of vitamin D and sun yourself regularly for sometime everyday.