If you live in the early part of the twenty-first century, chances are you are feeling stressed. Life for most of us today is highly pressured. Many of us feel stressed because of too little money, and too many urgent things to do, and not enough time to relax and unwind.

We are often sleeping too little, eating the wrong foods, drinking too much coffee, smoking too many cigarettes, juggling too many responsibilities, facing impossible deadlines, and exposed to a lot of chemical and noise pollution.

Does this sound like your life?

In addition to the pressures of our daily lives, the constant barrage of terrible news coming at us from every corner of the world also adds to our sense of helplessness and anxiety. As a result of too many assaults on our mind and our body, we are often in a state of feeling acute stress much of the time.

What is stress exactly?

Your body has a wonderful internal program to deal with dangerous events that pose a threat to your survival.

When your brain decides you are facing a threat of some kind, it pours lots of chemicals into your bloodstream to make you feel instantly very alert, and very physically powerful to deal with potential danger, or to enable you to run away quickly.

This body system in response to a threat is meant to help you cope with real danger, such as a physical attack or an accident.

During an acutely dangerous situation you will breathe much more deeply and quickly, taking in far more oxygen than usual. Your heart will be pounding in your chest. Your blood pressure will rise. You will have much higher levels of glucose in your blood in order to fuel your muscles.

These changes happen so that in case of danger, the muscles in your body have the all the supplies they need to fight, to move heavy objects, or to swiftly run away.

For thousands of years this built-in physical response to danger has helped people overcome dangerous threats like marauding bears, and raging fires and floods. If your ancestors had to fight off a bear, or run from a forest fire, this stress response gave them a chance to survive the emergency.

This powerful bodily reaction to danger is sometimes called the "fight or flight response". The fight or flight response still operates in us today.

The trouble is however, that in modern times, most of the stressors we face are not physical, but are psychological in origin. Most of the things that cause us to be stressed are not short term dangers, but events that go on and on for months.

For example, you may have a boss who constantly criticizes you at work. Or you may face a mortgage payment when you have just lost your job.

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About the Author: This article is by Royane Real, author of several self help books, including "How You Can Be Smarter – Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative" If you want to boost your brain power, download it today or get the paperback version at http://www.lulu.com/real