Stress is part of our body’s natural ‘fight or flight’ response, which has evolved to deal with short-term, life-threatening problems, but not extended difficulties.
Prolonged or repeated stress (a characteristic of modern life) can eventually take a toll. Effects can include chronic illness and depression, lower heart rate variability, a weaker response to infection, lower sleep efficiency, and possibly increased mortality risk. Just thinking about it is enough to make us stressed!
Recent research suggests that by midlife, stress events tend to occur less frequently. It is suggested that past experiences with both stressors and opportunities are a foundation for a more balanced view.
Managing Longevity Stress
Circumstances may cause stress if we are more likely to perceive them as threats rather than opportunities. For example, our attitude to increasing longevity can be coloured by negative perceptions which may not be well founded.
While our bodies have evolved to live a few decades, from middle age many people live much longer than in the past. Developed societies have evolved to enable older people to take advantage of medical, technical and social developments. Yet our perceptions of ‘old’ are coloured by the typically shorter lives of our predecessors, often for reasons which we can address much better today, but for which we are poorly informed and prepared.
Ignorance breeds fear but can be dispelled by knowledge and action. By improving our longevity awareness and applying that through longevity planning, we can significantly reduce longevity stress and develop more useful responses.
We become more different from each other over time, so our best stress management responses can be as varied as the causes. The SHAPE Analyser helps us understand ourselves better and respond to our own circumstances. Longevity planning then provides a personal focus and time frame for managing our lives more productively. We can apply this to make better health, financial, and estate planning decisions, helping to reduce the impact of these potential sources of stress.
If have already invested in your own longevity plan, keep it in review so you are more in control. The SHAPE Analyser has now been linked to an initial longevity plan, so if you don’t have one already, take your first steps here.
Managing Stress More Broadly
Stress can also derive from difficulty in dealing with a range of challenges which may arise from home, work or other broader personal or community issues.
Australian governments have joined together to develop an excellent health website called HealthDirect which provides support to build our knowledge in understanding and dealing with ongoing stress here.
