Stress is unavoidable in life. Do too much and you get too overwhelmed. Do too little, and you constantly find yourself looking for what to do. It’s difficult to find a happy medium. For most of us, we deal with having to wake up early, go to a job we hate, go home to our lives at home with our kids or families, deal with whatever matters come up, go sleep, then repeat all over again.
For some of us, it could be all the troubles we have going on in school – dealing with our friends, trying to get into college, getting good grades. Stress is all around us.
Stress can cause your body to do all sorts of weird things, from sweating in weird places, to not being able to think straight, even all the way down to altering how your breath smells. Case in point, stress alters your body’s ability to function properly. Next time you question yourself on why your body is acting so weird, ask yourself this, “Am I stressed?” Second, ask yourself, “What can I do relieve the stress I’m going through?” We believe these are the first step to identifying and targeting many of the problems we deal with today regarding stress.
Compounding is very applicable in all aspects of life. Ranging from good to the bad. An example of this is when we take a look at bad breath. What causes bad breath can range from a multitude of lifestyle choices and factors like improper hygiene, genetics, gum disease, respiratory illnesses, and even prolonged stress! The sad thing is that one of the aforementioned can cause one another, creating a perfect storm.
Stress can cause physical and mental problems such as decreased productivity, the inability to think, cognitive disfunction, muscle tension, and unstable moods. If we look at the mouth specifically, stress can cause the reduction of saliva production, causing dry mouth. Stress can even cause digestive problems like acid reflux – which is essentially the backwards flow of digestive emissions from the stomach through the esophagus, not a pleasant scent or feeling.
So you have bad breath through stress. Now what?
If you’ve been thinking of every single reason why you have bad breath and could not get down to it, ask yourself again, are you stressed? If so, treat the underlying cause of the stress.
Need some tips on stress? Try the following steps:
Working Out
When we work out, what tends to happen aside from cardiovascular function, is that you stop thinking about anything else. You focus on the task at hand, and everything else melts away. There’s no choice, but to not think about it. For workouts that require extreme concentration (heavy lifts on the bench, sparring in martial arts, swimming, surfing, golf), you’ll realize that they make you “zen”. Zen meaning at peace with yourself.
Relaxation
Nothing like turning off that switch, eh? It’s easy for us to constantly want to grow and grow, to achieve the next step, to make more money, to earn more status, to get better at a sport. Unfortunately, that continuous drive exhausts you. When you take your mind off things, it allows to offset all of the ego depletion that comes with constantly working. Decision making is finite. Don’t let yourself get burnt out!
A perfect means to turn the mind off is yoga. It has many benefits for your mental clarity and flexibility. You will learn to love yourself. You will be more aware of your posture. You’ll notice your thought patterns will even change.
Socializing
We are all social creatures. There’s no denying that. We’ve been social from the pre-historic times. Those who were outcast were not able to survive as easily as those who were established within a tribe. Darwinism. The same principal applies. Ever notice that when you’re isolate for a whole day, you feel some sort of emptiness, even if that day was productive in terms of work? Compare that feeling of productive loneliness versus doing a little bit of work, and getting a meal such as lunch or dinner or even drinks with someone. The latter option is more ideal for overall happiness and self well-being.
Work on the three above and we guarantee that you’ll notice an improvement in your outlook on life and general well being. We believe this might even help with chronic issues regarding your health, especially if you can recall yourself feeling stressed out for a long time.