How Best to Manage Stress Despite Our Innate Fear of the Unknown

The reason why humans have been able to advance far beyond any other animal on the planet is because of our thirst for knowledge. Being inquisitive and striving for better methods of doing everything and anything has driven our entire species and continues to drive us individually today. However, this desire to know everything or as much as we possibly can be to our personal detriment.

Whether it’s fearing but not knowing the consequences of being off schedule or a lack of knowledge for the deeper questions in life such as, if we’re going to get ill somewhere down the line or what happens to our psyche after death. Dwelling on any of these unknowns on a regular basis or for long periods of time can harm our minds with undue stress, so we need to be able to find ways to manage these often harmful thoughts. Trying to avoid them is useless as stress is inevitable, but there are ways to manage it better for a healthier state of mind.

Find out what you can about yourself

The biggest stress-inducing fears that plague the minds of many are future illnesses. Illness is a part of life, but it’s the lack of knowledge that tends to worry most. Now, running every possible test to find out what may be wrong or on the way is too costly in terms of money and time for most people, but by learning about our past, we can hone in on areas to look into regarding our futures.

Through the use of an at-home DNA Health testing kit, we can uncover elements about ourselves that can prepare us for the future or just delight us by providing us with information we never knew before. These tests can reveal many important aspects of ourselves, including genetic health issues, food sensitivities, and interesting heritages. It might be daunting that you’re able to find out this information but studies have found that this act of knowing can actually be beneficial.

In a study that examined the relationship between uncertainty and stress, it was found that across both measures of subjective and objective stress, stress reached its peak when the level of uncertainty was at its highest. Even some knowledge of what’s to come helps to reduce stress. That said while reducing and stress is important, managing it correctly is just as vital to a healthy disposition.

Managing stress correctly

People associate stress with being a negative factor of life, kneeling to it whenever it occurs. This, coupled with the instinctive feelings associated with stress and the expected reaction to it, hinders many from embracing the positive, productive side of your nervousness and from managing bad stress correctly.

Good stress, otherwise known as Eustress, can boost your mood and focus your mind. It’s the form of stress that motivates you to strive to be better when put under pressure, feeding your body with the chemicals necessary to prepare it for short bursts of high performance. Bad stress sees our brains secrete the same chemicals, but it all comes down to how the person perceives this ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction – as an inhibitor, or as a motivator. The prolonged effects of the negative reactions to stress can cause headaches, fatigue, and sometimes quite severe changes in mood.

The key here is that stress and the severity of its effects come down to each individual’s mindset. Through practice, you can find that it is actually quite malleable. Being able to manage potential negative stress into positive stress by changing your perception of it is a skill that requires practice.

We recommend that you speak to a professional about these issues if they inhibit you from enjoying your everyday life but alongside this, it is extremely useful and important that you practice meditation, mindfulness, yoga or any other meditative practices. Through this, individuals often find they regain some emotional control and are able to gain lifelong skills that help them to tackle harmful and intense stress and anxiety.