Stress – that’s a keyword forcefully intruded into everyone’s lives today. If you think that it only belongs to adults, oh, you are wrong!
Kids have their own kinds of stress, with exams, bullying, results, peer pressure and what not. And elderlies too fret a lot about their kids, their jobs, marriages, kid’s kids and what not.
We all develop our own defence mechanisms to stress and deal with them in ways we think are good for us. However, most of the ways you are self-treating stress only backfire.
If you are doing any of these to put stress on buffer, mind you, it’s going to come back aggravated.

1. Binge watching

This is a favourite of millennials – to binge-watch on weekends to unwind for the stress of the entire week. German and Dutch researchers found that if you unwind with TV, you are more likely to feel guilty and your stress levels are only going to soar. Binge-watching is only a stressor and not really a recovery resource, which many of us mistake it to be.

2. Over-analysing

If it is a particular situation that is giving you the jitters, you are more likely to over-analyse various aspects of the story. You will delve in various ‘what if I said this’ and will keep replaying the situation in your mind! Stop because such rumination will only make you age faster and would not even reduce an iota of stress, if it doesn’t aggravate it.

3. ​Drink/Smoke

Sure, Friday evenings will give you cheap booze but if your reason for drinking is to de-stress and if you are heading out for a smoke because a meeting didn’t go well, you are doing yourself more harm. These are only temporary relaxations which only increase your stress levels in the long run.

​4. Binge-eating

Comfort foods are heavenly. There’s nothing like a divine spoonful of red velvet cheesecake or a slice of double cheese margherita. However, indulging in these foods emotionally will only make you feel worse about your eating habits. When you eat so many calories while your stress levels are high, it can hamper the process of your digestion.

​5. Social media

If you have a habit of an aimless browsing on social media to unwind, it is not very healthy. Studies claim that if your friends are achieving better things than you, you end up feeling miserable about yourself. On the other hand, if you come across negative posts on social media, you will feel more negative about life in general.