All of us face stress sometime in our lives, but some among us suffer from chronic stress, which is a paralysing psychological condition with far-reaching health effects. I, myself, have been dealing with clinical stress for the past two years.
My inability to cope with the stress caused me to leave my job, and it affected my home life as well. Initially, I brushed it off as everyday anxiety. However, soon I started to overthink and panic about every small thing.
Like most people, I tried to manage it by distracting myself; I busied myself in household chores such as laundry, cooking, and carpet cleaning. I tried long walks and then joined a box kicking class at the local gym. Although they worked temporarily, nothing helped me deal with my stress effectively.
Then my friend came to my rescue. They suggested that I go to a spiritual retreat. At first, I was skeptical, but then my desperation to get my life back took over, and I booked myself a spot in the retreat. In just a few days, I observed a big change in myself. My thought process began to evolve from the constant self-doubt and anxiousness to one of calm deliberation and restraint.
I started loving myself and felt the internal peace, which was missing in me for a long time. Since it helped me so much today, I am going to share how you can deal with stress and prolong your lifespan with spirituality.
Let’s begin:
Spirituality and Stress
Spirituality is a great stress healer. This is how it works:
Understanding the Purpose of Life
When you are close to God, you know what the core purpose of life is. As a result, you start ignoring less important things. Stress eliminates the purpose of life, whereas spirituality primarily focuses on it.
Accepting the Challenges
Spirituality makes you learn about the will of God. When you know whatever is happening is not in your control, you start accepting challenges and start worrying about controlling your life. Once you accept a challenge, you can then think of concrete solutions for that challenge rather than being upset that it happened.
Building Network
Some people find spirituality in connecting with friends, while others relate it with nature, mosque, or church. No matter where you find spirituality, it helps you build your network. When you meet new people in life, you learn from their experiences and develop a feeling of fraternity, which helps you manage stress more effectively.
Staying Healthy
Spirituality makes you realize the blessings in life. As a result, you start consuming healthy meals, fruits, and vegetables that are a blessing of God. Healthy food makes you feel good, which in turn reduces stress levels.
Gaining Peace
In our daily life, we get so involved in getting things done. Rushing from one project to another, which stresses us stress out. However, mediation tactics and praying detaches us from the materialistic and superficial things around us. We start accepting positivity in life and gain internal peace. This peace is enough to combat stress.
Accepting Stress and Moving On
Spirituality makes you accept negative events in life. When you meditate and find your inner soul, you consider stress as normal. You realise that stress is common and inevitable. Even in these stressful events, spirituality makes you move on. It is because you know, who you are, what the purpose of your life is, and what your journey is.
Discovering Strengths and Accepting Weaknesses
When you get involved in spirituality, you start knowing about your inner soul. You discover your strengths and accept your weaknesses. Stress, which is often the result of comparison with others, is alleviated. We start working on your weaknesses instead of crying on them.
Spirituality and Life Span
Several studies have been conducted in the field of gerontology. It is the study of the human lifespan. Researchers have strong beliefs on the spiritual and emotional needs of adults and older individuals. Older people are more spiritual in comparison to young ones because they find peace and devote their entire life to spirituality.
Since spirituality is indirectly proportional to stress, it helps in improving health and mental well-being. This becomes a cause of a longer life span. The following reasons show how spirituality is connected to life span:
Feeling Grateful
Spirituality makes us realise the importance of everything we have. With spirituality, things that are taken for granted convert into a blessing. This makes us show gratitude towards God. When we feel grateful, we realise how many things we have. It brings the feeling of happiness and satisfaction. Thus, the stress level is reduced, and overall health gets a positive impact. When health is good, a feeling of positivity is present, and stress is absent, longevity comes.
Looking Forward to Positivity
Many individuals feel low and lose hope in life. These moments of distress reduce the will-power of moving forward, which affects our health negatively. A stressed person is more likely to have bad eating habits, which lead to a shorter life. In extreme cases, stress even leads to suicidal thoughts.
However, spiritual people have a more positive outlook on life. They never feel down and wait for the good events to come in life. This way of being optimistic is imperative for increasing life span. For instance, a COVID-19 patient can easily lose hope and stop taking a healthy diet. On the other hand, a patient with high spirituality keeps on consuming healthy nutrition in the hope of getting better.
Learning from Failures
Hardships and challenges are inevitable in life. Spiritual people think about difficult times as a test from God. They also believe in getting success one day in life. That is why they positively take every failure. They understand which new lesson they have learned from the failure and try to improve. It is because of their strong connection with God. They try repeatedly and never lose hope. This attitude of dealing with failure never lets a spiritual person feel distressed. They always dig out a positive impact from the negative events.
Wrapping It Up
In short, people who have a close connection with God have a positive perspective on life. The mediation techniques and spirituality help in reducing highly alleviated stress levels because spiritual people understand the core purpose of life; they build new connections, accept every challenge, stay healthy, and discover their strengths.
Additionally, spirituality helps in prolonging the life span. Spiritually strong people feel grateful for life’s blessings, learn from the hardships of life, and always look forward to the positive events. The amalgamation of all these things helps in improving the physical and mental health of a person.
What is your experience with spirituality? Have you felt a difference in stress levels? Share your views with us!
