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A Quick and Easy Stress Test

Many people go through their days not aware of the stress in their lives. They might think, "Well, how serious can it be if I don't even know it exists?"

Quite simply your body can get used to stress in such a way that, even though your body still reacts harmfully to stress, because the stress is so continuous, you just don't realize how much stress you are in. Regardless of how little or how much stress you have in your life, being able to identify it will be a big help to you. Once you are able to identify the stress in your life for what it is, you can then go about the business of dealing with it more effectively.

Make no mistake about it, if there is stress in your life, chances are you are reacting negatively to at least some of it. Most of us are so used to stress that we begin to believe that the state of stress is normal.

TAKE A STRESS TEST
The standard tests that doctors use to tell whether you are an easily stressed "hot reactor" (and at greater risk for disease) are pretty simple, so take your pick, says Frank Barry, M.D., a family practice physician in Colorado Springs and author of Make the Change for a Healthy Heart. For the first two tests, you'll want to take a blood-pressure reading twice, once before the test and once during the test, for comparison.

Test 1: Chill out. In Test 1, put your hand into a bucket of cold water for one minute and have someone measure your blood pressure right after you have done it. If it goes up into the high range in response to physical stress, you are a "hot reactor."

Test 2: Do some math. Test 2 is a little more cerebral. Start with the number 100 and mentally subtract 7, then continue to subtract 7 until you get to 2. In the midst of your figuring, have your blood pressure taken. "There's no exercise, no threat to your life, but a lot of people still feel mental stress and their blood pressures shoot up," says Dr. Barry.

Test 3: Talk to yourself. You can also test yourself without the shock of cold water or the mental anguish of math. As yourself: "Are you working toward your own true goals or someone else's?" If you are busy trying to keep up with the Joneses, you're still in the rat race, even if you have retired. You're much more likely to feel the effects of stress regardless of whether you're a "hot reactor," says Dr. Barry.

About the Author

Abbas Abedi--Check out my
Stress Management
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can someone please explain to me in laymens terms what is a nuclear stress test?

my 77 yr old father has recently started experiencing "chest pain" He went to his doctor last week. After reviewing the EKG the doctor recommended the nuclear stress test. Although my wife is an RN she is not familiar with this. Her speciality is psych.

Thallium stress test is a nuclear imaging method that shows how well blood flows into the heart muscle, both at rest and during activity.
This test is done at a medical center. The test is done in two parts:
* Part 1: You will walk on a treadmill or be given a medicine called a vasodilator to increase your heart rate. You will be given the drug if your doctor does not think exercise is safe for you or if you have joint problems that may make doing so difficult.
* Part 2: The health care provider will inject a radioactive substance into one of your veins and then take pictures of your heart.
The radioactive material may be thallium or sestamibi. (If sestamibi is used, it's called a "sestamibi stress test.") This substance travels through your bloodstream into the heart muscle.
Next, you will be asked to lie down on a table under a special camera that scans the heart. A computer creates pictures of the heart by tracking how the radioactive material moves through the area.
The first pictures are taken shortly after you get off the treadmill or are given the vasodilator drug. These images show how blood flows to the heart during exercise. This is the part most commonly referred to as the "stress test," because it is the most challenging for your heart.
After lying quietly for a few hours, you'll have more pictures of the heart taken. These images show blood flow through your heart during rest.
The entire test can take about 4 hours. You will usually be given a long break in between scans and allowed to have caffeine-free lunch or a snack at a nearby cafeteria.

Gene Variant May Help Some Overcome Adversity
It appears to disconnect the link between stress and death risk, researchers say.

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