Feel obliged to relax this weekend!

With the weekend ahead of us I thought it would be a good time to unstress a bit. Another busy week is over. Since last Monday I already looked forward to Friday night, because that's when the weekend starts. Now it is Friday, no more school and work for this week. I thought I'd be one big bulb of Zen (don't even know if this is a real sentence), meaning: I thought I'd be really relaxed. Well, I couldn't be more wrong. It is Friday and I'm totally stressed because I have still so much work to do, I even feel stressed because I feel I'm stressed. Can you still follow me?
That is when I started to think: maybe I can write my own blog. This way I can put my feelings on the paper, well the screen, and then they'll be out of my head for a little while which will give me some more rest. Maybe I can also put some of my homework in this blog, if you guys feel bored you can help me with it.. that will save me some time which I can then spend on enjoying the weekend. No don't you worry I will not do that. I will just wish you all a lovely weekend and I hope you will all unstress during this weekend, because stress is very unhealthy. I will give nine examples why you really have to enjoy your weekend:

1. Stress makes it difficult to control your emotions. Aha that explains the lot of grab I wrote above..
2. Stress can promote disease. Stress has been linked to illnesses that include cancer, lung disease, fatal accidents, suicide, and cirrhosis of the liver.
3. Stress can affect your love life. This is a important reason, for especially men, to take some time to relax more because a study of McGrady (1984) found that stress can affect a man's body weight, testosterone levels and sexual desire!
4. Stress can ruin your teeth and gums. This is really something I recognize : some people respond to stressful situations through nervous tics or by grinding their teeth, which can do lasting damage to your jaw and wear your teeth thin.
5. Stress can ruin your heart. Stress hormones increase your heart rate and constrict your blood vessels which forces your heart to work harder and increases your blood pressure.
6. Stress can make you gain weight. Some researchers at the University of Miama found that people who find themselves in stressful situations are likely to consume 40 percent more food than normal.
7. Stress can make you look older. Because of stress, telomeres - structures on the end of chromosomes - shorten, so that new cells can't grow as quickly.
8. Stress weakens your immune system. That explains the flu symptoms I'm feeling since today.. The high demands that stress puts on the body make the immune system suffer which makes you more vulnerable to colds and infections.
9. Stress can lead to long term disability. The shocking thing is, even mild stress can lead to long-term disability that is serious enough to render you unable to work.

Well it might be that you were not feeling stressed before reading my blog, but now you are.. I'm sorry that was not my intention, I got a bit carried away. What I'm trying to do is to prepare you for a whole weekend of relaxation without feeling quilty of doing nothing at all. See it as something you own yourself, your body and everybody around you who loves you.. It is the most important thing to do to your body and soul after a busy working week. Go pamper yourself this weekend, then I will try to do so myself.

Have a nice weekend everybody.