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How Does Stress Affect Our Life?

Byadmin

Nov 2, 2022

Stress is a normal reaction of our bodies to dangerous or unexpected situations. Even though stress will be in our lives anyway, chronic stress is a harmful condition to our health and wellness. While some people believe that stress is just a mental problem that appears and disappears from time to time, the truth is that stress affects life severely and in many different ways.

Not everybody knows that stress affects both physical and psychological health, meaning that these can deteriorate quickly. In addition, chronic stress leads to more severe problems such as depression and heart disease.

One of the difficulties with managing stress is that it affects everyone differently since we learn how to cope with this situation at a young age and in our own ways. Some people are more stress-resistant, while others can’t calm down without help or medications. 

Stress usually targets the weakest part of our bodies or character; if you are prone to skin diseases, stress will restart the process. If you tend to get ill once something in your life changes, stress will cause this. If you have low levels of patience for people, this will be the first thing you will notice when you are under stress.

Even though you can’t avoid stress in your life, it can be managed and taken under control. However, before diving into stress management, you should first explore how stress affects your health and what symptoms can signal that you need help.

What Is Stress?

Stress is the biological reaction of our bodies to harmful situations. In fact, stress can appear regardless of whether the situation is real or imagined. When you experience stress, your body experiences a chemical reaction that allows you to act in a way that prevents injury. This reaction is scientifically called “fight-or-flight” or the stress response. During this reaction, your heart rate increases, quickens breathing, muscles tighten, and your blood pressure rises. Stress helps us to be ready to protect ourselves.

What Are the Common Stress Symptoms?

Stress affects all parts of our lives. It influences hormone levels, emotions, behaviours, thinking ability, as well as physical health. No part of our organism has immunity against stress. Even though there are some common symptoms of stress, everyone has different ones since we all react differently. Symptoms can be silent until the burnout or appear severe as soon as you experience stress, but they all have long-term effects on our health and wellness.

Emotional Symptoms of Stress Are:

  • Becoming easily aggressive, frustrated, and experiencing mood swings;
  • Feeling overwhelmed, like when you can’t take control of your emotions;
  • Not able to relax the mind;
  • Low self-esteem, racing thoughts and feelings of loneliness.

Physical Symptoms of Stress Include:

  • Low energy;
  • Headaches;
  • Digestive issues, such as diarrhoea and nausea;
  • Tension;
  • Sleep issues;
  • Frequent colds and infections;
  • Low sexual desire;
  • Cold or sweaty hands and feet;
  • Dry mouth;
  • Quick breathing.

What Are the Consequences of Long-Term Stress?

As we mentioned, stress happens, and it is a normal reaction. Small amounts of stress are healthy and can even be beneficial for health. However, when you experience chronic stress, it can cause or worsen many serious health problems, such as:

  • Mental health problems like anxiety, depression or personality disorders;
  • Cardiovascular disease;
  • Obesity; 
  • Skin diseases like psoriasis and eczema;
  • Menstrual problems;
  • Sexual dysfunction;
  • Hair loss and problems;
  • Gastrointestinal diseases, like gastritis and ulcerative colitis.

How Does Stress Affect Your Sleep?

If you experience chronic stress, the key and the first symptom will likely be lack of sleep. That is because sleep is the only time our bodies have to recharge and repair, but stress usually causes insomnia. We all had nights when racing thoughts disturbed us from falling asleep or when we had a sleep full of dreams, making us feel tired in the morning. Since stress causes body tension, aches, headaches and overthinking, it could be a real challenge to fall asleep.

Luckily, there are many ways you can manage this situation and achieve a quality night’s rest. But before checking whether you have symptoms of sleep disorders that may require help from a professional. For example, you can download a sleep app that is specially designed to help users overcome stress, reduce racing thoughts, calm down and achieve a quality night’s rest. A sound of rain app can also help individuals struggling with insomnia and other sleep disorders.

Stress Management

These stress effects on health should be considered since you don’t want to damage your health if you can manage stress. The Internet is overflowed with ways and strategies on how to cope with stress or how to reduce stress, but most of them don’t really work, especially when you read them in times of high stress and look for help. There are three key strategies you can consider in almost any stressful situation to take control of your emotions:

  • Maintain a healthy social support network;
  • Include regular physical exercises;
  • Practice mindfulness.

These techniques are the basis of managing stress, and they have many benefits for both mental and psychical health. If you feel like you are not able to cope with stress and don’t want to try methods, you can always consult a licensed psychologist to help you identify your emotions, best respond to stress and improve your mental health.

Final Thoughts

Nowadays, we live in a world where stress is common. In fact, stress has become a normal “habit” in our lives due to dramatic changes that are happening in the world, like COVID-19 and war. However, when stress becomes chronic, it can damage health and lead to several conditions. That is why it is best to know how your body shows it experiences stress and how you can help yourself manage it.

By admin