This can put you at increased risk for a variety of physical and mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, digestive issues, headaches, muscle tension and pain, heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep problems, weight gain, and memory and concentration impairment.
Distress can lead to physical symptoms including headaches, upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain, and problems sleeping. Research suggests that stress also can bring on or worsen certain symptoms or diseases.
The long-term effects of stress on the body affect more than just the mind. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), stress influences the body's major systems like respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous.
Stress can cause an imbalance of neural circuitry subserving cognition, decision making, anxiety and mood that can increase or decrease expression of those behaviors and behavioral states. This imbalance, in turn, affects systemic physiology via neuroendocrine, autonomic, immune and metabolic mediators.
Some of the physical signs that your stress levels are too high include: Pain or tension in your head, chest, stomach, or muscles. Your muscles tend to tense up when you're stressed, and over time this can cause headaches, migraines, or musculoskeletal problems.
Research shows that stress can contribute to the development of major illnesses, such as heart disease, depression, and obesity. The consequences of chronic stress are serious.
Indeed, stress symptoms can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior. Being able to recognize common stress symptoms can help you manage them. Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Toxic stress response:
This is the body's response to lasting and serious stress, without enough support from a caregiver. When a child doesn't get the help he needs, his body can't turn off the stress response normally. This lasting stress can harm a child's body and brain and can cause lifelong health problems.
Luckily, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold, change, and rebuild damaged areas as you practice new behaviors. So implementing healthy stress-relieving techniques can train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects from stress in the future.
Other than physical illnesses, stress can also give rise to psychological illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and panic, which are all valid medical concerns. Especially if the depression, anxiety, or panic attack is accompanied by suicidal thoughts, it is automatically considered as a medical emergency.
Studies have shown that short-term stress boosted the immune system, but chronic stress has a significant effect on the immune system that ultimately manifest an illness. It raises catecholamine and suppressor T cells levels, which suppress the immune system.
According to a report by the American Psychological Association, long-term stress weakens the responses of your immune system. "That's because stress decreases the body's lymphocytes, the white blood cells that help fight off infection.
If chronic stress has led to overwork, you can usually recover from it within a few weeks. If chronic stress has led to burnout, your body is exhausted. With exhaustion, recovery usually takes six months, a year or even longer. There can be a lot of variation in that.
The same factors impacted the life expectancy of both men and women. For 30-year-old women, e.g. smoking shortened the life expectancy by 5.5 years, diabetes by 5.3 years, and heavy stress by 2.3 years. The effects to the life expectancy of older people were similar but smaller than in younger age groups.
Chronic stress differs from acute stress in that it is a lingering, pervasive feeling of being under pressure or overwhelmed.
These days, a particular family of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which includes Paxil, Prozac and Lexapro, are the most commonly prescribed antidepressant medications for this anti-anxiety, anti-stress purpose.
Foods rich in zinc such as oysters, cashews, liver, beef, and egg yolks have been linked to lowered anxiety. Other foods, including fatty fish like wild Alaskan salmon, contain omega-3 fatty acids. A study completed on medical students in 2011 was one of the first to show that omega-3s may help reduce anxiety.