Causes of stress
Stress is usually a reaction to mental or emotional pressure. It's often related to feeling like you're losing control over something, but sometimes there's no obvious cause. When you're feeling anxious or scared, your body releases stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.
Stress affects our nervous system, causing us to feel tense. When our muscles are tense for a long period of time, it can lead to painful muscle spasms. Essentially, the stress is causing you even more pain, which creates more stress. Stress also increases anxiety and depression, which worsen perception of pain.
Step 1: Identify whether you are stressed. Step 2: Identify your stressor. Step 3: Identify the reason for stressor. Step 4: Identify and apply an appropriate stress management strategy.
If you're constantly under stress, you can have physical symptoms, such as headaches, an upset stomach, high blood pressure, chest pain, and problems with sex and sleep. Stress can also lead to emotional problems, depression, panic attacks, or other forms of anxiety and worry.
There are five stages of stress; fight or flight, damage control, recovery, adaption, and burnout.
feeling tense, nervous or unable to relax. having a sense of dread, or fearing the worst. feeling like the world is speeding up or slowing down. feeling like other people can see you're anxious and are looking at you.
Heart palpitations are a common symptom of your body's flight or fight response to danger, stress or anxiety. If you're experiencing heart palpitations, it can feel like your heart is fluttering, pounding, racing or skipping a beat. They usually come and go within a few minutes.
Stress can cause your muscles to tense up — and over time, that can lead to pain and soreness in virtually any part of the body. The most common stress-related aches and pains are in the neck, back, and shoulders.
Long term: Consistently elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones can increase your odds of heart attack, stroke, and hypertension. These can also affect cholesterol levels and cause inflammation in your circulatory system.
If Left Untreated, Anxiety Wreaks Havoc on Our Brains
Untreated anxiety can result in changes to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. This impaired functioning may increase the risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and dementia.
Are you always waiting for disaster to strike or excessively worried about things such as health, money, family, work, or school? If so, you may have a type of anxiety disorder called generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). GAD can make daily life feel like a constant state of worry, fear, and dread.
The treatment of your stress will vary greatly depending on the types of symptoms you are experiencing and how severe they are. Treatment can range from simple reassurance to inpatient care and evaluation in a hospital setting.
Bad stress, however, is the kind that wears you out, leaves you jittery and is harmful to your health. Bad stress, or distress, can lead to anxiety, confusion, poor concentration and decreased performance. Bad stress can be short-term (acute) or long-term (chronic).
Stress hormones break down the collagen and elastin in skin and interfere with rejuvenation, which can speed up the aging process causing more fine lines and wrinkles. The hair and its growth are also affected by stress by contributing to hair thinning and hair loss.
Red flags indicating a potential problem include: changes in eating habits, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, significant mood changes including depression, anxiety, panic or anger, demonstrating violent behaviors or utilizing alcohol, marijuana or prescription drugs to deal with stress.
Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.
A cortisol test measures the level of cortisol in your body. Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, is important to several bodily functions. Cortisol testing requires a sample of blood, urine, saliva or a combination, and the test often is repeated.
But chronic stress, which is constant and persists over an extended period of time, can be debilitating and overwhelming. Chronic stress can affect both our physical and psychological well-being by causing a variety of problems including anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system.