What is stress?
Stress is your body’s response to pressure or demand. It is often described as a “fight or flight” response that prepares you to react quickly in an emergency. When you experience stress, your body releases hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones increase your heart rate, blood pressure, and energy levels so you can respond to a threat.
While a little stress can help you stay focused and alert, chronic stress can have serious impacts on your physical and mental health. If you constantly feel frazzled, anxious, or overwhelmed, you may be suffering from too much stress.
What causes stress?
Stress can be caused by both external and internal factors. Common external causes of stress include:
- Major life changes – Starting a new job, getting married, having a baby, or experiencing a loss can all trigger stress.
- Workplace issues – Heavy workloads, long hours, job insecurity, and conflicts can all contribute to work-related stress.
- Financial problems – Not having enough money to pay your bills or provide for your family is an enormous source of stress.
- Relationship difficulties – Fights with your spouse, issues with your kids, and poor communication can strain relationships and cause stress.
- Traumatic events – Living through natural disasters, accidents, assaults, or deaths of loved ones can lead to stress disorders like acute stress disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Internal causes of stress include:
- Pessimism – Having a negative outlook on life can lead to constant worrying and anxiety.
- Rigid thinking – Seeing things as black or white with no middle ground leaves no room for flexibility.
- Unrealistic expectations – Setting excessively high expectations for yourself or others will inevitably lead to falling short.
- Perfectionism – Holding yourself to unrealistic standards of perfection can create chronic frustration when your performance falls short.
- Poor coping skills – Not having healthy mechanisms to manage stress, such as exercise, relaxation techniques, or social support can allow stress to accumulate.
What are the symptoms of too much stress?
If you’re experiencing too much stress, you may exhibit both physical and emotional symptoms, including:
Physical symptoms
- Headaches
- Muscle tension
- Chest pain
- Fatigue
- Upset stomach
- Change in appetite
- Teeth grinding
Emotional symptoms
- Anxiety
- Restlessness
- Lack of motivation
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Irritability or anger
- Sadness or depression
If you notice multiple physical or emotional symptoms of stress, it’s time to take action to get your stress under control.
How does chronic stress affect your health?
While short-term stress can give you a burst of energy and focus to power through tough situations, chronic stress has serious detrimental impacts on your health. Effects of long-term, unmanaged stress include:
- Cardiovascular disease – Stress hormones raise blood pressure and heart rate, increasing risk of heart attack and stroke.
- Obesity – Cortisol increases appetite and cravings for fat and sugar. Stress eating also leads to weight gain.
- Diabetes – Stress alters blood sugar levels and insulin resistance.
- Headaches – Muscle tension caused by stress can lead to migraine headaches.
- Asthma – Stress can cause asthma attacks by inflaming airways.
- Depression and anxiety – Chronic stress depletes mood-boosting neurotransmitters like serotonin.
- Gastrointestinal issues – Stress negatively impacts digestion and can cause diarrhea, constipation, and nausea.
Research shows that chronic stress shortens telomeres, which are protective caps on DNA strands. Shorter telomeres are associated with aging, disease, and higher mortality rates. Therefore, excessive stress can truly take years off your life.
Why does stress affect me more than other people?
While stress is unavoidable for everyone, some people have a harder time managing stress than others. Reasons why you may be more stress-sensitive include:
- Genetics – Variations in genes that control stress hormones and neurotransmitters can make some people more reactive to stressors.
- Personality – People who are highly anxious, perfectionistic, inflexible, or negative tend to experience more stress.
- Early life experiences – Trauma, abuse, poverty, or family dysfunction in childhood primes some people to have overactive stress responses.
- Health conditions – Illnesses like heart disease, depression, and chronic pain make people more vulnerable to stress.
- Lifestyle habits – Poor self-care like lack of exercise, unhealthy diet, or substance abuse inhibits stress resilience.
- Life circumstances – High demands, pressures, and chronic adversity in areas like relationships, work, or finances can overwhelm coping abilities.
While you can’t change genetics, childhood experiences, or certain life circumstances, you can take steps to build your overall stress resilience. Strengthening lifestyle habits, social support networks, and coping mechanisms can all help make you less stress-sensitive.
What are some healthy ways to cope with stress?
To combat chronic stress, it’s essential to build healthy coping strategies into your daily life. Here are some positive ways to cope with stress:
Exercise regularly
Aerobic exercise like brisk walking, cycling, swimming, or jogging for 30-60 minutes 3-5 times per week can help reduce stress hormones and neurotransmitters. Weight training can also help blow off steam.
Practice relaxation techniques
Try yoga, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, massage, aromatherapy, or music therapy to activate the body’s relaxation response and lower blood pressure and heart rate. Even taking 10-15 minutes a day to sit quietly and breathe can induce relaxation.
Maintain social connections
Talking face-to-face with friends and loved ones provides emotional support and releases oxytocin to counteract stress. Sharing feelings with others often lessens their burden.
Get enough sleep
Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night. Lack of sleep increases the stress hormone cortisol and disrupts mood regulation. Establish a regular bedtime routine and limit screen time before bed.
Focus on nutrition
Choose vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats. Limit sugar, refined carbs, and alcohol which can worsen stress reactions. Stay hydrated with water instead of sugary drinks.
Set priorities
Each day, identify your top priorities and focus on accomplishing them one step at a time. Cross tasks off your to-do list to see your progress. Limit unnecessary obligations that drain your time and energy.
Reframe your thoughts
Adopt more positive perspectives on challenges by disputing pessimistic thoughts. Look for lessons and opportunities for growth in stressful situations. Remind yourself that you have the skills to cope.
Seek professional help
If self-care isn’t relieving your stress, consider counseling or a stress management class. Joining a support group can also help reduce feelings of isolation.
When should I seek professional help for stress?
It’s time to seek professional help for stress if:
- Self-care isn’t helping relieve your stress.
- Stress is disrupting your relationships, work, or education.
- You constantly feel overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed.
- You rely on unhealthy coping mechanisms like excessive alcohol, drugs, or food.
- You have suicidal thoughts.
Consulting a psychologist, counselor, psychiatrist, life coach, or other mental health professional can help you identify unproductive thought and behavior patterns that worsen stress. Therapy provides support, insight, and targeted techniques to better manage stress. Medications may also be warranted if anxiety or depression are present.
What lifestyle changes can reduce stress?
Making the following positive lifestyle changes can build your resilience and fight the effects of chronic stress:
Increase physical activity
Aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise like walking, cycling, or swimming on most days. Moving your body releases endorphins that elevate mood naturally.
Improve your diet
Limit caffeine, alcohol, refined carbs and sugar which can exacerbate stress reactions. Boost Omega-3s from fatty fish that have anti-inflammatory effects. Complex carbs boost serotonin to improve mood.
Increase social connection
Make time each week for activities with close friends and family to enjoy laughter and feel supported. Loneliness and isolation raise stress hormone levels.
Manage your time better
Prioritize important tasks each day and week. Delegate or eliminate unnecessary obligations. Build in breaks to balance demanding activities. Avoid overscheduling yourself.
Organize your environment
Reduce clutter and create peaceful spaces. Simplify commitments and possessions to only keep what’s essential. serene surroundings are calming during stressful times.
Improve sleep habits
Be consistent with sleep and wake times, limit caffeine and alcohol, and avoid stimulating screens before bed. Relaxing activities like reading help transition to sleep.
Try stress management techniques
Take up yoga, meditation, deep breathing, massage, or guided imagery sessions to activate relaxation responses and provide healthy outlets for stress.
Explore psychotherapy
Work with a therapist to identify thought and behavior patterns making stress harder to handle. Therapy empowers positive coping strategies.
Reevaluate priorities
Cut out unnecessary obligations. Pursue work, hobbies, and relationships that fulfill you. Define success on your own terms instead of others’ expectations.
What are some quick stress relief strategies?
When you notice stress building, try these fast tactics to calm down quickly:
- Take 5 deep breaths counting to 5 on each inhale and exhale
- Drink a glass of cold water
- Take a brisk 10 minute walk outdoors
- Listen to uplifting music for 10 minutes
- Call a supportive friend
- Close your eyes and visualize your happy place for 5 minutes
- Write down what’s bothering you to get emotions out
- Do 10 minutes of light stretching or foam rolling
- Eat a healthy snack like yogurt, fruit, or nuts
- Declutter for 10 minutes to create order
- Do a quick meditation or prayer
- Cuddle your pet if you have one
- Watch a funny video or read an uplifting quote
Look for opportunities throughout the day to engage in quick stress relief practices. With time, these strategies build resilience against stress.
When should I seek emergency care for stress?
Seek immediate emergency care if stress leads to:
- Thoughts of harming or killing yourself
- Thoughts of harming others
- Hallucinations
- Heart palpitations, crushing chest pain, or trouble breathing
- Hyperventilation
- Panic attack lasting more than 10 minutes
- Flashbacks to a traumatic event
- Feeling detached from reality
- Alcohol or drug overdose
Tell emergency medical providers that stress reactions are causing your symptoms. Ask them to avoid medications that could worsen anxiety or interact with stress hormones unless absolutely needed. Request referrals for mental health treatment while in the emergency department.
Conclusion
Stress can be detrimental to your health and quality of life when left unmanaged. Identifying your personal stress triggers and learning positive coping mechanisms is key to getting stress under control. Implement lifestyle changes to build resilience against life’s challenges and pressures. Seek outside support if needed. You have the power to master stress and live with greater ease and wellbeing.