![How stress affects your mental and physical health How stress affects your mental and physical health](https://healthcirkle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-ketut-subiyanto-4474035-768x512.jpg)
Stress can be defined as a state of anxiety or mental tension brought on by a challenging circumstance. Stress is a normal human response that drives us to deal with challenges and threats in our lives. Everyone in this world can experience stress in any situation.
What Are Signs and Symptoms of stress?
Every aspect of your life, including your emotions, behaviors, ability for thought, and physical health, can be impacted by stress. The entire body lacks immunity. But since everyone reacts to stress differently, symptoms of stress can vary from one person to another.It is crucial to discuss them with your doctor.Here are a few stress-related warning signs and symptoms.
Emotional symptoms of stress include
- Being easily frustrated and having mood swings
- Getting overwhelmed as you think you are losing control
- Having trouble unwinding and calming your mind
- feeling very lonely and miserable as well as having poor self-esteem
- Avoiding other people
Some of the physical symptoms of stress are as follows
- low enthusiasm and energy
- Diarrhea and constipation along with vomiting
- Muscle aches, headache , and tension
- chest discomfort and a fast heartbeat
- A dry mouth and difficulty in swallowing
Stress is simply a response to a threat in any situation. In other words, it causes your body to go into “fight-or-flight” mode.
Effect of stress on a person’s Physical Health
- Respiratory: When we are going through stress, we often breathe more quickly to provide more oxygen-rich blood to the body. Some people claim to feel as if they are having trouble breathing or that their chest is heavy. This may worsen pre-existing breathing problems and cause worry and panic, leading one to fear having a significant physical health problem.
- Digestive: Acid reflux, ulcers, stomach pains and cramps, bloating, diarrhea or constipation, nausea, and vomiting are all increased by anxiety and stress.
- Muscular: The muscles usually contract during a stressful situation and then relax to protect the body from any kind of harm.
If the stress becomes more chronic, the one suffering from it won’t get a chance to relax and this may lead to headaches, back pain, or shoulder body pain. This kind of pain will further cause issues when a person can’t do exercise due to it or has to take medicines in order to cope up.
- Cardiovascular: Stress makes your heart beat quicker and your blood vessels contract, which helps your muscles get more oxygen so you can fight off or get rid of the trigger. But doing so also makes one’s blood pressure go up. Stress that is ongoing or frequent can make someone more susceptible to high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks.
- Diabetes: When under stress, the body has a tendency to produce more glucose to provide the extra energy needed. Type 2 diabetes is more likely to develop when stress becomes chronic because the body may not be able to keep up.
- Immunity: Long-term stress tends to make it harder for a person to fight off infections, which makes them more vulnerable to viral and bacterial diseases. Moreover, it may speed up recovery time.
Effects on one’s mental health
- Sleep: Stress often makes it hard to get to sleep and stay asleep. One’s sleep cycle might also be impacted due to stress.This type of chronic stress can lead to Insomnia.
- Hunger: Stress has a tendency to affect hunger, which may either increase or decrease.
- Loss of control: Being under stress can make one feel overwhelmed, which makes one think they are losing control of their mind. This could also make people feel even more stressed than before.
- Mind : Long term stress can lead to mental health problems such as depression, brain strokes, schizophrenia, anxiety and bipolar disorders. It can also lead to irritation and as well as increased anger.
- Memory : Stress also impacts one’s memory.A person’s attention and concentration may be affected by stress, making a task take longer to accomplish
Conclusion
Therefore, it is very important to deal with stress as soon as it arises and prevent it from becoming chronic in nature. If you’re having trouble managing stress, Make sure you reach out to a mental health professional who can help you work on better coping mechanisms.