Stress is something that we have all experienced at some point in our lives. Stress is your body’s reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure. It is very common to feel stressed. For example, someone can feel stressed about an upcoming exam, work presentation, and other demands from life. Stress can mean different things to different people. For example, people can feel stressed about things such as sports like football or even buying a house.
What can be detrimental is feeling stressed over long periods of time. Which in turn can begin to affect your mood, body and the relationships around you. When stress begins to show itself regularly in different ways such as sleeplessness, anger, poor concentration and mood swings. This signals a problem.
Stress does not only impact your mental health you can also experience physical symptoms such as shaking, trembling, dizziness and sweating. Take a moment to reflect whether you have experienced some of these things. I know that I have experienced some of these. I can tell you that it is one of the worst feelings as you feel so out of control within yourself. Our bodies aren’t designed to experience these reactions long-term as they negatively impact our overall health.
The Effects of Stress on your body
Stress and Cardiovascular System
Chronic stress or experiencing stress over a long period of time can contribute to long term problems from heart to blood vessels. When you’re stressed your body releases hormones like adrenaline, the ‘fight or flight’ hormone. Adrenaline makes your heartbeat faster and your blood pressure rise as a way of helping your body cope with the situation. Once your stress has gone down your blood pressure should go back to normal.
Stress alone does not cause heart and circulatory disease. It is the unhealthy habits we adopt when we are stressed that cause issues such as eating junk food, Smoking, lack of sleep, drinking too much alcohol and not being physically active.
Stress and Digestion
One of the symptoms of stress can be unease in your stomach. In some individuals stress can slow down digestion, causing pain bloating or constipation. In addition to this stress can worsen digestive conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome and stomach ulcers.
Why stress management is important
Part of well-being is dealing with stress that can drastically impact your quality of life. Remember wellbeing is something that you do, rather than something that you are . Of course, we cannot anticipate all stressful situations, some things just happen beyond our own control. But part of experiencing wellbeing is having control over your life. In this ‘Stress Management Series’ we will explore different ways to manage stress in your life.
Disclaimer: O’Luminous is my guide to wellbeing designed to aid to living a better life. It is not to replaced with professional help. Always make sure to consult and seek medical help. Contact your GP if you are struggling to cope with stress.
