5 Signs You’re Under Too Much Stress (and What to Do About It)
In the fast-paced world that we live in, stress is the name of the game. However, it can take a toll on your body and mind. To protect your overall health, it’s essential to learn to recognize the symptoms of stress and find ways to manage it.
A small amount of stress is expected and may even be beneficial since stress response pushes you to accomplish your tasks and achieve your goals.
But here’s the thing: stress can become unhealthy when it starts to take over your life.
Too much stress, whether chronic stress or acute stress, may cause physical, emotional, and mental health issues. Proper stress management training can help reduce your stress levels before it takes control of your life.
However, you won’t be able to manage stress and develop the right stress response if you don’t know how to recognize it. Continue reading this article to understand the common symptoms of stress and what you can do about it.
5 Telltale Signs That You’re Under Too Much Stress
Fact: Our bodies are designed to experience stress and respond to it. When we’re exposed to stressful situations, the fight or flight stress response of our central nervous system causes our adrenal glands to secrete stress hormones which, in turn, causes our body to produce specific responses.
In the case of acute stress, the responses are followed by periods of relaxation. However, chronic stress prevents our body’s natural relaxation response which causes a wide range of symptoms of stress that come with negative health consequences. Here are 5 of the common ones:
1. Physical Symptoms
As mentioned, too much stress comes with a few health consequences, manifested by different physical symptoms.
When you are in stressful situations (i.e., traffic jam, arguing with someone, running late to work, beating work deadlines, etc.), you may experience short-term stress. During these times, there will be a high level of stress hormones in your body which will set off a cascade of physical symptoms like:
- Muscle pain or tension
- Jaw clenching
- Chest pain
- Digestive Problems (Nausea, Vomiting, Diarrhea, and Constipation)
- Blood pressure rises
- Excessive sweating
- Palpitations
- Dry mouth
- Dizziness
- Shaking
- Difficulty of breathing
On the other hand, there’s what we call long term stress or the case in which the activation of your stress response is prolonged, and your body is not given adequate time to relax and recover. This will cause wear and tear to your body which would bring about the following physical signs:
- High blood pressure/ Hypertension
Chronic stress is bad for your blood pressure and heart. This is because the increased hormones (like cortisol) deplete dopamine which the body needs to regulate blood pressure and heart rate. As a results, blood pressure rise and will increase your risk of heart disease.
- Hair loss
According to studies, chronic stress could push the hair follicles into resting phase, preventing them from producing new strands.
The changes in hormone levels and poor diet due to lack of appetite may also cause the hair to break or fall.
- Weakened immune system/ Low immune system
Because of the prolonged elevation of stress hormones in our body can alter our body’s immune system responses, which makes us more susceptible to developing illness and infections.
- Chronic Pain
Prolonged muscle tension may cause chronic backaches, while increased blood pressure may cause constant headaches.
- Weight Fluctuations
Changes in appetite may bring this about. Short-term stress can cause decreased appetite, while long term stress is associated with increased appetite.
2. Emotional Symptoms
Emotional stress, like fear, anger, and sadness, is a normal part of life. However, you may be suffering from unhealthy emotional stress levels if all of these emotions are already interfering with your daily life. Here are some of the emotional stress signs to watch out for:
- Anxiety
This refers to the condition of having overwhelming dread or fear brought about by feelings of helplessness or a strong sense of impending doom. The outward manifestations of anxiety are fingernail biting, constant tapping of feet, fidgeting, nausea, sweaty palms, and a fast heartbeat.
- Feeling Edgy and Irritable
Chronic stress puts us in survival mode, heightening our body’s natural stress response. In addition, being in a fight or flight mode can intensify our emotions, especially the negative ones, which causes us to be irritable and constantly on edge.
- Extreme Sadness/ Depression
There’s a scientific explanation for this. So here it goes: the stress hormone called adrenal glucocorticoid blocks the serotonin receptors in our brain, which causes an imbalance in our serotonin (happy hormone) levels, causing extreme sadness or depression.
- Low Sex Drive
To cope with chronic stress, our body uses up our sex hormones to keep up with the demands of increased cortisol production,
leading to reduced sex drive.
3. Mental Symptoms
Chronic tress can change your brain’s structure. With that said, one of the common mental symptoms of stress is your impaired decision-making ability.
Here might be why: Our brain comprises a network of support cells and neurons referred to as gray matter, which is responsible for decision-making and problem-solving. Chronic stress causes overproduction of myelin which causes a disruption of the balance between the gray and white matter in our brain, affecting our ability to solve problems and make logical decisions.
When you’re stressed, you’d also suffer from poor memory. This is because stress can kill the new neurons in the side of our brain that are associated with learning and memory.
4. Behavioral Symptoms
All the emotional, physical and mental symptoms can also lead to behavioral symptoms of stress. Here are the most common ones:
- Aggression
- Impulsive behavior
- Decreased productivity
- Loss of interest in self-care
- Difficulty in communicating with other people
- Social withdrawal
- Lack of interest/ zest for life
5. Relationship Issues
Stress can destroy relationships.
If you can’t handle stress, you won’t have the emotional and mental upkeep needed to be a loving, caring, and reasonable person, which can damage your relationships.
If your partner, a family member, or the people most important to you are already noticing the changes in the way you act, pay attention to them to determine if it’s stress that’s causing all these issues.
It’s Official: You’re a Big Ball of Stress. So what to Do About It?
If you’ve been dealing with many symptoms we’ve mentioned, it means you’re under too much stress. Now that you’ve already recognized your situation, the next important step is to find ways how to manage stress:
1. Identify your triggers.
Feeling overwhelmed in stressful situations is quite normal, and it can get quite tricky for us to identify our stress triggers. That’s why you must keep a journal where you can write down the details of all your stressful episodes to identify the triggers and how you cope with them.
Some of the information you may want to monitor are the date, time, and place of the stressful episode, the people involved, what you’re doing, what your emotions were, your physical symptoms, and your thoughts during the situation.
2. Try different stress relief techniques.
The most effective stress relief techniques are breathing exercises, physical exercises, mindful meditation, guided visualization, etc.
3. Establish a support system.
One of the best ways to handle stress is to talk through it, and it helps that you talk it out with the people who’d understand how you feel. That’s why it’s highly recommended that you join a stress management group or class which can help you identify the cause of your stress and find a way to cope with it.
4. Seek professional help from a mental health professional.
We recommend that you seek help from a healthcare provider if:
- the stress relief techniques weren’t effective.
- you’re already suffering from severe stress-related health issues.
- your behavior, mental, and emotional symptoms are already out of control.
The Bottom Line
Stress, in itself, is not an illness. It’s even safe to say that little stress is a regular part of our lives, especially when dealing with different life changes.
But without proper stress management, too much stress can cause a wide range of health problems and may cause physical, mental, health, and behavioral symptoms, which may ruin your relationships, career, and entire life.
You shouldn’t take these warning signs of stress too lightly. The first step of stress management is to identify that you’re suffering from most or all of these symptoms of stress. Then, when you do, be brave enough to tackle them head-on or seek medical help and support when necessary so you can learn how to handle stress and unlock the keys to a better and healthier you.
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