The effects of stress on the body are the outcome of encountering a demand or obstacle in life that causes strain in the body or mind.
Everyone feels stress, but if it persists over an extended period of time, it may still be detrimental to your health. These are the ways that stress may harm your health, along with some solutions.
Stress: What Is It?
Your physical and emotional response to a demand or difficulty is called stress. The adrenal glands, which are glands located atop each kidney, receive chemical and nerve signals from the brain, informing them that you are in danger. Subsequently, the adrenal glands secrete chemicals including cortisol and adrenaline, which may elevate:
- blood pressure
- blood sugar levels
- Inhaling
- heart rate
- Tension in the muscles
- Perspiration
Acute, or short-term, stress passes fast, as in the case of an argument or fleeing a house fire.
What Are the Physical Effects of Persistent Stress?
If your stress is ongoing and lasts for many weeks or more, it’s considered chronic. Your body continues to remain in an awake, reactive state when your stress lasts longer, such as when you’re experiencing financial troubles, and this causes both psychological and physical symptoms.
Hair Loss
Hair loss might happen during a period of high stress in your life. Stressful events like divorce or the death of a loved one may cause hair loss. Your hair will cease falling out after the tension has passed. Your hair may not grow back to its typical volume for six to nine months.
Anxiety and stress may also play a role in trichotillomania, a condition in which sufferers tear off their hair excessively. Before pulling out their hair, people with this disorder often describe feeling stressed. Medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and habit reversal training—identifying tendencies and attempting to modify them via awareness and social support—may all be used as treatments for trichotillomania.
Headaches
Tension headaches and migraines may be brought on by stress and can occur during the stressful episode or during the “let-down” phase that follows.
The most prevalent kind of headache is tension headache. They usually occur in the head, scalp, or neck region and feel like a “band is squeezing the head”. Stress may exacerbate an existing headache by causing your muscles to stiffen.
In addition to taking medicine to cure the headache, you may also discover strategies to address the stress that is producing it. This may mean making your house headache-proof or changing the way you eat and live. Additionally, you may use stress-reduction or relaxation methods, such as:
- The use of acupuncture
- Biofeedback
- behavioral and cognitive feedback
- Hot packs or ice
- Massage
- deliberate meditation
In addition to its potential benefits for relaxation, anxiety, and self-esteem, exercise may also help you manage stress. Try yoga, aerobics, weightlifting, or leisure sports like volleyball or basketball.
Skin Issues
Stress may exacerbate skin conditions or issues. In particular, stress affects acne. Although stress does not directly cause acne, it may exacerbate its symptoms. The severity of your acne worsens with increased stress.
Psoriasis may also become worse under stress. A growing number of medical professionals are beginning to use stress-reduction methods like biofeedback and meditation in their psoriasis treatment regimens.
Heart Issues
Your heart rate rises in reaction to stress on your body’s cardiovascular system. Persistent stress increases blood vessel constriction, which in turn elevates blood pressure. This increases your risk of heart attacks, high blood pressure, and other cardiovascular issues.
For example, a significant proportion of the population experiences stress at work; among those in employment, job-related stress affects 10% to 40% of them, and severe chronic stress affects 33% of them. Individuals who are under stress at work have an increased risk of heart disease.
The risk of stroke is 22% greater in those with high-stress employment than in people with low-stress jobs. employment that is psychologically taxing—mental load, coordination demands, and time constraints—is classified as high-stress employment. People can become stressed out when they don’t have as much control over their occupations or the amount of effort required of them.
The risk of heart disease and stroke may be raised by certain variables and actions. An individual may participate in certain actions as a result of stress, including:
- Absence of exercise
- not taking prescription drugs as directed
- Consuming too much
- Consuming tobacco
- unhealthy eating habits
Long-term stress may be detrimental to one’s mental well-being and blood pressure, both of which raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Try living a heart-healthy lifestyle, which might include the following, to prevent stress-related cardiac issues:
- Reducing intake of added sugar, salt, and saturated fat
- Consuming a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and healthy grains that is plant-based
- Participating in moderate-intense physical activity for at least 150 minutes per week
- If you smoke, you should stop.
- Water as a replacement for sugary beverages
Whether it is taking time off from work when necessary or making extra time for friends and family, try to identify the causes of stress in your life and focus on managing them. You may also meditate and engage in mindfulness exercises.
Flare-Ups in Asthma
Asthma triggers include recognized emotional stressors. These feelings and stress may exacerbate your asthma symptoms if you have it. This is due to the fact that stress has an impact on breathing, even in those without asthma. Your breathing may quicken and your muscles may tense.
Breathing mindfully may aid with stress reduction. The following are the steps to practice mindful breathing:
- Breathe softly through your mouth and in through your nose.
- Take a seven-second breath, hold it for another seven seconds, and then release the breath.
- Let go of other thoughts and concentrate on your breathing.
- Do this three times.
High Blood Sugar
Because stress is known to affect blood sugar, people with type 2 diabetes may notice that their blood sugar rises during stressful situations.
Stress has been linked to higher levels of cortisol, glucose, and insulin resistance.
In one study, individuals with high levels of stress had a lower likelihood of adhering to food and exercise regimens for the treatment of diabetes.
Gastrointestinal Issues
Hormones generated during times of stress or anxiety may obstruct digestion, leading to a variety of gastrointestinal (GI) problems, such as:
- Constipation
- The diarrhea
- indigestion
- appetite decline
- emesis
- ulceration in the stomach
- cramping in the stomach
Stress in particular is known to play a role in the development of irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, which is characterized by discomfort and episodes of diarrhea and constipation.
Increased Appetite
A short-term stress response might be the cause of your lack of appetite. On the other hand, prolonged stress causes your body to release the hormone cortisol, which boosts hunger and causes you to eat more sugary and fattening foods.Consuming meals rich in saturated fat and sugar might cause weight gain.
Furthermore, you may overeat or choose unhealthy foods when you feel stressed out and associate food with good feelings. This phenomenon is known as stress or emotional eating.
Knowing your triggers and being prepared for when stress is likely to strike are crucial. This entails storing up on protein- and fat-rich, well-balanced snacks. Steer clear of sugary and saturated fat-rich snacks. Exercise may also help you manage stress and enhance your general health.
Lack of sleep
Hyperarousal, a biological condition in which humans lack a drowsy feeling, may be brought on by stress.Stress is a prominent cause of insomnia, a sleep condition characterized by persistent difficulties sleeping and staying asleep.
While long-term exposure to chronic stress may interrupt sleep and lead to sleep disorders, big stressful events can also create insomnia that resolves on its own.
Prioritize proper sleep habits and sleep hygiene; create an environment that encourages restful sleep. To do this, you can:
- avoiding heavy meals, drinks, and alcohol before bed
- Steer clear of caffeine, particularly in the afternoon
- Eliminating distracting elements like bright lights, TV, and sounds
- maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake-up time each day
- Maintaining a cool temperature in your bedroom
To ease any anxiety in addition to your stress and sleeplessness, you may also attempt yoga or any stress-relieving exercise throughout the day, or you can try cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Problems with Work Performance
There are various pressures in life, and one area where you could cope with stress is at work. Stress at work might exacerbate other stressors in your life.
Stress may lead to decreased productivity in the workplace, as well as decreased job satisfaction and motivation in the classroom.
This form of stress doesn’t have a single, universal remedy; instead, each industry, company, and organization should develop a stress management plan specific to its surroundings. Reducing workplace stress as much as possible ought to be the aim.
Asking your workplace to provide stress-management training is one way to find a solution. This kind of training may cover issues like poor communication within the firm as well as individual stress relievers.
Complications of Pregnancy
The stress and worry that a pregnant person goes through might affect the pregnancy both during and even before conception. If stress is not controlled, there may be a higher risk of:
- low birth weight
- early labor
- depression after childbirth
since a result, it’s critical to lower the stress levels that the soon-to-be parent encounters, since this may improve both parties’ health. This may be accomplished using:
- Consuming a balanced diet
- Meditating
- Yoga for pregnant women
- Counseling
If you’re pregnant and under a lot of stress, see a doctor.
Memory and Learning Problems
Although the exact relationship between stress and memory is yet unknown, experts think that stress affects both, particularly in the classroom, learning and memory.
Exams, assessments, and deadlines are just a few of the stressful situations that instructors and students encounter in the classroom. Stress and education do have an impact on memory and learning. It’s unclear, however, whether this will have a beneficial or negative effect. In certain cases, stress may improve memory, while in others, it might make memory worse.
It’s uncertain when memory impairment occurs and how long stress affects memory. Furthermore, it’s unclear whether these deficits are influenced by the types and severity of the stresses.
Regretfully, little research exists to provide guidance to educators and learners on reducing stress in their daily lives. But regular exercise, getting adequate sleep, meditation, and avoiding coffee may all help anybody who is stressed.
Early Aging
Prolonged stress and traumatic experiences may both accelerate the aging process. This occurs as a result of stress shortening cell telomeres. The caps that shield cell chromosome ends are called telomeres. Your cells age more quickly when the telomeres are shortened.
Decreased Sexual Impulsivity
Your mental state influences your level of sexual desire, so worry, for example, might actually lower your sex drive. Reduced levels of sexual arousal are linked to high levels of stress. This is linked to hormonal and psychological variables that are present in individuals who endure prolonged stress.
Reducing and managing stress will frequently improve sexual dysfunction, but it’s crucial to speak to a healthcare specialist since there may be other factors, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
Ways to Control Your Stress
Even though stress may affect your body and mind in a variety of ways, there are strategies to manage and lessen it. All you need to do is determine what is best for you. Here are some long-term stress management strategies:
- Engage in regular exercise.The average adult should try to obtain 150 minutes of exercise per week.
- Try practicing yoga, meditation, or muscle relaxation techniques to unwind.
- Ensure that you are receiving enough sleep each night.The majority of individuals need seven hours or more of sleep every night.
- Steer clear of caffeine-containing foods and beverages.
- Improve your ability to manage your time.Choose which activities must be completed right now and which ones can wait.
- Seek assistance from your friends and relatives.