Financial problems, personal relationship issues, moving house, mental health issues or difficulties at work can all make us feel stressed. To help you be ready to respond to situations that can seem threatening or stressful your body will make physical adjustments. It might release hormones to increase your heart rate or boost your blood pressure or stop your digestion so that you can “fight or flight”. But these responses should only last a few minutes and problems can arise when you experience feelings of heightened stress for long periods of time and your body is constantly behaving in a way to help you fight back, because this can make your feelings of stress worse.
Stress can cause mental and physical illnesses such as anxiety, depression, altered appetite, headaches, backache or difficulty in sleeping. Over time, heart disease or ulcers may also develop. People may also try to reduce the symptoms of stress with alcohol, cigarettes, tranquillisers or other drugs, which can lead to further, more serious health issues. Read more about alcohol, drugs and substance abuse.
10. Be kind to yourself
Keep things in perspective. Focussing on only the bad things that might happen will prevent you from enjoying the good things that are happening just now. Recognise your own signs of stress, and take charge of your own emotions, thoughts and actions. Keep a positive attitude. Try changing your thinking from "there's no help anyone can give me" to "what can i do improve my situation". Be kind to yourself. Seek support from other people - discussing sources of worry with others rather than keeping them to yourself can help. Even if they can't directly change the source of stress, another person's point of view can put things in a different light.
The way we experience stress depends on the kind of people we are and the situations we’re in. This means it’s not particularly straightforward to identify. Stress could express itself in our emotions, behaviour or physical health. If you’re prone to headaches or back pain, for example, you’re more likely to have a flare up when stressed. Others find that stress makes them more sensitive to their allergies, or causes them to lose their usual patience with friends and colleagues, making them more likely to lash out. They may have trouble concentrating or making decisions, lose their sense of humour, overeat or eat too little, or drink or smoke more, because they are feeling stressed.
Stress is a normal physical and psychological response to the everyday demands of life. Small amounts of stress can motivate you to face daily challenges. But when stress becomes too much to manage, it can be unhealthy. Everyone experiences stressful times, but can you tell when stress is becoming toxic? "i think some key signs are when we're not able to do our important life activities, like if we're not able to remember our appointments or work, procrastinating on important things like paying our bills or buying groceries, or attending to our family matters," says dr. Beth rush , a mayo clinic neuropsychologist.