We all experience stress and it is a regular and unavoidable part of our life. Everybody experiences stress in different amounts and reacts to it in different ways, however, what each of us can do about stress, is earn to control and manage it.

With more stress building up in our daily lives, this is becoming more and more of a necessity, as you will see below, long term chronic stress or chronic stress, can have seriously detrimental effects on our health and well being.

Stress is all something we are familiar with, however not many of us place enough importance on its proper management.

Below I have included all of the relevant information about stress and its effects on our whole body and mind, as well as practical ways with which we can learn to properly manage and control it.

But before all that, let’s start with the basics of stress - What even is stress?

WHAT IS STRESS?

In simple terms, stress is how our body and brain respond to any external demand or challenge that we face, which requires our attention to deal with.

With this, I want to point out that while many of us commonly only associate stress with being loaded with work and having to juggle too many things at school/ work at once, stress is present more often than we may be aware of. Any task or "challenge" as said above, no matter how small or large will pose stress on our body and mind. Although it may not be a big stressor in our life, it is still counted as stress.

Here I want to say that stress to some degree is important in our lives, after all, if there was absolutely no stress in our lives, not even in small amounts, nothing would get done and nothing would change. Stress for our body is yes, stressful, and our body wants to get rid of the feeling of being stressed as quickly as it can, which ultimately causes us to change something in our environment to stop the stressor. Our body and mind can react to stress in many different ways, such as physically, emotionally, or mentally, depending on the individual.

In this way, a certain amount of stress is actually healthy for our well-being, as it keeps us alert and more proactive beings, however, the issue is when we experience persistent stress that almost never subsides. This is where all of the negative effects of long-term stress come in, and believe me, reoccurring or chronic stress has more effects on your health than you may initially think.

TYPES OF STRESS

ACUTE STRES:

This is the stress that is felt for a short period of time and is more infrequent. When we do experience acute stress, our body will respond as it usually does, to try and combat the stress where the effects of the stress may ware-off in a matter of hours, a day, or a couple of days, depending on the severity of the stressor.

An example of acute stress would be getting into an argument with someone and our body responding in a negative and arrogant way. Our anger will usually subside as time passes, however, the stress is generally only present for a short period of time.

CHRONIC STRESS:

This is the more problematic type of stress, which also impacts our whole body and mind, while it being constantly present in our life. Those who experience this type of stress, may not even be aware of it, as could have just accepted it as a part of our being and life - forgetting how it feels to be free of chronic stress.

MAIN STRESS HORMONES

When it comes to regulating and controlling stress in our body, everything comes down to our biochemistry, where hormones and various other chemicals are responsible for initiating our response to stress. The two most common regulating hormones of stress are adrenaline and cortisol, which work hand in hand to handle stress inside our body, every single day.

CORTISOL:

It is the primary stress hormone
Increases availability of glucose in the bloodstream for energy
Enhances your brain's use of glucose (quicker processing)
Increases availability of chemicals that repair tissues

ADRENALINE:

Increases your heart and breathing rate (Delivers more oxygenated blood to muscles)
Elevates your blood pressure
Boosts utilization of our energy supplies (glucose)
Makes us more alert to our surroundings (Our senses become more activated)

HOW DOES STRESS WORK?

The process of dealing with stress in our body goes something like this:

When a stressor or potential threat is registered by our brain, a vitally important region of our brain called the hypothalamus, signals to the adrenal gland, that adrenaline and cortisol have to be released into our bloodstream, which would cause the effects described above.
Our hypothalamus is not only involved in hormone regulation but also plays a vital role with our bodies homeostasis, ensuring that it happens correctly and when needed.
In the case of experiencing acute stress, when the perceived fear is no longer there, our hypothalamus signals to our body that it is time to return to a normal state of functioning.
However, in the case that we are not good at managing stress in our lives, chronic stress results, where the effects of stress do not return back to normal, and we continue to experience the effects described above (elevated heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, blood glucose levels, etc).
In other words, we are never able to fully calm down and return our body to a state of normal functioning.

This, as you will see below, is the state that puts our whole well being into an even greater health risk.

SYMPTOMS OF EXCESSIVE STRESS

Emotional:

Being easily irritated
Feeling overwhelmed
Low self-esteem
Finding it hard to calm down or relax

Physical:

Low energy
Headaches
Digestive issues
Insomnia
Decline in libido
More frequent illness and infections

Cognitive:

Inability to focus
Worrying or thinking about things all the time
Forgetfulness and disorganization
Pessimistic tendencies
Impaired decision making

Behavioral

Changes in appetite
Procrastination
Showing signs of nervous behaviors (pacing, fidgeting, nail-biting)
Greater use of alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs as coping mechanisms

HOW CHRONIC STRESS AFFECTS OUR HEALTH

Chronic stress has many negative effects on our health, which occur both in men and women, regardless of age. It is really important to not take the topic of stress lightly, as the sooner we can learn to control and manage it, the better off we will be physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here are some direct ways in which chronic stress interferes with your health.

EXPERIENCING INSOMNIA MORE FREQUENTLY

Those who are often under stressful conditions are much more likely to suffer from insomnia, as stress prevents our body from calming down and getting into a restful state, as stress raises our heart rate, body temperature, and fires up our brain with activity - all things which we do not want when we are trying to fall asleep. The resulting inability to fall asleep can make us even more stressed out, leading only to an unhealthy cycle. You can read more about the importance of getting good sleep in this article: Hidden Power Of Your Sleep.

WORSE HEART HEALTH

Stress is able to negatively impact our heart health, because stress, due to adrenaline, increases our heart rate and consequently our blood pressure. When over an extended period of time we experience an increase in blood pressure, it damages our blood vessels, leading to not only more cardiac issues down the line but also shortness of breath as our breathing muscles tense up more.

EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY

Chronic stress has been linked with more frequent occurrences of anxiety, depression, moodiness, irritability, and feelings of helplessness (being overwhelmed). These are often indicators of experiencing too much stress, which makes it even harder to manage our stress.

WEAKER IMMUNE SYSTEM

Although many other factors influence our immune system, stress comes out high on top. This is because when we are heavily stressed, our body responds by producing fewer lymphocytes (White blood cells), which declines the effectiveness of our immune system and makes us much more prone to infections and illness. If you would like to know more about how to additionally take care of your immune system, check out this blog post here: How To Naturally Boost Your Immune System.

INCREASES CHANCES OF DEVELOPING EATING DISORDERS

Stress is known to have effects on our appetite, by messing with our hormones, including our hormones responsible for our appetite. In the long term, this can either go two ways: We can either become more prone to overeating, causing us more likely to be overweight or leading to a decrease in our appetite that can make us underweight - either way, an unhealthy scenario.

ABNORMAL HAIR LOSS

Excessive stress has also been correlated with an unhealthy amount of hair loss, where too much stress has been shown to negatively affect the life cycle of our hair follicles on our scalp, which causes them to prematurely turn to a rest phase, during which the hair is shed.

DIGESTIVE ISSUES

Experiencing excessive stress has also been linked with more abdominal issues, such as more frequent stomach aches, along with more constipation. Furthermore, we may be more prone to feeling nauseous during the day, which of course negatively impacts our performance during the day

RAISED BLOOD SUGAR

As was said before, stress initiates our flight or fight response, which reflexively releases glucose into our bloodstream and makes it more available, which leads to a build-up of excessive glucose in our bloodstream and over time makes our body more resistant to insulin - the hormone that is responsible for allowing cells to uptake glucose from our blood. Overall this increases our chances of developing type II diabetes.

FERTILITY ISSUES

Stress has also been shown to have a negative impact on both the fertility and sexual health of men and women, where when exposed to high levels of stress, women may experience harder conception as well as an interruption in their menstrual cycle, leading to missed or irregular periods, due to hormone fluctuations. In men, this is seen in a greater prevalence for having erectile dysfunction, as well as a lower sex drive, which hurt their reproductive health.

STRESS MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

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Nov 23 Stress Management: The Why And The How

WHAT IS STRESS?