How Stress Affects Your Body & Behaviour
Most of us nowadays know that stress affects our health, but it’s usually brushed off as only affecting us in mild ways, such as fatigue. However, fatigue is just the tip of the iceberg, as stress can trigger illnesses. The good news is, it’s all solvable! Keep reading to understand how to regain your peak health.
The Link Of Stress To Illness
Your stressful reaction to life situations may affect your health more than you realise. Have a pesky headache often? Maybe you put it down to sinusitis or dehydration. Feeling fatigued? Perhaps you think that is because of your poor sleep patterns of late or extended work hours. Your stressful reaction to these events may actually be the cause.
What Are The Effects Of Stress
The physical changes within your body in reaction to your stressful reactions can affect your body, mind, emotions and behaviour. The more you are able to recognise the symptoms brought on by stress, the better you can manage them. Some of the top risks of stress are high blood pressure, cardiac disease, obesity and diabetes.
The Most Common Effects Of Stress
| Body | Emotions | Behaviour |
| Headache | Anxiety | Overeating & undereating |
| Muscle spasms | Restlessness | Frequent anger |
| Chest pain | Demotivated & poor concentration | Narcotics misuse |
| Frequent tiredness | Overwhelmed & hopeless | Smoking |
| Reduced libido | Irritability& irrational reactions | Introvert behaviour |
| Digestion problems | Depression | Disinterest in exercise |
| Sleep problems | Muddled thoughts | Communication challenges |
Managing Your Stress Positively
If you suspect you are experiencing stress symptoms, then the sooner you start taking action to rectify it, the sooner your health will improve. Try these strategies and, most of all, don’t get stressed if you are not getting your stress strategy spot on.
- Make a daily appointment with yourself to do some sort of physical activity, e.g. walk your dog, do laps around a local park or walk to the shop for top-up groceries.
- Practice active relaxation. Try deep breathing exercises, meditation, yoga or tai chi.
- Remind yourself that you are actively trying to be positive and try not to let things upset you ‒ unless they are life-threatening.
- While you may not feel like this, DO spend time with family and friends. You will be surprised what a mental shift you experience from these interactions.
- Make another daily appointment with yourself to do a hobby, even if it’s 30 minutes.
- Don’t cheat on yourself and skip the daily appointments to spend time doing other things.
Things that are NOT good for managing stress are:
- Watching television
- Internet rabbit holes
- Computer gaming
These will compound your stress over the long term.
Lastly, avoid late nights, get lots of quality sleep, be strict about eating healthily and avoid smoking, drinking coffee or high-caffeine tea, alcohol and other illegal narcotics.
The Last Word On Stress
As mentioned in the beginning, all of the above is solvable. If you are battling to achieve it on your own, then contact me for a chat about how we can use therapy, bio-resonance and other gentle modalities to restore your balance ‒ mind, body and soul.
