Contemporary life can be replete with troubles, deadlines, defeats and demands. For many, stress is so ordinary that it has turned into a way of life. Stress isn't always dreadful. In modest doses, it may aid in performing under pressure and move you to perform at your finest. However, when you are perpetually functioning while highly stressed, your psyche and physical body pay a price.
Whenever you often discover yourself feeling frustrated and overpowered, it is time to take action to get your troubled nervous system back into proportion. You will be able to protect yourself through discovering distinguish the signals and symptoms of stress and take measures to scale down its adverse consequences.
Your Body's Stress Reaction
Once your body perceives a threat, your nervous system reacts by producing a deluge of tension endocrines, such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones arouse the system with an emergency action mechanism.
Your heart beats more quickly, muscular tissues stiffen, blood pressure levels rise, breath accelerates and your sensory faculties become more acute. This physical change increases your intensity and staying power, accelerates your response time and heightens your concentration--gearing you up for either conflict or flight from imminent risk.
Causes
The top 10 causes of stress in life are:
• Physical illness
• Tension at work or within the family
• Divorce
• Death in family
• Moving
• Jail term
• Marriage
• Debt
• Unemployment
• Major life changes
Not all stress is rooted in external issues. Stress may also be self-created via:
• Lack of ability to accept uncertainty
• Negativity
• Impractical perfectionism, expectations
• Low self-esteem
• Loneliness
Emotional Symptoms
Symptoms that may indicate psychological stress include mood swings, excitability or quick temper, agitation, inability to unwind or relax, experiencing feelings of overload, a sensation of solitariness and reclusiveness and depression or generalized sadness.
Should any of these symptoms last more than a week, you might consider making an appointment with a mental health professional. He will do an intake regarding the reasons you feel the way you do and help you cope with the emotional factors listed above.
Behavioral Symptoms
To try to relieve stress, people often behave in the following ways:
• Eating more or less than usual
• Sleeping excessively or insufficiently
• Isolating themselves from other people
• Stalling or ignoring obligations
• Consuming alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, or does drugs to slow down
• Engaging in anxious habits such as pacing, nail biting, chewing on lip, tapping, knee bouncing, etc.
These habits sometimes help to temporarily ease stress levels. Ultimately however, these behaviors will only prove to exacerbate your current stress level by adding more tension from the effects of over- or undereating, excessive or insufficient sleep, nail biting, and so on. Usually, the behavioral symptoms are actually signs of more serious underlying problems.
Dealing with Stress and its Symptoms
Although high levels of stress are undeniably destructive, there are numerous things you are able to do to reduce its effect and deal with the causes.
You might feel as if the tension within your life is outside of your ability to solve; however, you are able to control your reaction to life stresses. Dealing with stress is entirely about taking control: Taking hold of your thinking, your feelings, your agenda, your surroundings and the manner in which you address problems whether they be physical illness due to stress, or stress from physical illness. Stress management requires altering the nerve-wracking situations as you are able to, changing your reactions when you can, assuming the maintenance of yourself physically and mentally, and creating time for relaxation and rest.
If symptoms persist, always see your doctor for an evaluation because the warning signs of stress could also mean the onset of other medical problems.
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