Stress: How Bad Is It?

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Stress is a common mental problem that a lot of us suffer from, but how bad can it actually be? A lot of us may even be stressed out right now and may not even know it. The reason that is is that stress’s symptoms may be similar to other symptoms. For example, stress can cause us to have a nagging headache or it might be the cause behind your insomnia or lower productivity while you are at work. The thing is though, those are only the tip of the iceberg for what stress can do.

Just how bad can stress be? Well, its symptoms can affect many things about us. It can affect our body, and thoughts, but even how we feel and our behavior too. Paired with the fact that stress can mask other symptoms of other illnesses, it can be tricky to spot. As such you want to be mindful of what sort of problems you have and find ways to de-stress. If you don’t handle your stress, it can contribute to a variety of health problems. Things like a higher blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and even particular heart diseases to list a few.

The first thing to look out for is how stress can affect our body. There are the headaches that we mentioned before, however, there are a few other things as well. Things like muscle tension or pain in that area, pain in the chest, general fatigue, insomnia and other sleep problems are some of the issues. Some of the bigger ones to take note of is a drastic change to your sex drive as well as an upset stomach. If you experience many of those symptoms then chances are you are stressed.

Stress can also affect our overall mood as well. Some of the common issues that we experience from stress would be things like feelings of anxiety, restlessness or lack of motivation and focus too. Some more specific emotions that can indicate us feeling stressed out would be feelings of overwhelmingness, sudden bursts of anger or irritation. Stress can also make us feel sad or depressed as well.

Of course, these moods will affect our own behavior as well. Fuelled by stress, we can pick up a variety of habits that don’t help us at all. As a result of too much stress, we can find our eating habits changing in the sense that we are either eating too much or too little. We might also experience bursts of anger or even abuse drugs or alcohol. Stress is also connected to tobacco use along with social withdrawal and less exercising.

As you can see stress can do a lot to people and left unchecked it can cause some serious problems. If you experience a number of these issues, it’s important to consider that stress may be behind it. There are certainly many ways for us to overcome stress that you can do on your own. Some of these activities are things like exercising daily, laughing more, socializing with other people and setting some time aside for your hobbies.