Editor’s note: This content is provided for informational purposes only. It is not meant to diagnose or treat any condition. If you are under prolonged stress, see your healthcare professional.
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Most people experience mild stress in their life, whether it’s commuting to work, doing schoolwork, or dealing with stressful personal situations. However, some people experience extreme stress, like worrying about a court case, losing a loved one, financial problems, and sometimes even abuse.
For some, stress has become a way of life that has somehow blended into the background and is hard to identify. It’s become normal to take your laptop on vacation or plan meetings while enjoying a walk on the beach. No matter how you slice it, people are constantly exposed to stress, and although it may seem like it’s something we have to deal with, stress can be exceptionally damaging.
Stress management therapy can help you cope with your daily responsibilities if you’re feeling overwhelmed by work or your personal life. If you don’t manage your stress, you’re putting your health at risk. Humans are only meant to handle short-term stress. Prolonged stress can have a long-lasting, negative impact on a person’s mental and physical well-being.
If you’re experiencing abnormal levels of stress in your life, here are two important reasons to tackle it as soon as possible.
1. Stress creates a harmful domino effect on the body.
When you’re exposed to triggers, your body goes into fight or flight mode, which pumps stress hormones – cortisol and adrenaline – through your body. This process is designed to help you either fight or flee in a moment of danger. However, sometimes the human body gets “stuck” in this mode.
As you begin to experience stress on a regular basis, you become hypersensitive to your triggers, which can lead to hypervigilance – a state where you constantly assess potential threats. In a state of hypervigilance, you’re more likely to get stressed out by small things that would be inconsequential to others. For instance, if your boss asks you to come in early, that might be enough to make you have a breakdown.
Unfortunately, the longer you have stress hormones flowing through your body, the more it can damage your health. Too much cortisol can result in the following:
- Fast weight gain, which occurs in the abdomen, face, and chest while arms and legs remain slender.
- High blood pressure
- Osteoporosis
- Weak muscles
- Mood swings (anxiety, irritability, depression)
- Sleep deprivation
When you’re sleep deprived because the cortisol won’t stop flowing through your body, you’re going to end up irritable and moody at work. Since stress can impair your ability to control your emotions, you might end up getting into a fight with a coworker or your boss, and get fired. The compounding effects of stress can be massive.
2. Small amounts of stress can hurt you.
It’s not uncommon to experience a little stress here and there, and suddenly become overwhelmed by something much larger. Even though stress is considered a normal part of daily life, it’s actually not healthy. Just because the majority of people are used to feeling stressed out doesn’t mean it’s okay.
If you’re feeling stressed by something small, it’s still going to have a negative impact on your life. This is especially true if you’re constantly exposed to the same stressor for a long period of time. Chronic, low-level stress will still pump cortisol through your bloodstream and create the same symptoms as major stress.
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How To Successfully Combat Stress
Now that you have some good reasons to manage stress, you’re probably wondering how to make that happen. You can’t just stop showing up to work or ditch your daily responsibilities, but you can train your body and mind into a different reaction (or no reaction at all).
Whether you employ strategies like yoga, meditation, stress management therapy, or mindfulness, the end result will decrease your reactions to stressors so that triggers won’t impact you as much. You’ll be essentially desensitizing yourself to stressors to avoid creating the problem in the first place.
Prolonged stress isn’t normal or healthy.
Your body shouldn’t be triggered into a fight or flight state by mundane inconveniences. If this is happening, consider seeing a medical professional. It’s not going to get better on its own, and if left untreated, you’ll become even more hypersensitive to stimuli that aren’t threats at all.
Listen to your body and take care of yourself. You can’t always remove the stress from your life, but you can learn coping methods to deal with stressful situations and keep your body and mind in a healthy state of being.
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This content is made possible by Larry Alton.
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash, modified