Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Over time, continued strain on your body from stress may contribute to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, including mental disorders such as depression (www.nimh.nih.gov/depression) or anxiety (www.nimh.nih.gov/anxietydisorders).
This long-term ongoing stress can increase the risk for hypertension, heart attack, or stroke. Repeated acute stress and persistent chronic stress may also contribute to inflammation in the circulatory system, particularly in the coronary arteries, and this is one pathway that is thought to tie stress to heart attack.
Chronic stress can affect both our physical and psychological well-being by causing a variety of problems including anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system.
Stress can play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression, and anxiety.
Stress can also manifest itself in the form of hives and other skin rashes or make existing skin problems such as psoriasis, rosacea and eczema worse.
Chronic stress is the most harmful type of stress. If chronic stress is left untreated over a long period of time, it can significantly and often irreversibly damage your physical health and deteriorate your mental health.
Toxic stress response:
This is the body's response to lasting and serious stress, without enough support from a caregiver. When a child doesn't get the help he needs, his body can't turn off the stress response normally. This lasting stress can harm a child's body and brain and can cause lifelong health problems.
There are five stages of stress; fight or flight, damage control, recovery, adaption, and burnout.
When your stress level exceeds your ability to cope, you need to restore the balance by reducing the stressors or increasing your ability to cope or both. Try using one of the four A's: avoid, alter, accept or adapt.
Some of the physical signs that your stress levels are too high include: Pain or tension in your head, chest, stomach, or muscles. Your muscles tend to tense up when you're stressed, and over time this can cause headaches, migraines, or musculoskeletal problems. Digestive problems.
feel isolated — disinterested in the company of family and friends, or withdrawing from usual daily activities. feel overwhelmed — unable to concentrate or make decisions. be moody — feeling low or depression; feeling burnt out; emotional outbursts of uncontrollable anger, fear, helplessness or crying.
If chronic stress has led to overwork, you can usually recover from it within a few weeks. If chronic stress has led to burnout, your body is exhausted. With exhaustion, recovery usually takes six months, a year or even longer. There can be a lot of variation in that.