These 8 Symptoms Mean Your Stress Level Is Through The Roof - Here's How To Manage Them

Jul 09, 2018

Stress comes from many different places in our lives. At work, it could be too many deadlines all at once. At home, it could be trying to juggle everyone’s schedule on your own while maintaining your own. There are so many ways in which stress manifests itself, that the American Psychological Association actually has identified 3 different types of stress—acute, chronic, and episodic acute.

Acute stress – the most common form in which you probably can’t say “no” whenever you are given multiple tasks to complete both at work and at home. This is short-term stress that is highly manageable and avoidable.

Chronic stress – This is a different kind of situational stress that is based in a long-term cause such as extreme poverty or financial issues, being a caregiver for someone, hating your job, a prolonged unhappy marriage or relationship, or a childhood trauma.

Episodic acute stress – these are the individuals who seemingly plan their own stress. They can be counted on to show up late to everything, they are always unprepared for a meeting or other planned event, and they “plan” to study at the last minute. Yet, their stress level is high because even though that can’t quite seem to make the choice to be timely and organized, they are still Type A personalities that are extremely driven, highly competitive, and impatient to move things along.

Symptomatically, stress, in general, takes on a multitude of forms manifested in both mental and physical ways. Here are some warning signs you need to be aware of that may be telling you that you are stressed out:

If you nearly can time your watch each day to when your headache begins, then your trigger may be stress. A headache that is prompted by stressful circumstances usually starts with pressure around the temple region of your head and continues as a pulsating throbbing. If you are more aware of what triggers your stress, then the onset of this type of a headache can be deterred with simple relaxation techniques in a quiet place for several minutes including meditation and physically relaxing your neck and shoulder muscles.

Many people have been observed immediately changing their demeanor in times of stress. If you are one of them, then you can go from cool, calm, and collected one minute to ranting and raving the next just because you have been faced with a stress trigger that has set you on a tailspin. This not only sets a precedent in people’s minds of how you handle stressful situations, but it also affects every aspect of a person’s life including their level of desire for sex. This is one reason that stress can cause relationships to crumble.

According to many physical and mental health doctors, the most common area of the body where people “hold” stress is in their neck and shoulder region. As we experience stressful situations, many people are not aware that their muscles will begin to gradually tense up. This will usually originate in our shoulders.

As we become more stressed and the shoulder muscles tense more and more, your shoulders will actually rise up to meet your neck area and the neck muscles will then become tense as well leading sometimes to overt pain. Stretching out the neck and shoulder muscles periodically will alleviate most of the tension even in the midst of handling stress.

The anxiousness that goes along with stress is caused by a feeling of helplessness that many people have in stressful situations because of a perceived lack of control over outcomes, events, and being able to meet proposed deadlines among other factors. This lack of complete control can cause a person’s brain activity to really never turn off and cause sleepless nights. To eliminate this, you need to consciously work with yourself to find a relaxation technique to turn your brain off at night including meditation, relaxation music, and even exercise a few hours before bedtime to drain your energy and make it easier to fall asleep.

Choosing to handle stress by numbing the emotional anxiety is never a good alternative to facing the stress with a clear mind. According to medical experts, experiencing chronic stress is one of the main causes of drug and alcohol abuse because it leads to anxiety disorders. If you find yourself turning to alcohol or drugs each time you become stressed, then the best advice you can have is to seek professional help to find alternative healthy techniques for dealing with stress.

Concentration relies on mental energy, and if we are preoccupied with focusing on a stressful situation then everything else we do will lack the focus it needs. Keep in mind that this means you still have the ability to concentrate, you have just chosen to focus your attention on what is stressing you out. This is when you have to find a deep well of willpower and tell yourself to refocus your energy on the task at hand and not some deadline that is weeks away. It also helps to organize your thoughts and write things down as they come to you so that as you write them, they metaphorically are removed from your mind and you can refocus on other things at the moment.

Harvard Health experts state that more and more medical and psychological professionals are finding illnesses that seemingly have no physical cause are actually associated with stress. Some of the long-term illnesses that have been found to be rooted in long-term stress are abdominal pain, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory illnesses. Stress wears down the immune system and leaves you far more susceptible to viruses that contribute to many of these diseases.

This is usually not a symptom that you notice on your own. At some point when the change in your behavior becomes long-term, loved ones or even co-workers may pull you aside and point out that you have been far shorter with them in your communication or even volatile. You may notice it if you don’t have any interest in leaving the house, picking up after yourself and others, or just feel like giving up. When it gets this bad, it is time to sit down and talk to someone about your stress level and how to manage it.

Being mindful of the way in which we approach situations and resolve long-term problems is how we begin to handle stress in a healthy manner.

Have you experienced high levels of stress in your life? How have you managed your stress? Let us and your friends know if you think any of these tips will work!

Our content is created to the best of our knowledge, yet it is of general nature and cannot in any way substitute an individual consultation with your doctor. Your health is important to us!