If you are struggling with stress, you are not alone. A study discovered that 15% aged 16-85 years experience high or extreme levels of psychological distress.
With that in mind, we’ve put together the different ways stress may affect you, including what are the signs of stress and how you can alleviate some of your symptoms.
What is Stress?
Stress is when internal or external factors cause physical, emotional or psychological tension.
This emotion tends to be associated with work or relationships, but anything can impact it such as body image, money problems or other insecurities.
Stress affects everyone to an extent, but some people are more prone to negative symptoms than others. Strains caused by stress can lead to unhealthy habits and a poor mental state.
What are the Signs of Stress
Being aware of how stress can affect you, could support you in managing it in the future. To help you, we have outlined the main causes of stress into three sections, physical, emotional and behavioural.
Physical Signs of Stress:
Physical health problems might arise because of stress. This is because hormones are created in response to stress, and these hormones are linked to physical symptoms. Some of these symptoms include:
- Breathing difficulties
- Panic attacks and feelings of anxiety
- Lack of sleep
- Headache
- Weight fluctuations
Emotional Stress Symptoms:
When stressed, negative emotions can burden you. You may start to think irrationally and negatively about yourself, situations and others. Some of the emotional symptoms you may feel when stressed include:
- Feelings of anxiety
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Feelings of anger and impatience
- Feelings of loneliness
Behavioural Symptoms of Stress:
Behavioural stress symptoms can sometimes be hard to detect. However, if you feel as though your behaviour has changed recently, it could be due to stress. Some behavioural symptoms include:
- Lack of decision-making
- Lack of concentration
- Slow memory
- Snappy remarks
How to Support Stress Symptoms
Now that you have a greater understanding of the symptoms you could be experiencing due to stress, the next step is learning how to manage them.
To help, see below a list of four simple, but effective, lifestyle adjustments that could aid you in stress management:
Yoga For Stress Relief
Promoting a variety of health benefits, Yoga is a relaxing way to destress, improve your mental health and relax your body.
As well as aiding flexibility and strength maintenance, a main aspect of yoga is breath control. Focusing directly on your breathing will move your mind away from stress and into more calming thoughts. Yoga can also help to release endorphins, which works to elevate your mood.
A daily yoga routine may make all the difference to your stress levels. Try adding 5-minutes of simple yoga regime into your everyday routine and if you don’t know where to start, don’t worry there are plenty of follow-along yoga videos online.
Get Outdoors
Spending time outdoors and in nature could be beneficial for stress symptoms.
Whether you prefer to go for a run or simply want to sit in nature’s beauty, breathing in fresh air is so beneficial for your mental health.
Being outdoors may help release endorphins, which works to increase your mood. It also helps naturally promote vitamin D, which also serves many health benefits to the body. Check out our vitamin D supplements.
