Stress is something that many of us suffer from, and it can be hard to identify what it is that's stressing us out. This blog outlines ten warning signs that you're overly stressed out so that you can take action and reduce your stress levels.
Stress is not necessarily bad, but it leads to all sorts of problems when you are overly stressed. Our bodies were never designed to handle stress. Here are ten warning signs that you are excessively stressed out and what you can do about it.
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You're way too stressed. You're gaining weight. Your digestive system is suffering. You're experiencing tooth pain. Stress can cause a lot of pain in your mouth, particularly in your jaw area. It is usually brought on by something. People who are under intense pressure often grind their teeth as a way to cope.
A lot of the time, you don't even realize you're doing it. If you're doing it non-stop, it will lead to extreme pain in your mouth. If you're grinding your teeth while you sleep, it's pretty scary that while you're sleeping, you can lose complete control of your mouth.
People with a lot on their minds have problems. You might be very stressed if you wake up feeling extreme pressure in your mouth. You're having issues digesting your food. You're under unnecessary stress if you manage to eat and your food has trouble going down. When you're feeling tense, the communication between your brain and your stomach also becomes tense. High levels of stress can bring on a whole host of digestive problems, including diarrhea, constipation, and heartburn.
Your stress will cause your body to produce more acids, causing heartburn. The same stress will slow food movement through your stomach, causing many reactions. If you find yourself rushing to the bathroom or not going to the toilet, If your digestive problems last longer than a week, make sure you talk to a doctor.
The high pressure causes excruciating muscle cramps. If your stress is accompanied by grueling muscle pain, it's reached a new level of stress. This is due to cortisol, which you may know better as the stress hormone. When your body is constantly in fight-or-flight mode, it begins overproducing cortisol. The extra cortisol will cause soreness all over your body, particularly in your neck and back.
You don't have to do physical labor to experience these pains. It's like they come out of nowhere. You could be having a lazy day on the couch when suddenly you get hit with them. Physical therapy, including massages, can help, but ultimately you need to find ways to reduce your life's stress. This can be done through meditating, practicing breathing, or going for regular walks.
Stress causes you to lose sleep. Sometimes you're tossing and turning in bed until the early morning hours. This lack of sleep worsens your mental health due to our fast-paced lifestyles. Anyone who goes through periods of stress will know that whatever your worries are, they'll eventually keep you up at night.
If something weighs on your brain, you won't be able to shut your eyes. As a result, your mornings will be miserable. Sometimes you won't even want to get out of bed if your messy sleep cycle leaves you with the will to do anything.
Your stress has likely turned into a case of depression. This is where you need to talk to a professional. You have wild dreams. Even if you manage to sleep, it can follow you into your plans. It will cross into your subconscious if you're constantly worried about something. As a result, you end up having some wild dreams. Healthy sleepers can usually figure out who they healthy sleepers are by whether or not they remember their dreams.
If you don't remember your dream, your brain responds to fewer stimuli. You are a little more relaxed when you go to sleep. As for people who do remember their dreams, studies have shown there is more activity happening in the brain during sleep. This causes your dreams to be vivid and sometimes very frightening. If you're waking up after a nightmare, your brain is trying to work through things you've been putting off.
A person who is stressed will find themselves in constant need of something to drink. When you need a sip of water more than usual, your body is telling you it's dehydrated. Remember cortisol from a few minutes ago? When cortisol production becomes excessive, the hormones that control your fluids start to drop.
This leads to your body losing electrolytes and becoming dehydrated. This is why so many overworked people grow fatigued; their job stresses them out to the point where they need to quench their thirst. If you're noticing more situations like these in the workplace, you may want to sit down once in a while and take a breather. Drinking water non-stop may help you at the moment, but it will not cure your stress.
If you're having trouble making decisions, you can argue that life is all about making decisions. We make multiple decisions every day without even realizing it. Too much stress clouds our judgment to the point where we have trouble deciding what to do. If we finally do come to a decision, we often regret it. I'm not talking about big decisions. Like, do I switch occupations or not? These decisions can be so tiny that we don't think twice about the problem.
Sometimes minor decisions have the most significant impact. For example, if your stress has kept you in bed, you decide to sleep for another hour instead of waking up around your usual hour, forgetting that you have work. You end up being a couple of hours late. This puts your job in jeopardy when you're stressed. Your brain tends to block out adverse outcomes, so you're only preoccupied with positive ones. Objectivity goes out the window as you decide it ends up screwing you. You don't think about the pluses and minuses of your choice.
If you've experienced stress, you know that headaches are a common symptom. Sometimes the pain is mild; other times, your head feels like it's about to explode. It all depends on how severe the stress is. Headaches can happen from anything: you're hungover, you're hungry, you're overwhelmed by loud noises, but stress- Headaches are a different kind of monster. This type of discomfort is a lot more severe than you would believe.
A persistent headache or migraine accompanied by muscle aches might indicate that your body is ready to break down and that the stress is too much to bear. This can send you on a downward spiral, which will only worsen the stress you're feeling. If you want to avoid this overload, you have no choice but to try and unwind any way you can. This can be a problem as most of us don't have the luxury of just turning off and walking away from everything for a few days. If you have a family or full-time job, you'd know how difficult it is to find that precious alone time a person requires to de-stress. Your best option would be to set aside time to exercise and rest, maybe do a few rounds of meditation when you have a free hour.
This will help you organize your thoughts. You're snapping at the drop of a hat. If you don't find the time to unwind, the pressure from the stress will make you super irritable. You may have already had your friends comment on your changing attitude. This is pretty common among people who are stressed out. They snap over the tiniest little things. The stress that's been weighing on them for the last while has finally given, causing mood swings.
This is where stress begins to affect not just your health but your personal life as well. If your negative attitude and irritation continue, many friends and family members won't want to be around you. There's more science to this than you'd expect. When a person's brain is overwhelmed, the brain goes into survival mode. This triggers the fight-or-flight response. As a result, any bit of pressure the brain experiences will be met with hostility. We may not even be angry at the person. We don't like the strain they're putting on our brains at that very second.
You put on a few pounds. Most of us associate weight gain with simply overeating, but it's sometimes the reasons we're filling that we need to confront. Stress usually isn't the first thing that comes to mind. When we get stressed out, we find something that comforts us.
Many of us find comfort in food; our favorite snacks provide us with that dopamine hit we desperately need at that moment. Two-thirds of people eat while under stress. The stress hormone that controls your appetite takes longer to get out of your system. This leaves you feeling hungry for a more extended period, causing you to overeat over time. You're going to notice a difference when you step on the scale.
People get so stressed that they can lose several pounds in a week. At the same time, stress can make you skip meals if your mind is over-occupied by a particular thought. You may not think of eating as a wholesome activity. It would help if you worried about this as you're not supplying your body with the proper nutrients it needs to function. This will make your stress worse. Your mental health is so important yet is often overlooked. Unfortunately, there's more you can experience than stress. Have you noticed any of these stress symptoms? Let us know in the comments below.
It's easy to get stressed out, given everything thrown at us these days. People who are under intense stress often grind their teeth as a way to cope. High levels of stress can bring on a whole host of digestive problems, including diarrhea, constipation, and heartburn. Stress causes you to lose sleep, which leads to wild dreams and depression. Meditating, breathing techniques, and regular walks can help reduce your life's focus.
If you're worried about something, it will cross into your subconscious and affect your sleep. Too much stress clouds our judgment to the point where we have trouble deciding what to do. A persistent headache or migraine accompanied by muscle aches might indicate that your body is ready to break down and that the stress is too much to bear. This type of discomfort is a lot more severe than you would believe.
