Do you need my Stress Symptoms Checklist?
For some women whenever they have a problem they think the worst.
A simple stomach ache is cancer. Chest pains are a heart attack.
Before you lose too many sleepless nights here is our checklist for stress symptoms.
Acne —
According to a study, college students had acne flare-ups during exams in which they reported more stress compared to periods without testing.
Most experts don’t understand why stress makes acne worse. But they have determined that cells that produce sebum have receptors for stress hormones.
Sebum plus dead skin cells and bacteria will clog your hair follicles which cause pimples or acne cyst. To most of you, it doesn’t matter you just want the acne to GO AWAY!
Headaches—
Tension headaches, sometimes called stress headaches, are usually located in the back of the head and neck and are caused by muscle contractions. Some will get pain in the face as well.
Stress headaches are very common. They can affect your job performance and your quality of life if they become chronic. You may find yourself missing activities that you usually attend and missing days from work.
Concentration—
If you are chronically stressed, it can put a damper on your everyday life. It can make it harder to focus on daily tasks. Let’s say you’re a writer for a newspaper.
Your column is due the next day. Talk about stress factor, you find yourself reading the same paragraph over and over again.
Instead of you knocking it out in an hour it takes you 3 hours. Most often you will not notice this happening until you become totally overwhelmed.
Digestion Problems—
When your body reacts to the fight or flight response, your digestive system shuts down. Your body under stress causes the central nervous system to shut down blood flow.
This affects the contractions of your digestive muscles and decreases secretions needed for digestion.
Needless to say, stress can do damage to your digestive system. From simple things like an upset stomach to more complicated things like IBS
Trouble sleeping—
Sleeping at night gives your brain an opportunity to recharge and gives your body time to rest. Sleep deprivation causes you to miss out on the benefits of muscle repair and memory consolidation.
Over a period of time, it can affect memory, mood, and judgment.
Chronic sleep deprivation can contribute to obesity, high blood pressure as well as cause safety risks while driving. People who didn’t get enough sleep at night noted to be more stressed the next day.
Grinding Teeth—
This one can be tricky because most people who do this don’t recognize when they are grinding their teeth.
Most of the time it happens while their asleep or when concentrating on a task or stressed out. But you usually won’t pay attention until someone tells you or the dentist comments on your teeth.
You can get earaches, pain in your jawbone and headaches. Over a period of time, it can wear down your teeth.
Twitching—
Stress puts a lot of pressure on your muscles and nervous system. When your body is tensed your muscles go through a rush of hormones and unusual blood flow. When your body is overstressed your nervous system behaves erratically.
Nerve impulses are controlled by muscles and in turn, can cause muscles to twitch. As long as the nervous system is even slightly overly stressed, it can cause erratic muscle twitching.
Heavy menstrual cycles—
For some women, stress can play a large role in irregular or missed periods.
Some say as your stress level rises it can cause your menstrual cycle to temporarily stop a condition known as secondary amenorrhea.
Emotional stress of all kinds can make many menstrual issues worst. For example heavy menstrual bleeding and endometriosis.
Sugar Cravings—
When you become stressed the cortisol in your body rises. When this happens your cravings for sugar will start to kick in.
Next thing you know you’re looking at Hershey’s chocolate bars. As hormone levels change, the body attempts to raise levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin, and since sugar triggers a serotonin release, this can cause you to crave sweets.
Weight Gain—
When your body goes into survival mode aka fight or flight response your body will want to overeat to give you enough fuel to maintain your fight or flight choice.
Under stress, your body thinks you’ve burned calories to deal with stress, even though you haven’t. As the stress hormone continues to rise the overeating signal becomes a habit.
Increased levels of cortisol can cause higher insulin levels. Next, your blood sugar drops and you begin to crave sugary, fatty foods. The pounds start adding on and especially around the belly.
Low Energy—
Stress affects your sleep pattern by impacting your 24-hr internal clock that controls your sleep/wake cycle.
If you are feeling tired and sleep or rest does not energize your body, you could be suffering from stress-related fatigue. When stress brings you to exhaustion, you feel alone and isolated.
You will want to hide or have this overwhelming feeling of getting into bed and not wanting to get out. Sometimes this turns into other major problems like depression and anxiety.
Aches, pains, and tense muscles—
When you are stressed over a period of time, the body tightens. Which is a good thing in a dangerous situation.
On the other hand, when stress responses occur too often, the body remains in a state of readiness(hyperstimulated). Constant readiness causes muscles to remain tense too long.
Headaches, muscle pain, muscle tension, tight muscles, and stiffness are all common symptoms of hyperstimulation.
Frequent colds—
I have a new client right now that has a constant cough. He has gone to his physician several times, taken all kinds of medicine but his cough is persistent.
He thought he had a serious disease that his previous doctor missed. I suspected he was stressed and the stress was affecting his immune system.
The immune system of a stressed person is weakened. When you have chronic stress your stress hormone does not shut down causing constant inflammation in the body.
Then when you inhale the cold virus the inflammation gives the cold virus a comfortable place to sleep. And your result is a persistent cough or cold.
These are some of the systems of stress. It is important to know the signs so that you can address them as soon as possible.
Stress left unchecked or poorly managed can cause major health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, stroke, diabetes, and suicide.
So know the signs.