Common Signs And Symptoms Of Stress
How Is Depression Syndrome Treated
Depression can be serious, but its also treatable. Treatment for depression includes:
- Self-help: Regular exercise, getting enough sleep, and spending time with people you care about can improve depression symptoms.
- Counseling: Counseling or psychotherapy is talking with a mental health professional. Your counselor helps you address your problems and develop coping skills. Sometimes brief therapy is all you need. Other people continue therapy longer.
- Alternative medicine: People with mild depression or ongoing symptoms can improve their well-being with complementary therapy. Therapy may include massage, acupuncture, hypnosis and biofeedback.
- Medication: Prescription medicine called antidepressants can help change brain chemistry that causes depression. Antidepressants can take a few weeks to have an effect. Some antidepressants have side effects, which often improve with time. If they dont, talk to your provider. A different medications may work better for you.
- Brain stimulation therapy: Brain stimulation therapy can help people who have severe depression or depression with psychosis. Types of brain stimulation therapy include electroconvulsive therapy , transcranial magnetic stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation .
Other Symptoms Of Stress
Since each persons response to stress is different, some have reported other symptoms, such as:
- a lack of focus
Long-term stress may even increase the risk of certain conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, and anxiety.
The American Psychological Association suggest that chronic stress can also impact the endocrine and respiratory systems. For example, some people may experience shortness of breath and rapid breathing during stressful periods.
People with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and other respiratory conditions may even experience a worsening of their symptoms.
Those with chronic stress may have an increased production of cortisol. Although cortisol is helpful for the fight-or-flight mechanism, it can lead to chronic fatigue and obesity, among other conditions.
suggest several strategies to help cope with stress. The sections below will outline these in more detail.
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How Is Stress Diagnosed
Stress is subjective not measurable with tests. Only the person experiencing it can determine whether it’s present and how severe it feels. A healthcare provider may use questionnaires to understand your stress and how it affects your life.
If you have chronic stress, your healthcare provider can evaluate symptoms that result from stress. For example, high blood pressure can be diagnosed and treated.
Relational Symptoms Of Stress
- Avoidance: Stress may prompt you to spend less time with the people you love. If youre constantly feeling anxious and overwhelmed, social functions and get-togethers with family and friends can start to feel burdensome, no matter how outgoing you are. Chronic stress can also prompt you to neglect or avoid obligations from work, family, and other aspects of your life.
- Isolation: When chronic stress starts to rule your life, you may notice your social battery getting smaller and smaller. With less social energy than you once had, you may feel prompted to spend more time alone in isolation. Isolating yourself because of stress can lead to the development of issues like circumstantial depression.
- Lack of Intimacy: Stress can make you feel disconnected from the people around you, no matter how close your relationships are with them. When your mind is clouded by stress, its easy to get distracted and disengage from your friends, family, and others. The result is often feelings of intense loneliness and isolation.
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How Stress Affects Your Body
Another infographic from Healthline shows the effects of stress on your body.
Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life experiences. Everyone expresses stress from time to time. Anything from everyday responsibilities like work and family to serious life events such as a new diagnosis, war, or the death of a loved one can trigger stress. For immediate, short-term situations, stress can be beneficial to your health. It can help you cope with potentially serious situations. Your body responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and ready your muscles to respond.
Yet if your stress response doesnt stop firing, and these stress levels stay elevated far longer than is necessary for survival, it can take a toll on your health. Chronic stress can cause a variety of symptoms and affect your overall well-being. Symptoms of chronic stress include:
- irritability
- insomnia
What Are The Consequences Of Long
A little stress every now and then is not something to be concerned about. Ongoing, chronic stress, however, can cause or exacerbate many serious health problems, including:
- Mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and personality disorders
- Obesity and other eating disorders
- Menstrual problems
- Sexual dysfunction, such as impotence and premature ejaculation in men and loss of sexual desire in both men and women
- Skin and hair problems, such as acne, psoriasis, and eczema, and permanent hair loss
- Gastrointestinal problems, such as GERD, gastritis, ulcerative colitis, and irritable colon
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Sexuality And Reproductive System
Stress is exhausting for both the body and mind. Its not unusual to lose your desire when youre under constant stress. While short-term stress may cause men to produce more of the male hormone testosterone, this effect doesnt last.
If stress continues for a long time, a mans testosterone levels can begin to drop. This can interfere with sperm production and cause erectile dysfunction or impotence. Chronic stress may also increase risk of infection for male reproductive organs like the prostate and testes.
For women, stress can affect the menstrual cycle. It can lead to irregular, heavier, or more painful periods. Chronic stress can also magnify the physical symptoms of menopause.
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Cholesterol
Whether or not youre stressed, its smart to see your primary care physician once a year for a complete exam, including a check of blood pressure, heart rate, weight, cholesterol, and thyroid hormones. And dont let a doctor brush off your stress.
When women have heart palpitations, doctors are more likely to think that theyre either experiencing stress or anxiety, or that theyre hysterical in some way. As a result, women tend to be underdiagnosed with heart disease, says Dr. Haythe. And this happens despite the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. A good rule of thumb: If unusual symptoms persist for more than a week or two, see your physician.
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Stress In Children: Signs Symptoms And Strategies
We are all living in a time of increased stress these days. Our world as we know it has undergone a drastic shift. As a result, our children are not immune to the impact. Like adults, many kids are struggling right now. It reflects the current state of the world, not parenting skills.
Children are remarkable noticers. Have you ever experienced your child parroting back something you may have said, thinking they didnt catch it? Been surprised by them mentioning a topic you thought they didnt know anything about? They pick up on these verbal exchanges. Even more so, they absorb feelings going on around them. And today, there are a whole lot of feelings going on. Children notice when their parents or caregivers are stressed and may react to our emotional states.
However, children dont always have the emotional intelligence or vocabulary to express themselves. They also lack an understanding of what is truly happening. To them, it just feels different, uncomfortable, unpredictable, and downright scary.
The best we can do is to become noticers of them. Tune into their emotional or behavioral cues to provide support and guidance in these turbulent times.
Stress in children can manifest as changes in their typical behavior. Each age/stage may show this differently. Common changes can include:
- Being moody or irritable
- Changing eating and sleeping patterns.
Central Nervous And Endocrine Systems
Your central nervous system is in charge of your fight or flight response. In your brain, the hypothalamus gets the ball rolling, telling your adrenal glands to release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones rev up your heartbeat and send blood rushing to the areas that need it most in an emergency, such as your muscles, heart, and other important organs.
When the perceived fear is gone, the hypothalamus should tell all systems to go back to normal. If the CNS fails to return to normal, or if the stressor doesnt go away, the response will continue.
Chronic stress is also a factor in behaviors such as overeating or not eating enough, alcohol or drug abuse, and social withdrawal.
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Know Which Types Of Stress Need Professional Help
Stress is a recurring condition within our lives. But it doesnt need to become a long-term problem. Dont be too hard on yourself.
By looking for ways to reduce our stress, developing good habits and stress management techniques, we can reduce the chances of suffering from the long-term health impacts of stress.
If you feel that you cant manage your stress or stress-related symptoms, its important to obtain professional help.
Learn more about how BetterUps expert coaches can help you. Dont let stress get the better of you.
Signs Symptoms And Diagnosis
Stress that is not controlled and continues for a long period of time can cause a number of psychological and physical symptoms. Psychological symptoms of stress can include:
- Sleep disturbances
- Recurrent colds and flu .
If you think that stress may be the cause of psychological or physical symptoms, talk with your doctor. They will discuss your medical history and circumstances, causes of stress that may be present in your life, and your ways of dealing with stress. Your doctor will also aim to rule out any other physical or mental illness that may be the cause of the symptoms.
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What Makes Yale Medicines Approach To Chronic Stress Unique
The Yale Stress Center conducts clinical trials that attempt to find biomarkers of stress that relate to chronic disease risk. Researchers at the center also develop and test new interventions to prevent and treat stress-related diseases. The Stress Center also holds classes and training workshops for the public on mindfulness and other stress-reduction techniques. An interdisciplinary approach to stress is the wave of the future, Sinha says. We are working to understand the mechanisms behind all manifestations of stress, and also studying its effects in diseases that are the endpoints of chronic stress.
Stress In Children Ages 7
This age group may be more aware of the unusual times we find ourselves in right now. They may have fears for their own health. They may also fear for their families because developmentally they are gaining the ability to consider anothers perspective. It could present as worries about their grandparents. For example, they may release their fears as anger or irritability. This state of being on edge is part of our hard-wired fight or flight response.
Stress is often not a familiar term for children. It could be that they express distress with words like worried, confused, annoyed, or angry. Sometimes, it comes across in what they say about themselves or the situation. This can include negative self-talk such as Im dumb, or nothing is fun anymore. They may alter their behaviors based upon the setting, seeming fine at home but acting out at school or in their sports activities.
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Appetite Changes And Weight Gain
Changes in appetite are common during times of stress.
When you feel stressed out, you may find yourself with no appetite at all or overeating without noticing.
One small 2006 study of 272 female college students found that 81 percent reported that they experienced changes in appetite when they were stressed out, with 62 percent stating they had an increase in appetite .
Changes in appetite may also cause fluctuations in weight during stressful periods. For example, a study involving 1,355 people in the United States found that stress was associated with weight gain in adults already living with extra weight .
A third study from 2017 found that individuals with higher cortisol and insulin levels and higher levels of chronic stress were more likely to gain weight in the future . However, the study was limited in the scope of research in that participants were predominantly white females.
While these studies show an association between stress and changes in appetite or weight, more studies are needed to understand other possible factors are involved and how stress impacts different people.
Obesity And Disordered Eating
Some people binge or stress eat as a result of high stress levels rather than practice intuitive eating. When this happens over longer periods of time, it can result in obesity, related health conditions, and eating disorders.
Other people experiencing chronic stress eat less, which can result in undernourishment.
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That Headache Just Wont Go Away
Have throbbing pain in your head all day? It could be a stress-induced headache or migraine.
Headaches are more likely to occur when you’re stressed, the Mayo Clinic explained. Stress is a common trigger of tension-type headaches and migraine, and can trigger other types of headaches or make them worse.
What can you do about them? Not much, according to the Mayo Clinic, other than live a less stressful life. But, if your headache is sudden, severe, accompanied by a fever or double vision, or is experienced after a head injury, head to the hospital immediately.
Can Headaches Or Migraines Be Cured
Treating health problems that cause headaches, such as high blood pressure, can eliminate head pain. Recently, there have been several new advancements in our understanding of what causes headaches. Although we are closer than ever before to a cure, at this time there is no cure for primary headaches. Treatment focuses on relieving symptoms and preventing future episodes.
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What Is Acute Stress
Acute stress is one of the most common forms of stress but is the least damaging.
An acute stress reaction occurs when symptoms develop in response to an overwhelming or stressful situation, such as a natural disaster, motor vehicle accident, or life-threatening diagnosis. The reaction is usually immediate, occurring within hours to days of the stressful event. In the most basic form, acute stress can be managed with simple stress management and self-care techniques. Symptoms generally last no more than one week, or stop when the stressor is removed.
Acute stress disorder generally occurs in response to the same type of stressful event. It is accompanied by the same symptoms and can appear after encountering the stressful event, symptoms sometimes presenting at a more intense level, though onset of symptoms may be delayed for up to one month. Symptoms of acute stress disorder typically span across five categories: intrusion symptoms, negative mood, dissociative signs, avoidance symptoms, and arousal symptoms.
For this articles purposes, we will focus on the most common acute stress reaction symptoms on a general level.
Physical Symptoms Of Stress
It is typically understood that feeling mentally overwhelmed can be detrimental to ones mental health. For example, stress is closely linked to the exacerbation of psychological conditions, particularly anxiety and depression. However, it is important to note that it can also impact your physical health. Psychosomatic symptoms refer to physical problems that arise or are worsened as a result of mental stress.
Physical symptoms of stress
The way the body reacts to pressure may be linked to a flight-or-flight response, in which it releases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. This signals changes to the bodys regular functioning, such as having an increased heart rate, increased breathing rate and muscle tension, as it prepares itself to face or flee danger. Ideally, this should happen in short bursts. But if the body is under long-term stress and rarely returns to its resting state, there are several potential impacts on several body systems, for instance
- Headaches or migraines
Behavioural changes associated with stress
On top of these psychosomatic symptoms, stress can also result in behavioural changes, such as poor sleep or insomnia, or irregular eating habits . This in turn can contribute to negative outcomes for your overall wellbeing.
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When Should I See My Doctor
If you or someone close to you is experiencing an emergency, or is at risk of immediate harm, call triple zero . To talk to someone now, call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.
If you have tried relaxation techniques and reaching out to someone you trust, but still feel overwhelmed, you can check in with your doctor or speak with a mental health professional.
Stress is not itself a diagnosis but rather a clue that something else is going on. Chronic stress could be a sign of depression, anxiety or a symptom of another mental health condition. GPs and psychologists are trained to know how to recognise when stress is a sign that you need extra support, so dont hesitate to reach out for advice.
