Stomach And Gastrointestinal Issues
Feeling nausea is another common symptom of anxiety. Therefore, its no surprise that ongoing anxiety with little relief can lead to stomach and gastrointestinal issues.
Gastrointestinal issues, like diarrhea, stomach aches, nausea, and burping, are also fairly common symptoms of anxiety, psychologist Crystal I. Lee told Bustle. Anxiety affects your digestive system, which can lead to unpleasant issues.
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports that those with anxiety are more likely to experience irritable bowel syndrome, while a 2013 study published in the journal Annals of Epidemiology found a higher degree of diagnosed ulcers in patients who also lived with anxiety.
Morbidity Mortality And Markers Of Disease Progression
Psychosocial intervention trials conducted upon patients following acute myocardial infarction have reported both positive and null results. Two meta-analyses have reported a reduction in both mortality and morbidity of approximately 20% to 40% . Most of these studies were carried out in men. The major study reporting positive results was the Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project , which employed group-based CBT, and decreased hostility and depressed affect , as well as the composite medical end point of cardiac death and nonfatal MI .
Biological & Social Implications Of The Latest Findings In Chronic Stress Research
These studies significantly improve our understanding of the interactions between the nervous systems and peripheral tissues and organs, and how their alterations can cause illness . An important discovery is that if on one hand chronic stress can cause immune dysfunctions, that is, impair a peripheral function, on the other hand proper stimulation of a peripheral tissue like skeletal muscles can relieve stress symptoms and protect the brain, possibly favoring recovery. This suggests that programs of physical exercise should be formally proposed as a preventive measure to people known to be exposed to intense stress , and could be prescribed as a form of therapy in combination with other treatments to ease mood and cognitive deficits caused by chronic stress.
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How Does Stress Affect Mental Health And Well
Stress affects everyone. We all understand what it is to feel stressed that feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cope. It affects people differently and some are more affected than others.
Have you ever considered that stress may be harming your well-being?
Being under pressure is a part of modern life. Physiologically, a little stress can be good for us. It motivates us to manage high-pressure situations, such as speaking in public.
However, when stress becomes unmanageable, it starts to affect your daily life and other problems can begin to arise.
In this article we will be looking at how stress affects mental health.
How Can You Help Yourself
If you’re feeling stressed, there are some things you can try to feel less tense and overwhelmed.
1. Recognise when stress is a problem
Its important to connect the physical and emotional signs youre experiencing to the pressures you are faced with. Dont ignore physical warning signs such as tense muscles, tiredness, headaches or migraines.
Think about whats causing your stress. Sort them into issues with a practical solution, things that will get better with time and things you can’t do anything about. Take control by taking small steps towards the things you can improve.
Make a plan to address the things that you can. This might involve setting yourself realistic expectations and prioritising essential commitments. If you feel overwhelmed, ask for help and say no to things you cant take on.
2. Think about where you can make changes
Are you taking on too much? Could you hand over some things to someone else? Can you do things in a more leisurely way? You may need to prioritise things and reorganise your life so youre not trying to do everything at once.
3. Build supportive relationships
Find close friends or family who can offer help and practical advice can support you in managing stress. Joining a club or a course can help to expand your social network and encourage you to do something different. Activities like volunteering can change your perspective and have a beneficial impact on your mood.
4. Eat healthily
5. Be aware of your smoking and drinking
8. Be mindful
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Ways Anxiety Is Impacting Your Physical Health
- May 04, 2018
- 5 minute read
The human brain and body are designed to handle one-off anxiety reactions like a champ. The body gets flooded with chemicals such as the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which prepare you for a fight or flight response. Resources such as blood flow are diverted to areas of the body that prime us for action.
Its common to feel keyed up during these moments, as heart rate, sweating, and muscle tension increase. As soon as the threat has passed, the chemicals discharge and we return back to a normal, balanced state. From this perspective tied to running away from predatory animals in the early days of human life anxiety is not only normal, its a healthy adaptive response designed to keep us safe.
Nowadays, anxiety still plays an important role, but more often than not our stressors are more psychological in nature think work, money, relationships. Our response to these triggers is still largely a physical one. As a result, chronic anxiety, particularly for the 40 million Americans who live with an anxiety disorder, means our heightened anxiety response never quite calms back down. And this wreaks havoc on our well-being. How?
With this in mind, here are nine ways anxiety impacts your physical health.
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
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What Happens When You Feel Stressed
Not all stress is bad, the NIH says. A stress response is normal and can be life-saving in certain situations. Nerve chemicals and hormones released during stressful situations prepare the body to react fight-or-flight mode.
This includes breathing faster, an increased pulse rate, your muscles tense and your brain uses more oxygen to be ready to react quickly. The NIH says in the short term, stress can actually boost your immune system, too.
Our bodies are well-designed machines to react in miraculous ways when called upon however, living in fight-or-flight mode can have an impact.
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.
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Shoulders Head And Jaw
The effects of stress in your body can move through the tension triangle, which includes your shoulders, head and jaw.
Stress can trigger tension headaches, tightness in the neck and jaw, and knots and spasms in your neck and shoulders, says Dr. Lang. It also may contribute to TMJ, a jaw disorder.
Ask your doctor about remedies such as stress management, counseling or anxiety-reducing medicine.
Whats Really Going On When You Freak Out
Stressful events seem to be lurking around every corner, from a difficult deadline at work to your childs upcoming science fair project and the holidays are just around the corner. According to experts, not all stress is bad. For some people, a little stress acts as motivation to check a few more items off their daily to-do list. But what about when you feel completely overwhelmed?
Mental health experts advise that you know your personal limits to avoid serious side effects from stress. Some people cope with stress more effectively and recover from difficult events quicker so it is important to take a personal inventory every once in a while to avoid a major meltdown.
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Build A Support Network
While relationships can sometimes be a source of prolonged stress, having supportive people in your life to lean on also acts as an important buffer against acute and chronic stress. Research has found that social support is critical for both physical and mental health.
Not only does support help people become more resilient, but it also helps protect people from developing mental disorders related to stress and trauma. For example, one study found that social support helped reduce the effects of stress on symptoms of depression.
Finding support doesn’t mean you need to have an enormous network. The American Psychological Association suggests that having a handful of friends and family members can provide the emotional support you need to better manage your stress.
Southern Cross Medical Library
The purpose of the Southern Cross Medical Library is to provide information of a general nature to help you better understand certain medical conditions. Always seek specific medical advice for treatment appropriate to you. This information is not intended to relate specifically to insurance or healthcare services provided by Southern Cross. For more articles go to the Medical Library index page.
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The Effects Of Stress On Your Body
Youre sitting in traffic, late for an important meeting, watching the minutes tick away. Your hypothalamus, a tiny control tower in your brain, decides to send out the order: Send in the stress hormones! These stress hormones are the same ones that trigger your bodys fight or flight response. Your heart races, your breath quickens, and your muscles ready for action. This response was designed to protect your body in an emergency by preparing you to react quickly. But when the stress response keeps firing, day after day, it could put your health at serious risk.
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
Improving Your Ability To Handle Stress
Get moving. Upping your activity level is one tactic you can employ right now to help relieve stress and start to feel better. Regular exercise can lift your mood and serve as a distraction from worries, allowing you to break out of the cycle of negative thoughts that feed stress. Rhythmic exercises such as walking, running, swimming, and dancing are particularly effective, especially if you exercise mindfully .
Connect to others. The simple act of talking face-to-face with another human can trigger hormones that relieve stress when youre feeling agitated or insecure. Even just a brief exchange of kind words or a friendly look from another human being can help calm and soothe your nervous system. So, spend time with people who improve your mood and dont let your responsibilities keep you from having a social life. If you dont have any close relationships, or your relationships are the source of your stress, make it a priority to build stronger and more satisfying connections.
Engage your senses. Another fast way to relieve stress is by engaging one or more of your sensessight, sound, taste, smell, touch, or movement. The key is to find the sensory input that works for you. Does listening to an uplifting song make you feel calm? Or smelling ground coffee? Or maybe petting an animal works quickly to make you feel centered? Everyone responds to sensory input a little differently, so experiment to find what works best for you.
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Toxic Mold Or Mycotoxin Exposure
One of the most serious problems I encounter in my practice is mold toxicity, which can present as a myriad of psychiatric issues including anxiety, depression, brain fog, and insomnia, along with physical symptoms such as allergies, asthma, headaches, and chronic sinus infections
About 25% of the population is unable to effectively clear toxic mold from their systems , and most people with toxic mold poisoning dont even realize that mycotoxins are affecting them!
Allowed to build up, these mycotoxins can wreak havoc on your health long after exposure. Ive personally suffered from toxic mold exposure on multiple occasions, and have been forced to move apartments and offices and get rid of the majority of my belongings because of how severely the exposure affected my health. If youve gone through the four pillars of The Myers Way® and your anxiety or depression have still not resolved, you might be dealing with a mold issue. I go over how to handle mold exposure in The Autoimmune Solution, and you can also check out my podcast episode on the subject.
How Stress Can Affect Your Overall Health
Psychreg on Health Psychology
Stress is a normal part of life. The human body is designed to experience stress and react accordingly. However, it can have serious consequences if a person faces continuous challenges without relief or relaxation. As a result, the individual may feel overworked and develop stress-related tension. This unrelenting strain on the body may contribute to additional health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes or certain mental disorders.
According to BetterHelp, if you frequently feel frazzled and overwhelmed, there are strategies that can help you to bring your nervous system back into balance. Protect yourself by learning how to recognise the signs and symptoms of stress and take the necessary steps to manage it. Read on to learn how stress can affect your overall health.
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Causes & Risk Factors
Stress often results if a person feels that there are high pressures or demands, that there is a threat to their well-being or that they don’t have enough resources to cope with the demands.
Common sources of stress include a person’s physical environment , relationships, work, life situations and major life changes. These situations can include negative events such as financial problems, relationship breakup, difficulties at work or school, injury, illness or death and grieving. However, situations leading to stress can also include positive changes, such as work promotions, getting married or buying a house.
Because stress is a normal part of life, everyone experiences it. However, the intensity, frequency and duration of stress will be different for each person. Numerous factors can make the experience of stress worse, such as when people:
- have limited social support
- have difficulty regulating or balancing their emotions
- have difficulty tolerating uncertainty or distress
- lack self-confidence or do not feel they can cope with the stressor
- interpret the stressor negatively, so that they feel powerless, overwhelmed or helpless.
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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Ways To Fight Back Against Stress
The next time you feel stressed, here are four stress relief tips you can try.
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