How Stress Affects Your Mind and Body
Stress is an all-too-familiar feeling that all of us have undergone at numerous times in our life.
The source of stress can be events or circumstances that demand our focus and thought. You might be studying for a test that you really want to achieve a high score on, striving to make an impressive presentation that will be presented to your classmates or colleagues, making sure you’ve completed all of your tasks at home and at school or work, or all of the above.
In addition to daily events, sudden changes in your life, such as in the family, relationships, or loss of a valuable item, are also possible causes of stress.
Therefore, for most of us, stress is caused by not one, not two, but multiple reasons. This can make it more difficult to handle pressure and worry in our daily lives, and is exactly why coping strategies are important. Situations in our life, both personal and public, can be stressful. These circumstances are inevitable and oftentimes out of our control, however the way in which we respond to them, matters. Our response determines how various situations affects us because at the end of the day, we are the ones in control of our emotions. This can help prevent long-term stress. If we develop chronic stress over time, it will have a much larger and negative impact on our health.
In other words, we can’t prevent demanding situations from happening, but we can prevent ourselves from becoming overwhelmed by first understanding the harmful effects that stress can have on our bodies and minds.
Mind
One of the direct effects of stress is the release of hormones called cortisone and adrenaline, commonly known as “stress hormones.” As a result of a stressful event, these hormones are released into your body, interact with systems in our bodies and consequently disrupt the vital processes that take place within us.
Mood: Stress can give rise to feelings of irritability (which can hurt our relationships with others), anger, worry, depression, and so on. It’s important that we learn ways to regulate these emotions to minimize their impacts on our daily lives.
Anxiety is often triggered by accumulated stress, which can lead to other symptoms that are similar to those caused by stress, such as racing heart, loss of motivation or confidence, high blood pressure, etc).
Memory: You might have trouble remembering events or remembering your actions, like where you last placed your phone. Spatial memory, or the ability to recall the arrangement of things in your environment, is impaired by chronic stress, as found by studies.
Reduction of neurons: A study conducted by researchers at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science found that a single stressful event could kill nerve cells in the brain, demonstrating that stress alone is able determine the fate (not formation) and survival of brain cells.
Long-term stress can make us more prone to developing a mood or emotional disorder, thus putting us at risk for experiencing the damaging effects of them.
Body
Stress is not an isolated issue that can only affect your mind simply because it usually appears as ‘stressed’ or worried thoughts in our brains. Thus, stress can have various impacts on the rest of your body that you should be aware of.
Muscle tension can occur in almost anywhere, such as your arms, legs, back, and cause tension headaches as well.
Heartburn can also be caused by other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, but stress remains as a large trigger of heartburn symptoms due to its ability to slow digestion, create hormone imbalances, and so on.
Weakened immune system: Stress can suppress the functions of the immune system from fighting infection and disease.
Gastrointestinal system: You might experience new or increased pain and/or bloating in your stomach when you feel stressed or anxious.
Exacerbates skin conditions: Stress can worsen skin conditions (such as clogged pores & acne breakouts) by leading to inflammation in our bodies, increasing the production of oil in our skin glands, and disrupting the top layer of our skin ('epidermal barrier’) that is responsible for blocking harmful microbes and locking in moisture.
Note that the possible effects of stress are limited to the ones that are discussed in this post, so if you are interested in other specific effects, feel free to view other sources. What you can find here is only a starting point, but should be adequate to exemplify the potential negative impacts that chronic stress have on our health.
Learning about these effects is not meant to scare you. Rather, it should make you more aware of the harm that stress can do to your mental and physical health in order for you to begin adopting coping mechanisms that work best for you and prevent stress from building up. Some of these ways will be discussed in one of my upcoming blog posts, so you can read any other Your Mental Self-Care posts in the meantime!