How do I know if I'm stressed? Chronic stress: how to identify and solve the problem

Stress can be caused by various troubles. It is worth noting that good deeds, relaxation, physical exercise, essential oils help overcome stress, but in no case should you fight stress with food.

To understand why stress overtakes us, we need to understand the state of stress, which is often mixed with anxiety and depression.

Stress is a natural reaction of our body to external stimuli. Often noise and conflict situations at work and in the family are the causes of stress. It should be noted that as long as our body is able to respond to these stimuli, there is no need to worry, but if the body succumbs to these aggressors and cannot withstand their “pressure,” we should be wary.

Anxiety, resistance, powerlessness

Stress has three phases - anxiety, resistance and powerlessness.
Anxiety is an immediate reaction to a stimulus. The alarm signal begins at the level of the hypothalamus, which is responsible for our emotions. In response to an alarm signal, the adrenal glands produce adrenaline and norepinephrine nerve cells, which allow a person to instinctively respond to a stressful situation - both psychologically and physically. A person’s heart and respiratory rhythms begin to accelerate, blood flow to the muscles and brain increases, and this provokes insomnia. To combat these unpleasant symptoms, the hypothalamus stimulates the synthesis of another hormone - cortisol, which actively fights back stress by increasing the synthesis of sugar. Thus, for protection, our body mobilizes all its energy reserves. At this stage, some psychosomatic symptoms often appear, such as arterial hypertension, pain, pressure (urticaria). Ultimately, prolonged resistance and intense tension in the body's defense system lead to the fact that our body weakens to such an extent that it becomes powerless against stress and turns into fertile ground for the development of various diseases.

When is it time to sound the alarm? How can you tell if a person is truly stressed?

Unlike anxiety and depression, stress goes away along with the cause that caused it. For example, a person whose stress was caused by work easily gets rid of it during vacation. However, you should be wary if stress does not go away even in a new environment, regardless of whether the cause that caused the stress has been eliminated or not. In this case, we are no longer talking about stress, but about anxiety. And if the symptoms are still noticeable and the condition worsens, anxiety develops into depression. Depression differs from stress and anxiety in that in a depressed state a person’s activity decreases, a loss of strength is felt, and interest in everything disappears.

You feel chronic fatigue, you suffer from insomnia, you are indifferent to everything that happens around you, little things unsettle you, you cannot concentrate on work, you have only one desire - to be left alone so that no one bothers you, you have developed irritability and aggression, do you smoke constantly and drink alcohol or other stimulants? You should be wary if you find yourself with at least three or four of the signs listed above. Stress can cause cardiovascular diseases, arterial hypertension, heart attack, ulcers, colitis, Crohn's disease, asthma, various dermatitis, eczema, since stress weakens the immune system. Our body either fights stress or succumbs to it. Often the causes of stress are the following factors: environmental pollution, traffic jams, extraneous noise on the roads, strained professional relationships.

There are people who lose their appetite due to stress and begin to lose weight because the biological reactions that stress provokes consume a lot of energy. Thus, we can say that stress is a means of losing weight. But for most people, stress causes the opposite reaction, that is, people fight stress with the help of food: they consume large amounts of chocolate, cakes, sweets and other foods rich in sugar and fat, and often abuse alcohol. All this can lead to significant weight gain and even obesity. These irresistible desires can lead to bulimia in almost a third of women suffering from stress. As for men, they are less susceptible to this temptation.

Every person does not deny that they constantly experience stress. How to distinguish stress from anxiety and how to deal with both, read the article.

Most people do not distinguish stress from anxiety at all, and these are two completely different phenomena that need to be dealt with in different ways. The ability to distinguish stress from anxiety in each specific situation helps to avoid stress on the body and allows you to expect a speedy recovery and stabilization of a person’s emotional state.

What is stress and how to deal with it

Stress is emotional and physical tension caused by a specific reason. There is always a stress factor and usually when it disappears, the stress goes away. The duration of stress depends only on the psyche and behavior of a person. When we are stressed, we always show emotions - especially aggression and anger, and this is quite normal. You need to fight not with stress, but with its cause. If eliminating the cause of stress does not depend on you, the following helps with stress:

1. Soothing tea.

2. Reading books.

3. Helping other people.

4. Ambitious plans.

5. Delicious food (even if the fact that bananas and chocolate save you from stress does not work, you can program yourself).

Stress is a common phenomenon in our lives, and a person can easily cope with it on his own.

What is anxiety and how to deal with it

The word “stress” has always frightened us much more than “anxiety,” but in reality the situation is quite the opposite. As we said earlier, a person can handle stress on their own, and this is a common occurrence. Anxiety is a condition that can occur in a person after a stressful situation or for no reason at all. The nature of this condition is that a person is constantly anxious, worried, and cannot calm down and go about his usual activities. Anxiety can drag on for a very long period of time and this has a very negative impact on our health and well-being. If the state of anxiety is prolonged, a person cannot cope with it on his own - he needs to contact a psychologist or even a neurologist, who will give his recommendations.

There is a difference between stress and anxiety, and it is very noticeable and understandable. Let there be no stress or anxiety in your life. Be healthy!

Let's figure it out first what is stress. Stress is a reaction of the body that can occur under the influence of extreme factors. We experience stress when an intractable or threatening situation appears on the way. Agree, without the existence of stress, our life would be boring, because during such a state the hormone adrenaline is produced. Sometimes it is simply vital as a challenge or motivation to perform certain actions in order to get at least one step closer to your goal.

If there are a lot of such impossible tasks, a person may not be able to cope with all of this, and then he develops sense of anxiety. But gradually accumulating anxieties and fears suppress a person’s willpower and firmly fit into his daily life. This is how they arise anxiety disorders. The list of anxiety disorders in our lives includes panic states - frequent attacks of fear, accompanied by rapid heartbeat, dizziness, a feeling of lack of air, numbness or tingling of the fingers and toes.

Why does stress occur?

Stress and anxiety may occur when exposed to such external sources, How:

• changing of the living place
• change of job
• divorce
• death of a loved one
• money problems
• fear of not fulfilling one's obligations by a certain deadline
• family conflicts
• disputes
• lack of sleep, etc.

• beliefs and internal values
• low self-esteem (read, ?)
• various phobias
• true to your word

What are the symptoms of stress?

Symptoms can appear in a matter of minutes or over time. Panic attacks can be emotional outbursts, which are accompanied by a feeling of fear, increased heart rate and sweating.

If you are tired, your muscles are tense, they suddenly become irritable and impatient, To you it's hard to concentrate on anything And insomnia appeared- we can assume that you are now in a state of stress. In addition, when you are stressed, you may feel as if you not enough air, breathing may become difficult, trembling and nausea appear.

What complications may arise?

If you do not try to get out of the state of stress and eliminate the above symptoms, complications will arise that will be very difficult to eliminate: headaches, constipation and diarrhea, insomnia, alcoholism, drug use and smoking, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic depression will become constant.

What can I do now?

Well, now You know everything about stress- the main enemy of man in the constant race of the modern world. And in order to take the first step towards a full recovery and defeat this disease, you need to start acting step by step. Find out how to overcome stress and get out of this state forever in our next article “

With constant change, a polluted environment and societal pressures, it is not surprising that almost everyone has felt stressed at some point. Let's figure out how to understand that you really are experiencing nervous tension and how you can cope with it. Stress is a reaction of the body that occurs under the influence of various extreme situations and circumstances. In a person, this state appears when a difficult or dangerous task stands in his way. It comes at moments when a storm of events is in full swing in life and you need to take appropriate actions and decisions. A stressful situation requires constant activity - this leads to tension.

How to tell if you're stressed

Not every person can recognize the presence of stress the first time. Some refer to one-time cases of mood changes, others think that this is all in the order of things, etc. But stress cannot be treated carelessly, because if you stop treating yourself with due attention, negative experiences can turn into a permanent form of anxiety.

To prevent this from happening, you need to check yourself for the presence or absence of signs of stress. These symptoms include the following:

• When a person is unable to concentrate on one thing;
• Frequent illnesses, colds appear, and the general condition of the body worsens;
• Fatigue occurs from any type of activity, and this happens faster than usual;
• A person tries for hours to force himself to fall asleep, constant insomnia appears;
• My head starts to hurt often and for no apparent reason;
• Taste preferences have changed and you no longer like this or that food, it becomes difficult to understand whether it is tasty or not;
• Or the appetite is completely lost, and the person feels hungry all the time;
• Stupid, groundless worries begin to overcome;
• A person thinks about insignificant details;
• The desire to cry for no reason comes in attacks;
• Hair falls out significantly, nails become damaged, the skin deteriorates and, in general, the appearance ceases to be attractive;
• Emotional explosions occur, a state of fear appears and the person refuses to understand that something is wrong with him;
• The heartbeat often increases, muscles tense, sweating increases;
• The person becomes more impatient with everything and irritable;
• Along with crying, sudden attacks of uncontrolled laughter and much more are also possible.

In addition, in a state of stress, a feeling may appear when there is not enough air and there is nothing to breathe. In this case, breathing processes become difficult, and tremors in the body and attacks of nausea may even occur.

To understand whether there is stress or not, you need to analyze all these signs; if 3-4 points match, then you need to sound the alarm. They can form either in a few minutes or over some time.

Causes of stress

Feelings of anxiety and stress can arise from various external and internal sources.

External ones include:

Internal sources of stress:

• Loyalty to special concepts and promises;
• The presence of certain phobias that interfere with everyday life;
• A person has low self-esteem and does not feel at ease;
• A person’s internal beliefs and values ​​can contribute to stress.

If you do not understand in time that you are stressed and do not get rid of its signs, then complications may arise. It will be very difficult to get rid of them later. A person will constantly experience high blood pressure, headaches, insomnia, diarrhea, constipation, etc. In addition, stress can lead to alcoholism and drug use. In this regard, understanding how to eliminate stress is important knowledge.

How to get rid of stress

You need to treat your health very carefully and you should understand that no one will take care of it except you. In order to eradicate the symptoms of stress, you need to help your body.

Acceptance and understanding of all these points can significantly improve a person’s well-being and can relieve stress.

Stress is not a normal human condition and no one should live under stress. To understand whether you are stressed or not, you should pay attention to your behavior. And, even if negative symptoms of stress are just beginning to appear, it is necessary to prevent this at the initial stage. Don't ignore the signs of illness.

How to recognize stress?

Modern man is almost always in a state of stress. The main source of stress is a lack of constancy and stability, a reaction to worries and problems, and the struggle with everyday difficulties. This applies to both negative phenomena in our lives and positive ones.

If the sources of stress are not recognized in time, it can develop into illness. A person often creates a stressful situation himself, transforming the positive meaning of stress into a negative one. This, in turn, can turn into a prolonged state of tension that depletes the body's vitality. Chronic stress can trigger the development of depression, professional burnout, emotional exhaustion, and eating disorders. Depression and other severe consequences of stress are treated by professional psychologists and psychotherapists.

Stress performs a mobilization reaction in the body, promoting development and increasing the level of adaptation. It motivates the human body and psyche not only to adapt to the world around us, but also to develop and achieve new forms of behavior in the environment and allows us to achieve goals and satisfy individually significant needs.

Canadian physiologist G. Selye first introduced the concept of “stress - as a nonspecific response of the body to any demand presented to it.”

This is a response to the adaptive reactions of the body that arise as a result of any external influences, aimed at restoring homeostasis - the constancy of the internal environment.

Stress occurs in 3 stages:

1 – alarm reaction, the level of body resistance decreases;

2 – adaptation, the anxiety reaction decreases, the body’s resistance increases;

3 – distress; If there is no restructuring of the body, exhaustion of the body may occur.

Stress is a complex interaction of mental and somatic functions. This is a cognitive interpretation - the meaning that a person attaches to an event and depends on his attitudes, his personal aspects, experience, character. That is, stress is largely produced by the person himself and the way he perceives the situation. What matters is not what happens to a person, but how he reacts to it.

Stress occurs as a result of exposure to stressors - biological or psychological factors that cause tension and disrupt the existing balance (homeostasis). Based on the degree of impact on a person, stressors can be divided into the following types:

Mild (family quarrel, job change, etc.);

Average (dismissal from work, illness of a loved one);

Severe (death of a loved one, aggression, violence, etc.);

Catastrophic (sudden death of family members, child).

Stress can be biological (physiological) and psychological.

Physiological stress is the body’s reaction to stress factors, mainly of a non-psychological nature (cold, heat, physical trauma, high or low atmospheric pressure, etc.) and is aimed at restoring homeostasis.

Psychological stress – psychological stress-generating external influences. Psychological stress can be informational and emotional. Information stress occurs in conditions of human information overload (emergency situations). Emotional stress - in extreme situations (natural disasters, sudden attack, etc.).

The first step toward relieving stress is to learn to recognize certain signs that indicate your body is under stress. Stress usually creates the following sequence: stress-symptom-disease. Therefore, it is necessary, with the help of observations and introspection, to recognize the connection between the symptom and the stress that caused it as quickly as possible.

Signs of stress are divided into 3 categories according to the areas of their manifestation:

Psychophysiological stress manifests itself in muscle tension, trembling and nervous tics, dizziness, increased heart rate, high blood pressure, difficulty breathing, increased sweating, pain in the back, neck, chest, etc.

Emotional stress causes feelings of irritability, anxiety, anger, hostility, aggressiveness, and an inability to concentrate. There is a feeling of loss of control over oneself, helplessness, hopelessness, fear, panic.

At the behavioral level, in order to get away from stress, a person begins to smoke, drink alcohol, eat heavily, loses interest in communication, withdraws, and falls into apathy.

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