How Chronic Stress Affects Your Body and Mind: Symptoms, Signs and Causes

Loading...

Share This:

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linkedin

The human body is designed to experience stress and react to it.

But when stress becomes overwhelming, it can damage your mood and relationships, and lead to a host of serious mental and physical health problems.

Learn how stress can affect your health so that you can take. Stress occurs more often than we think and can actually be a positive source of motivation - helping us complete deadlines or push harder across the finish line.

Here are the top 10 ways that stress harms your mind and body.

1. Causes Headaches

Stress can cause everything from a minor headache to a migraine. Plus, it makes your muscles tense up, leading to more pain.

2. Disturbs Your Sleep Cycle

Stress can affect your sleep quality and lead to disturbed sleep. Over time, stress t can lead to chronic health problems and negatively impact your quality of life.

3. Makes You Gain Weight

When you are under stress, the body releases cortisol, a hormone that makes you crave sugar and high-fat foods. This leads to weight gain.

4. Impairs Digestion

Stress can also upset your digestive system and lead to chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract due to the rush of hormones, fast heart rate and rapid breathing.

5. Triggers Hair Loss

Stress can harm your locks and may cause hair on your scalp to shed. It negatively affect the cycling activity of hair follicles, which in turn causes hair loss.

6. Triggers Asthma Attacks

Stress can actually trigger asthma attacks, in which the airway between the nose and the lungs constricts.

7. Hurts Your Heart

Experiencing too much stress, for too long, is just bad for your heart. It increases the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, chest pain or irregular heartbeats.

8. Weakens Immunity

During stress, the cortisol level increases in the body, which can alter immune system responses. This affects your immunity, making you more prone to colds, the flu and infections.

9. Accelerates Skin Aging

Avoid frowning or making faces when you’re under stress, as it can lead to skin aging. In fact, the more stress you experience, the more harm it does to your skin.

10. Affects Brain Tissue

Any kind of stress may impair the ability to use cognitive techniques known to control fear and anxiety. It can even cause problems related to concentration and learning ability.