If you are experiencing some level of burnout, you may be looking at where the cause of your stress predominantly comes from and how long that stress has been prevalent. Now the stress may have been dormant for years due to poor financial decisions, difficult relationships, or a comfortable career that\’s just not right for you.
Now, most people can feel the effects of stress, whether it be angst, anxiety, irritability, or general unrest, but how do you know what these feelings are producing under the surface?
The American Institute of Stress had an article called \”Stress Effects: How Is Stress Affecting You?\” where it outlined the body\’s different systems and how they react to stress.
I looked further at an article called \”Stress effects on the body\” by the American Psychological Association and combined both resources\’ findings based on some key systems of the body.
Immune System
The system of the body you may be most familiar with is probably the immune system. The immune system is especially important to be able to have proper cell-to-cell communication. Not surprisingly, stress hormones negatively affect your immune system, causing it to fight itself in not identifying the right cells to fight. The stress on your body may prolong recoveries, allow for infections, and make you more susceptible to catching what others may be carrying.
Nervous System
Your nervous system is negatively affected by stress in producing physical reactions to stress. This system can cause the over-activation of other systems in the body as it triggers those other areas. It does this by signaling the adrenal glands to release the adrenaline hormone for \’fight or flight\’ and the stress hormone cortisol. In high doses, neither are good, causing higher blood pressure and effects on digestion, amongst a number of other impacts.
Musculoskeletal System
The musculoskeletal system is affected if you have experienced a migraine, headaches, or tension in your muscles by the constant effects caused by high-stress levels. Now, this can cause issues with recovery, and atrophy, among many other chronic musculoskeletal issues.
Respiratory/Cardiovascular System
Now the respiratory and cardiovascular systems may be easy to identify when it comes to carrying high stress. Many people have experienced shortness of breath, breathing harder and hyperventilating, and increased cholesterol, which can then make your heart beat faster and work harder, increasing the likelihood of a stroke or heart attack. This ongoing pressure can lead to inflammation of critical vessels like the coronary arteries, linked to heart attacks.
In addition to these areas, stress has been linked to effects on the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and reproductive systems, to name a few more. This should be a huge motivation to work on regulating how much we allow our stress to control us, right? But we may have the information, but maybe we haven\’t applied the information or don\’t know quite how.
Take a look at the past 18 months and isolate just the influence of the media on our ability to regulate the stress on these systems properly. Now add to that the perpetual stress leading up to these events and how these events only worsened it.
I think it\’s always important to reflect, not dwell on or relive the past, but to reflect to adjust your behaviors going forward.
So take a look at your health; for example, what has been concerning about your health? Has it been your blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation, your weight, or hereditary conditions? Think about how stress may be directly correlated to these health issues or further worsen them.
I think oftentimes, we don\’t want to correlate any health concerns to what we dwell on directly, but it seems like our body reacts more to our mindset and outlook than we care to admit.
So what aspects of life are you dwelling on, concerns, fears, worry, you name it? I would encourage you to write down what these are that could be directly correlated to your health. Once identified, you can figure out whether your concerns are valid; you can take those emotions and apply logic to determine whether you are allowing the proverbial tail to wag the dog rather than the other way around.
CTA:
My call to action is to identify what is at the source of your stress and what control you have to lessen it. Look at changes that can be made to control what you can control and focus on that.
https://www.apa.org/topics/stress-body
