Physical and Mental Signs of Stress
Are the muscle in your eyelids twitching out?
The longer it takes you to spot the effects that stress is having on yourself, the worse your symptoms will get. That is why it's in your best interest to find ways to relax while stressed, and learn the signs of stress before it's too late. Your chronic stress shows up in your behaviors, and your physical well-being. Without dealing with stress, you can develop chronic health problems.
Signs of Stress
1. Twitching Muscles
Twitching anywhere on your body is a sign of tiredness. Tiredness occurs when you put a lot of stress on your body. It's more than just a feeling of sleepiness. It's an overwhelming feeling of tiredness.
2. Nail-Biting
Biting your nails is an addictive behavior as a result of stress. If your nails look like a train wreck, then consider first solving your stress problems.
3. Stomach Aches and Headaches
Physical ailments are common signs of stress that make our daily lives harder. Our stress levels can spiral out of control and cause chronic illnesses.
4. Grinding Teeth
Grinding your teeth is another addictive behavior due to stress. If you get spotted as a teeth grinder, it is because you are carrying a lot of tension in your jaw.
5. Extreme Fatigue
Stressful days can leave us fatigued at the end of the day, which is normal. But constant fatigue throughout the day is either a sign that you aren't sleeping enough or you have unhealthy levels of stress.
6. Hair Loss
Hair loss can occur as a common side effect of stress. If you are interested in keeping your hair, then considering solving your stress problems first.
7. Clogged Pores
Clogged pores can lead to dry skin, acne, and rashes. This is why stress is often to be blamed for someone always scratching themselves as an addictive behavior.
8. Impulsive Behavior
Impulsive behavior is irrational and is done on a whim as a response to stressful stimuli. If you've been on an addictive activity binge lately, it could be because of high stress.
9. Lack of Motivation
Loss of motivation is another signs of stress that it is difficult to diagnose the problem for. Before you start thinking it is a mental illness, it could just be a simple problem like too much stress in your life.
10. No Appetite
Stress can lead to loss of appetite, eating less, change of diet, weight loss, or weight gain depending on the severity of your stress.
11. Memory problems
Stress can affect our bodies in ways we don't understand. Loss of memory is a common side effect of stress that can leave us unable to remember the simplest tasks sometimes.
12. Racing Thoughts
Your mind goes faster when there is more to worry about. When you put too much on your plate, that's when your mind starts spinning too fast.
13. Isolation
Being stressed naturally causes us to seek comfort in silence in order to calm our minds. But is it really the right thing to do to lock yourself in your room all day?
14. Weak Immune System
Your body gradually becomes weaker as the stress wears on you, which is why it is so important that your diet and sleep remains constant in order for you immune system to fight off colds.
15. Irritability
Stressed people have trouble keeping their emotions in check. This takes the form of irritableness, and fighting back against people who don't deserve such treatment.
Stress can be difficult to spot sometimes, because the symptoms of stress can vary from person to person. A stress related illness could also be caused by sleep deprivation among other things. Listen to your body and you should be able to offset the problems caused by stress in your life.
Be Careful when You Notice Any of These Signs of Stress in Your Life. They Degrade Your Physical and Mental Health Slowly
Watch for these signs of stress for risk of mental and physical exhaustion. Stress has a tendency to add up and become a chronic problem plaguing us for the rest of our lives. Here's what happens to you when stressed out.
1. Your Muscles Keep Having Spasms
Especially around your eyelids. But the twitching can occur anywhere in your body. Signs of stress can make your body on-edge and this can result in the occasional tremors beneath your skin. It's definitely a strange feeling, but it is just a harmless side effect of having too much on your plate at once. Once you take the workload off yourself you should notice your muscle spasms going away.
2. Biting your Nails Down to the Cuticle
Nail-biting is a well-known symptoms stress that can leave your cuticles unhealthy and prone to hangnails and infection. You can get as many manicures as you want, but if your nail-biting habit persists then you may want to solve the problem at the source. The chronic stress you carry around with you is the culprit. Biting your nails is just nervous behavior, and whenever you do it, it signals that your mind is preoccupied and you aren't even aware of your addictive behavior.
3. Stomach Aches and Headaches All the Time
Headaches are the absolute worst during a busy workweek. Headaches cause us stress, but they are also caused by stress at work. It's a never-ending cycle of stress that leads us to excruciating pains all over our body. The two most common are stomach and headaches. They can be very difficult to live through if they happen all the time. The occasional aching here or there might just mean a bad meal or something benign. But if they are chronic, then your stress is to blame. The signal that your stress is trying to tell you should be warning enough. Eliminate stress in your life or physical ailments will start to present themselves.
4. Cavities from Grinding Your Teeth
Similar to biting our nails, we also grind our teeth together when we are nervous. It causes misaligned and poorly managed teeth. When stressed we most often tend to grind our teeth in our sleep when we aren't aware of it. A temporary solution is to get a mouthpiece for all times of the day and night. If it really gets to be a problem though, you have to nip the problem in the bud. Your source of teeth grinding is mental stress that is wearing you down. It's also wearing your teeth down.
5. Extreme Fatigue and Sleepiness
This is an obvious signs of stress or sleep deprivation. You are tired all the time, yet you are sleeping normally at night. Regardless of your sleep habits, your chronic stress during the day is contributing to your restless state. It could also be causing you to get to bed later than usual or causes low-quality sleep. Having high tension in our minds and bodies carries over to our sleep cycles where we are supposed to be relaxed. Our minds and bodies are connected. If there is something wrong with one, it will spill over into the other. Chronic stress spills over into every aspect of our lives.
6. Noticeable Hair Loss
The science behind it is unsure, but the hair on your head is in danger if you undergo a lot of stress. Studies have linked hair loss with stress. There is even this signs of stress in women sometimes. There is healthy stress and there is unhealthy stress. Unhealthy stress could be small stressors that build up over time and cause your body to react in unfavorable ways. Is it any wonder why people with the most stressful jobs are balding early in their lives?
7. Clogged Pores Leading to Acne and Rashes
Did you know that one of the causes of stress is clogged pores leading to dry skin, and worse? It may not be the cold weather that is having those effects on your skin. Make sure you check your stress levels, before it ruins your skin. Stress is one of the worst culprits of skin problems. Makeup and moisturizer sometimes isn't strong enough to counter the effects of a stressful lifestyle. Save some money and instead find ways to eliminate the stressors.
8. Impulsive Behavior and Addictive Personality
When we have signs of stress, we have problems. In the process of coping with stress in negative ways, we let off steam in sometimes very destructive ways. Addictive behaviors are self-destructive, and are the leading symptom of stress in our lives. Whether you get a dangerous addiction, or just an addiction to food or technology, it is unhealthy behaviors stemming from an unhealthy stressful lifestyle. Some of us are just born with an addictive personality, and some of us gain it through chronic stress.
9. Loss of Motivation to Leave the House
With a lot of stress in our lives, we have a tendency to care less about things. We have little motivation to keep taking care of ourselves and keep up with our relationships. We settle for whatever the easiest option. Most of the time, that means staying at home and engaging in addictive behaviors. So in order to have the motivation to go out and take care of things we need to and live a normal life, we have to solve our emotional stress problems first. The residue of stress can be seen far after, so it's an uphill climb to get your motivation back.
10. Loss of Appetite Leading to Change of Diet
Usually, with stress comes a loss of appetite. We just aren't hungry as often. We lose weight, but not in a healthy way. Stress has a way of changing our diet to eat unhealthy foods but also starve ourselves in the meantime. One of the effects of stress is also weight gain, but that is less common than weight loss. If you're appetite has changed dramatically recently, there's a good chance you have a large amount of stress bothering you.
11. Trouble Remembering Things
Issues with memory are more commonly associated with lack of sleep or elevated levels of anxiety. The sign of stress that wears on us daily makes our mind and body work overtime. Which is why stress will leave us feeling exhausted all day and unable to remember short-term or long-term tasks. It's easy enough to tell someone stressed to just concentrate in order to remember something important. But because stress places excessive force on our minds, we cannot function properly and we need to make any reminders in order to complete our daily tasks.
12. Uncontrollable Racing Thoughts
Stressful events can often cause us to think more than necessary about things outside our control. These racing thoughts can show up suddenly and then not go away, causing many people with stress to go see a doctor. Racing thoughts can contribute to sleeplessness and insomnia if left untreated. These racing thoughts could be about anything, and feel like a hopeless symptom to treat while it's happening. But the culprit is usually because of stress overflowing into your life.
13. Isolation From Others
Stress often causes us to do the wrong thing of isolating ourselves socially and mentally. We lock ourselves into a small corner when we are most vulnerable and block off contact with the outside world until things get better. But more often than not, the isolation just makes the stress worse. Isolation causes us to harbor chronic anxiety and further feeds the fire of mental illness. When we are stressed, the last thing we need to do is block ourselves from the outside world. Our stress can be solved with the help of others, if only we would let them inside.
14. Getting Sick More Often
Our immune system becomes weaker the more stressed we become. If you find yourself not feeling well way too often, then it could be more than just bad bacteria entering your system. You could have a heightened stress level that is keeping your body on its toes in an alert state all the time. This leads to overworking your immune system and it no longer has the strength to fight off even common colds. So you will find that with stress you will get sick more often, and your colds will last longer than usual.
15. Irritability and a Short Temper
A side effect from stress is your mood. Your mood is on shaky ground when things in your life aren't going smoothly. This is a reason why stressed individuals tend to isolate themselves from others, because they are afraid that their mood swings will rub other people the wrong way. Irritability is a common mood characteristic of those undergoing anxiety that plagues their mind all day and night. As soon as the stress goes away, so does the moodiness. People who carry a lot of stress have a lot of chronic personality issues that could also be linked with health problems. Everyone experiences stress differently, and each person's personality also reacts differently to higher amounts of stress.
