Stress is a condition which triggers a biological response. Once you face a major challenge hormones surge in your body. In this article, we are to describe all about stress, so if you tend to know more about this disorder read this article to the end.
To fight the stressors, stress triggers fight to fight response and when it happens, your body starts to relax. Many people may experience stress throughout their lives but as people are different, they experience it differently. Stress does not always appear in bad form for example stressor your wedding day can be thought to be a good form of stress. Stress is usually temporary. On the other word, after you get stressed, your heart rate and breathing should slow down in a short time and consequently your body should return to its natural state. As is reported, 80 percent of Americans have experienced at least one symptom of having stress. It is not feasible to eradicate stress completely yet it is good to learn how to manage it when its unavoidable.
What is stress?
Stress is a very normal biological reaction that body makes in dangerous conditions. Once you face sudden stress, your body produces hormones like adrenaline which cause your heart to beat faster and send blood to major organs.
Stress hormones
When you feel danger, hypothalamus sends hormone signal to your adrenal gland that release tons of hormones. These hormones prepare you to face danger and increases the chance of running away from it.
One the hormones your body releases to prepare you face danger is known as adrenaline or epinephrine. This hormone’s duty is to:
- Increase your heartbeat
- Accelerate breathing
- Contract blood vessels
- Inhibit insulin production
Needless to say that frequent adrenaline surge can be harmful and has the following side effects:
- Damage blood vessels
- High blood pressure
- Higher danger of heart attack
- Headache
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Obesity
Types of stress
Stress divides into 3 types including:
- Acute stress
- Episodic acute stress
- Chronic stress
Acute stress
This kind of stress occurs when you face a new and challenging situation. people who narrowly escape a car accident are probable to experience this kind of stress. Acute stress is a kind of stress that appears out of excitement. For example, when you get on roller coaster or when you ski down a steep mountain, you feel this kind of stress. Acute stress is not harmful for you and it may even be good for you as it gives your brain the practice in developing the best response to the future stressful conditions.
Episodic acute stress
This type of stress happens when you experience frequent episodes of acute stress. When you are stressed for events and thing that you suspect to happen, you are probable to experience episodic acute stress. Certain professions like firefighter, police officers, and …. may experience this kind of stress. Furthermore, episodic acute stress may affect both your physical and mental health.
Chronic stress
When you have high stress level in a long period of time, you have chronic stress. Long term stress may have negative impact on your health which include the following diseases:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- High blood pressure
- Weakened immune system
- Cardiovascular
Causes of stress
There are many factors that may cause stress. The causes of stress include:
- Having chronic illness
- Surviving an accident
- An unhappy marriage
- Prolonged
- Being a victim of crime
- Having abusive relationship
- Living through a natural disaster
- Having a dangerous profession
- Having a job you hate
Stress headache
The tense in muscles in the head, face and neck cause stress headache which is known as tension headache. Stress headache has the following symptoms:
- Moderate dull head pain
- Feeling pressure around forehead
- Tenderness of scalp
Stress eating
People have different reaction toward stress, some of the stresses leads to overeating. In case you find yourself thinking and eating, eating more than you used to and you start eating at midnight you may be stress eating.
Stress at work
Work can be one of the other sources of stress. Stress at work appears like:
- Feeling lack control over everything
- Negative thoughts
- Overworking
- Experience conflict with co worker
If you dislike your job or always respond to other people’s demand, your stress is unavoidable. Indeed, finding balance and managing stress plays an important role in your mental health.
Stress and anxiety
Stress and anxiety are different. Stress comes from demands on your brain while anxiety appears when you feel high level of worry and fear. Having both stress and anxiety can have severe negative impacts on your health like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, panic, and depression.
However, experiencing stress is a normal part of your life. Apparently, too much stress has bad effect on your physical and mental health. Fortunately, there are many ways to manage stress.