Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior

Stress symptoms may be affecting your health, even though you might not realize it. You may think illness is to blame for that nagging headache, your frequent insomnia or your decreased productivity at work. But stress may actually be the culprit.

Common effects of stress

Indeed, stress symptoms can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior. Being able to recognize common stress symptoms can give you a jump on managing them. Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.

Common effects of stress on your body

• Headache
• Muscle tension or pain
• Chest pain
• Fatigue
• Change in sex drive
• Stomach upset
• Sleep problems

Common effects of stress on your mood

• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Lack of motivation or focus
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Irritability or anger
• Sadness or depression

Common effects of stress on your behavior

• Overeating or undereating
• Angry outbursts
• Drug or alcohol abuse
• Tobacco use
• Social withdrawal
• Exercising less often

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LOVE AND FREEDOM

By Marianne Williamson

June 3, 2017

In a free society we do not all have to agree with each other. That’s pretty much the point of freedom. And no one has a monopoly on truth.

Our challenge today, it seems to me, is to find a way beyond the propaganda and stereotypes to reclaim the high minded core of both conservative and liberal principles. Both deserve respect, and have had and continue to have an important role to play in our nation’s history. At best, they form a kind of yin and yang of our collective conversation. It is not either one of them, but rather the radical perversions of both that form too much of our public dialogue today, that threaten the fabric of our democracy.

This is not a time for knee-jerk attacks on people who don’t agree with us, although it’s absolutely a time to stand passionately for the things we believe in. That’s a challenging juxtaposition at times but we owe it to ourselves, and to our country, to find the sweet spot where we can bless even those with whom we politically disagree.

To those who might say you can’t bless someone and politically oppose them at the same time, I say, “Oh yes you can!” In a way, it’s no different than in sports. The competition is on another level. The fact that I understand and respect you does not mean that I have to agree with you.

What is going on in our country now is profoundly dramatic yet deeply significant, and nothing is more important than that we view the happenings not as Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, but as Americans. This is way too important a moment to diminish with personal disrespect or shoddy thinking. All of us need to rise to the occasion, think deeply and love wisely. For only from that place will we forge a better future.

We will emerge from this time a somewhat different country than we used to be. We will either be worse or we will be better, and each of us with our own thinking and behavior are basically voting for one direction or the other every day. First, let us love each other. Only that way will we choose correctly. God bless us all, and the country, the planet, and the world that we all share.

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What Having Anxiety Feels Like

I didn't know what anxiety was - I called it stress. It doesn't matter what you call it, the effects are the same. How do you do it?

Reprogramming our Mind

"Does my subconscious programming support my heart's desire?" If we are generally unobservant of these behaviors, how do we know what our programs are?

Since most of the programming occurred before we were seven, and especially since much of our personality was defined before we were born, our conscious minds may have no clue what was downloaded into our subconscious minds. So how can we assess the character of our subconscious programming?

That is easy once you understand the interplay between the subconscious and conscious minds. Since 95 percent of our behavior is controlled by our subconscious autopilots, not our conscious minds, by definition our lives are physical printouts of the behaviors programmed in our subconscious minds.

If, for example, you've struggled with money all your life, think back, as a number of financial gurus now counsel, to the programming you received about money when you were young and how that programming is still impacting your life. In her book The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, Suze Orman writes, "Messages about money are passed down from generation to generation, worn and chipped like the family dishes." Orman, for example, learned very young that the reason her parents "seemed so unhappy" was not that they didn't love each other but that there was never enough money to pay the bills. "In our house money meant tension, worry and sorrow."

You can, as now wealthy Orman did, undo even the most negative programming. And you don't have to change your whole life! Just focus on the areas where you need help. Maybe money savvy comes naturally to you, but you struggle in relationships. No need to work on your subconscious programming regarding money. The things you like, the things that come easily to you, are already supported by positive subconscious programming - that's why you experience them. However, anything you have to work hard on, anything you've tried over and over to change with no success, anything you struggle to acquire - those are the areas that most likely represent limiting and self sabotaging subconscious beliefs that need to be reprogrammed.

Not only do you not need to change everything, but it's not necessary to go to a psychologist to understand everything. You don't have to rip yourself apart emotionally. You don't have to focus on the people who are to "blame" for your programming. It's not necessary to kill the messenger. It's the message that needs to be rewritten because it's the message that has given rise to your behavior. So don't waste time going back and dwelling on the messenger, because that effort generally stimulates those old feelings that were so painful and brings them back to life again. All you have to do is focus on rewriting those subconscious behavioral programs that interfere with realizing your desires.

See Bruce H. Lipton on how we change our limiting belief systems here.

Author: Bruce H. Lipton

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., cell biologist and lecturer, is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit

Strategies for stress: talking about it

When it comes to stress, many people overlook the simple strategy of talking. Here’s how it can help you to reduce stress and improve your health and well being.

Talking can help you to:

Build healthy relationships

Social interaction is important for mental health and wellbeing. Talking to friends, family and colleagues can help to build strong relationships and develop trust. With strong relationships, you may feel more comfortable talking about how you feel more regularly. Feeling isolated or not having the opportunity to talk regularly to others can affect mental wellbeing.

Gain perspective

People who aren’t involved in a particular situation or problem can approach it with a fresh perspective. Stress can cloud your ability to see solutions that might seem obvious to an outsider. Talking to someone - whether it is a friend, colleague or trained professional - may help you to gain perspective and have a positive impact on your stress levels.

Find your triggers

Conversations with other people help us to recognise triggers that may be affecting our stress levels. We all perceive and react to situations in different ways. It could be your individual reaction to an event that may be affecting how stressed you feel. Talking to friends and colleagues may help you to understand how other people react in the same situation. Talking to trained professionals may help you understand how your responses are linked to thought patterns and emotions.

Manage your behaviour

How we react or behave when we are under pressure doesn’t just have an impact on you, but may also affect friends, family and colleagues. How you cope with stress may affect your behaviour towards diet, exercise, alcohol, caffeine and smoking habits. All of which can have a negative effect on your health and wellbeing long term.

Know when it’s time get professional help

Stress is a normal part of life and talking with friends or colleagues can help, but sometimes these conversations may help you to realise that you’re not coping and may be suffering from high levels of stress, anxiety or depression.

If you want to take the conversation further, speak to your GP or enquire about emotional wellbeing services from a trusted provider.

Author: SHARON JAMES - Senior Health & Wellbeing Physiologist

Find out more about emotional wellbeing services at Nuffield Health.

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