Stress Symptoms:How stressed are YOU???

A certain level of stress brings out the best in us, often described as eustress. But high levels of unmanageable stress over a sustained period can damage our health, causing distress.

Think of it in this way - good stress or eustress, is what gets you up and running, what enables you to get to work, keep your date with your sweetheart, or clean out the attic on Sunday morning. Eustress helps to make your life enjoyable' even interesting. Such stress provides stimulation and challenges, and is essential to development, growth and change.

Bad stress or distress makes you anxious and irritable, dampens your spirit and shortens your life. Distress is a reaction to some type of pressure, either external or self-imposed, which prompts psychological and physiological changes of an undesirable nature.

These changes can be complex, but they all involve a certain group of basic body responses which arose in the course of evolution, as organisms met situations of physical danger. Such situations triggered the body's "fight or flight" response (Survival Stress).

However inappropriate they may be we observe the same response in certain social, emotional or occupational situations. Usually the responses are of short duration. If their effects persist beyond a reasonable length of time, they can lead to mental and physical problems mentioned below.

Each individual may have different reactions to the same stressor depending on how one interprets the event. Some individuals relish change; others fear it. A great deal of stress has to do with the degree to which we need to be in control of events in our life. People who have less of a need to be in control of their environment tend to experience less stress.

Many people are not aware of being under stress. Some are frequently under so much stress that they assume the feeling is normal. This is especially true for those individuals who are not aware of their emotional responses. For them, it is often necessary to rely upon the physical manifestations of stress.

There is no single symptom that can identify stress. Some physical symptoms of stress like high blood pressure and heart disease may be life threatening while others like headaches and insomnia and less so. Along with these there is an entire plethora of emotional symptoms varying from general irritability to loss of libido.

In the last article we focused on the first step in learning to manage stress: i.e. recognize the triggers or stressors in your life. The section below shows common symptoms of stress, and the negative effects that excessive stress can cause. While the symptoms in isolation may or may not show stress, where several occur it is likely that stress is having an effect. It is to important to bear in mind that all these symptoms may be caused by factors other than stress.

Note that as the stress you are under increases, your ability to recognize it will often decrease.

The symptoms are organised into the following categories:

• Short Term Physical Symptoms
• Short Term Performance Effects
• Long Term Physical Symptoms
• Internal Symptoms
• Behavioural Symptoms