How Does Stress Affect Your Body

Summary: Stress affects the body mentally, emotionally, physically, and behaviorally. While short-term stress can be helpful, chronic stress harms immune health, increases disease risk, and disrupts daily life. Understanding stress symptoms and practicing relaxation, exercise, and gut-supporting habits can help reduce its long-term impact.

Does Stress Affect Your Body?

A Definition of Stress

Stress is the way the body responds to demands. While we most often refer to stress as a negative factor in our lives, stress is not always bad. Stress may be positive or negative, as determined by the event and the response to it. Eustress, or positive stress, is motivating and helps us focus our energy, is short term, is a perceived component of our coping abilities, feels exciting, and improves our performance. Distress, or negative stress, causes anxiety or concern, may be short or long term, is perceived as being outside of our coping abilities, feels unpleasant, decreases our performance, and leads to mental and physical problems.

Causes of Stress

There are several different causes of stress. Common sources include threats, fear, uncertainty, and cognitive dissonance, which refers to a disconnect between our actions and thoughts. People often experience stress related to work, illness, family life, relationships, finances, and physical changes, among many other factors. Typically, stress is shaped by a person’s perceptions, which may or may not accurately reflect reality. Ongoing stress can also affect physical health and is sometimes discussed alongside topics such as causes of dry cough, as tension and immune imbalance may contribute to persistent symptoms.

Stressors, or the situations and pressures that cause stress, may be external or internal. Common external stressors include major life changes, work or school, relationship difficulties, financial problems, being too busy or overwhelmed, or children and family. Common internal stressors include chronic worry, pessimism, negative self-talk, unrealistic expectations or perfectionism, a lack of flexibility, and an all-or-nothing attitude.

Signs and Symptoms of Stress

Stress affects our bodies in many ways. When stress becomes so common that it turns into a way of life, it is important to recognize how it impacts us so we can bring stress levels under control. Ongoing stress can damage health, mood, relationships, and overall quality of life, and it may also contribute to imbalances in gut health that are sometimes associated with dysbiosis symptoms.

If you are experiencing high levels of negative stress, you will most likely exhibit cognitive, emotional, physical, and/or behavioral symptoms.

• Cognitive symptoms of stress include
  • Memory problems
  • An inability to concentrate
  • Poor judgment
  • Seeing only the negative
  • Being anxious or experiencing racing thoughts
  • Constantly worrying
• Emotional symptoms of stress include
  • Moodiness, irritability, or a short temper
  • Agitation or an inability to relax
  • Feeing overwhelmed
  • Having a sense of loneliness and isolation
  • Being depressed or generally feeling unhappy
• Physical symptoms of stress include
  • Aches and pains
  • Diarrhea or constipation
  • Nausea, dizziness
  • Chest pain and/or rapid heartbeat
  • Loss of sex drive
  • Frequent colds
• Behavioral symptoms of stress include
  • Eating more or less than usual
  • Sleeping too much or too little
  • Isolating yourself
  • Procrastinating or neglecting responsibilities
  • Using alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs to help you relax
  • Beginning nervous habits such as nail biting or pacing

How to Limit the Effects of Stress on the Body

According to Greatist, 54% of Americans are concerned about the level of stress they experience in their daily lives. While some people seek therapy or medication to help manage their stress, there are other things that people can begin doing immediately to limit the effects of stress on the body. These stress management techniques include

• Starting progressive relaxation or light yoga
• Meditating
• Deep breathing
• Listening to music
• Exercising
• Laughing it off
• Getting a massage
• Taking a nap
• Spending time with a pet
• Taking a walk
• Writing it out

Staying Healthy Despite a High Level of Stress

When stress becomes a long term issue and turns into chronic stress, the body responds by releasing high levels of cortisol over extended periods. Prolonged exposure to these hormones can lead to both mental and physical effects. People dealing with chronic stress may experience anxiety, depression, and sleep problems, and they also face increased risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, and digestive issues. Chronic stress can weaken the immune system, disrupting the three lines of defense your body relies on to protect against illness and maintain overall health.

People who suffer from chronic stress are susceptible to chronic inflammatory conditions and have a weaker immune system than they should. This leaves chronic stress sufferers vulnerable to autoimmune conditions such as fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. This also means chronic stress sufferers are more susceptible to contracting an infection or disease.

To ward off the effects of stress on the immune system, people turn to probiotics. Some of the bacteria that resides in our large intestine is good bacteria that helps to control bad bacteria by producing substances to inhibit or kill the pathogens that can make us sick Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteriumare two types of bacteria that are best for boosting our immune system and keeping us healthy during stressful times, so people should look for probiotics that contain those strains of bacteria.

Researchers are also learning that gut bacteria have the ability to influence the brain, as bacteria in the large intestine can affect emotional responses to stress and overall mood. In addition, French researchers found that people who take probiotics containing Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum experience reduced levels of anger and depression along with improved problem solving abilities. Studies further show that individuals who take probiotics report lower stress levels, which helps explain the growing interest in advanced formulations such as dell v 5th generation probiotics for supporting both mental and digestive well being.

While we may not be able to completely avoid or eliminate stress in our lives, we certainly can be aware of how it affects our bodies and take steps to manage our stress and improve our health in spite of it.

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