Recognizing the signs of STRESS and Anxiety
Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/Graur Razvan Ionut
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Stress relates to our ability to deal with pressure. Pressure comes in many forms. Pressure enables us to push ourselves towards achieving goals and can be a positive motivator for action. However, in the modern world there are many factors which can have detrimental effects. Stress is a symptom of pressure and is the inability to cope with adverse or demanding circumstances. Stress manifests in a variety of ways, and how it affects our physiological, emotional, and mental state depends on pre-learned coping mechanisms, personality types, self-esteem, and cultural influences. Changes in weather and metabolism may also have an effect. Stress may occur when meeting new people, or when creativity is stifled, and a person gets bored. Stress can also occur if a leader doesn’t get to lead, or a follower is forced to lead. Understanding your own triggers is vital to combating the effects of stress.
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Anxiety is a state of fear and can manifest in the physical body as well as in the mind. When it manifests in the body we tend to focus on the symptoms, often becoming over-whelmed by their severity; but when we realise that they are a physiological response to fear we can control them. Often anxiety is as a direct result of fears, phobias and negative thought-processes. Anxiety presents in many physical ways such as:
Another major physical manifestation of anxiety relates to the heart center. Anxious people often feel constriction and pain around the heart, experience palpitations, tachycardia, and panic attacks. Often they relay fears to their doctors, seeking to uncover or rule out heart disease based on these symptoms and their whole attitude is that of trepidation. However all of these symptoms can be attributed to an overreaction, and the minds inability to deal with stressful stimuli or situations within their environment.
*DISCLAIMER: Should you be experiencing any of these symptoms you should not self-diagnose but always consult your GP to rule out any underlining medical conditions.
The mind will also manifest anxiety and this mental anxiety has recognizable symptoms such as:
Anxiety in the mind also means you tend to compare yourself to others feeling inferior, and over-indulge in self-reflection predominately with a critical or negative tone.
Stress may manifest as anxiety attacks. The symptoms to learn to recognize are: heart palpitations, shaky legs, and shortness of breath; uncontrollable emotions (anger, frustration), diarrhoea, migraines/headaches, insomnia, hair loss, lethargy, and inability to raise energy levels to match a situation.
You may have heard of our natural fight-or-flight response. This is when our peripheral nervous system readies us for fighting off an attack, or fleeing danger. It’s our natural response to perceived threats, and perfectly normal to experience these physiological changes. For instance when someone jumps out from behind a door to scare you, and it works, you’ll possibly jump slightly, your arms and hands will go out in front of you to protect you. You hold your breath for a moment and then breathe rapidly, and your heart beats quickly as it pumps blood out to your extremities, which tense up. As you realise the perceived threat is just your annoying family member, you can recover, and then have a good laugh. Laughing will actually relax your body back to a normal state a lot quicker.
Our primal fight-or-flight was a valuable survival tool; however modern world pressures have resulted in a rise in perceived threats. One merely needs to feel pressured by a demanding boss, stuck in traffic, or navigating around a busy supermarket to invoke the same nerve impulses and chemical reactions. Stress releases the hormone, adrenalin, into the blood. Adrenalin provides strength, energy and clear thinking in a crisis but organs shouldn’t be in survival mode for prolonged periods. During the state of fight-or-flight and adrenalin activation the following happens:
Unfortunately we can kick-start this fight-or-flight response and forget to turn it off or down. So our body is constantly ready to fight or escape. This mechanism is meant to be short-term, so if it continues, this state of hyper-alertness starts to take its toll on your body.
The fight mechanism might manifest itself in you as a snappy, short argumentative temper, tensed tight muscles, shallow breathing or holding your breath for periods of time. The flight mechanism may result in butterflies in the stomach, light-headedness as the blood has rushed to your extremities so you can run, digestive disorders because blood isn’t staying in your organs for the normal time period to function effectively. Being distracted, not being able to focus on one thing in front of you, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you’re straining your ears listening for danger. This causes headaches, eye strain, deafness, inability to zone out other noises to concentrate on a conversation. From here you start feeling all the symptoms of stress and your adrenal glands start to fatigue, as does the rest of your body.
So why do we care about all this? Because for a start most of the symptoms are rather unpleasant, and they affect your ability to function in your daily life, and can even prevent you from doing things you used to love to do or always dreamed of doing. Another good reason to recognize these stress and anxiety manifestations is because of the consequences as stress builds. Whereas short-term positive stress gives you the boost you need to achieve goals and take action, short-term negative stress can result in fatigue, headaches, insomnia, digestive upsets, and irritability. When the fight-or-flight response is engaged medium-term this negative stress can result in digestive disorders, migraines, hypertension, muscle/joint pain, adrenal fatigue, and persistent exhaustion. When it develops into long-term stress you can develop serious conditions related to chronic systemic fatigue and pain, angina, heart attacks, strokes, and some cancers! It all sounds awful doesn’t it? You don’t want that right? Do you know that you can do something to change your course for the better?
The first step is recognizing the signs and being self-aware. So the next time you feel any of these symptoms, stop, and consider - what is the trigger? Are you worried about a presentation you have to give at work, a job interview, a blind date, an upcoming social event, a deadline you have to meet, are you running late and stuck in traffic? If you can recognize the types of events that cause the physical and mental manifestations, you can control them. You can learn to see the signs and minimise them by recognizing that they are just as a result of your fear, phobia, or negative thinking.
Implement coping mechanisms into your routine that you can use when you’re feeling the stress or anxiety build is the next step.
When under stress, avoid making serious decisions and avoid rash/impetuous actions. Take rational action instead of emotive action.
o Or a walk around the block at lunch time can help de-stress
o Find a park or small garden where you can get fresh air and quieten your ego’s critic
o Have a relaxation Massage
o Meditate (you can use guided meditations or your own)
This is just a quick overview of some of the many ways to step away from an anxious or stressful moment. It is more complicated for chronic stress and anxiety, but start small by applying one or more of the above and you’ve just taken your first steps.
Seek advice and support, and confide in someone supportive. Sometimes just saying your fears out-loud enables you to release them out into the ethos and the physical and mental symptoms dissipate.
- Selective fatigue
- Weight loss due to appetite loss
- Indigestion and nausea (unrelated to food intake”
- Heartburn and flatulence with a feeling of ‘fullness’
- Headaches
- Too frequent urination
- Bladder pain
- Spastic colon
- Blushing
- Sweating
- Trembling
Another major physical manifestation of anxiety relates to the heart center. Anxious people often feel constriction and pain around the heart, experience palpitations, tachycardia, and panic attacks. Often they relay fears to their doctors, seeking to uncover or rule out heart disease based on these symptoms and their whole attitude is that of trepidation. However all of these symptoms can be attributed to an overreaction, and the minds inability to deal with stressful stimuli or situations within their environment.
*DISCLAIMER: Should you be experiencing any of these symptoms you should not self-diagnose but always consult your GP to rule out any underlining medical conditions.
The mind will also manifest anxiety and this mental anxiety has recognizable symptoms such as:
- Constant irritability
- Inability to cope
- Lack of interest in life/people
- Constant/recurrent fear of disease or illness
- Difficult making decisions
- Difficulty concentrating and finishing tasks
- Hurried, tensed state
- Feelings of failure, self-hatred
- Feelings of being abandoned/isolated
- Feeling, bad, sad and dreading the future
- Feel victimized or a target of other people’s animosity
- Feel as if you have no-one to confide in
- Being aware of suppressed rage or anger because you can’t express your true feelings
- Difficulty letting go
- Difficulty laughing
- Agoraphobia and claustrophobia sometimes present
- Shyness
- Social phobias
Anxiety in the mind also means you tend to compare yourself to others feeling inferior, and over-indulge in self-reflection predominately with a critical or negative tone.
Stress may manifest as anxiety attacks. The symptoms to learn to recognize are: heart palpitations, shaky legs, and shortness of breath; uncontrollable emotions (anger, frustration), diarrhoea, migraines/headaches, insomnia, hair loss, lethargy, and inability to raise energy levels to match a situation.
You may have heard of our natural fight-or-flight response. This is when our peripheral nervous system readies us for fighting off an attack, or fleeing danger. It’s our natural response to perceived threats, and perfectly normal to experience these physiological changes. For instance when someone jumps out from behind a door to scare you, and it works, you’ll possibly jump slightly, your arms and hands will go out in front of you to protect you. You hold your breath for a moment and then breathe rapidly, and your heart beats quickly as it pumps blood out to your extremities, which tense up. As you realise the perceived threat is just your annoying family member, you can recover, and then have a good laugh. Laughing will actually relax your body back to a normal state a lot quicker.
Our primal fight-or-flight was a valuable survival tool; however modern world pressures have resulted in a rise in perceived threats. One merely needs to feel pressured by a demanding boss, stuck in traffic, or navigating around a busy supermarket to invoke the same nerve impulses and chemical reactions. Stress releases the hormone, adrenalin, into the blood. Adrenalin provides strength, energy and clear thinking in a crisis but organs shouldn’t be in survival mode for prolonged periods. During the state of fight-or-flight and adrenalin activation the following happens:
- Blood moves away from outer skin in case of injury
- Sweating occurs
- Breathing rates increase drawing oxygen into the lungs
- The heart beats faster, the vessels widen and blood pressure rises
- The liver excretes blood sugar increasing energy
- Digestive system shuts down to conserve energy redirecting the blood elsewhere
- Bladder and rectum muscles relax
- Blood is pumped into the muscles and they’re tensed for action
Unfortunately we can kick-start this fight-or-flight response and forget to turn it off or down. So our body is constantly ready to fight or escape. This mechanism is meant to be short-term, so if it continues, this state of hyper-alertness starts to take its toll on your body.
The fight mechanism might manifest itself in you as a snappy, short argumentative temper, tensed tight muscles, shallow breathing or holding your breath for periods of time. The flight mechanism may result in butterflies in the stomach, light-headedness as the blood has rushed to your extremities so you can run, digestive disorders because blood isn’t staying in your organs for the normal time period to function effectively. Being distracted, not being able to focus on one thing in front of you, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you’re straining your ears listening for danger. This causes headaches, eye strain, deafness, inability to zone out other noises to concentrate on a conversation. From here you start feeling all the symptoms of stress and your adrenal glands start to fatigue, as does the rest of your body.
So why do we care about all this? Because for a start most of the symptoms are rather unpleasant, and they affect your ability to function in your daily life, and can even prevent you from doing things you used to love to do or always dreamed of doing. Another good reason to recognize these stress and anxiety manifestations is because of the consequences as stress builds. Whereas short-term positive stress gives you the boost you need to achieve goals and take action, short-term negative stress can result in fatigue, headaches, insomnia, digestive upsets, and irritability. When the fight-or-flight response is engaged medium-term this negative stress can result in digestive disorders, migraines, hypertension, muscle/joint pain, adrenal fatigue, and persistent exhaustion. When it develops into long-term stress you can develop serious conditions related to chronic systemic fatigue and pain, angina, heart attacks, strokes, and some cancers! It all sounds awful doesn’t it? You don’t want that right? Do you know that you can do something to change your course for the better?
The first step is recognizing the signs and being self-aware. So the next time you feel any of these symptoms, stop, and consider - what is the trigger? Are you worried about a presentation you have to give at work, a job interview, a blind date, an upcoming social event, a deadline you have to meet, are you running late and stuck in traffic? If you can recognize the types of events that cause the physical and mental manifestations, you can control them. You can learn to see the signs and minimise them by recognizing that they are just as a result of your fear, phobia, or negative thinking.
Implement coping mechanisms into your routine that you can use when you’re feeling the stress or anxiety build is the next step.
When under stress, avoid making serious decisions and avoid rash/impetuous actions. Take rational action instead of emotive action.
- Use humour and gratitude to lighten your day
- Take time out just for yourself -
o Or a walk around the block at lunch time can help de-stress
o Find a park or small garden where you can get fresh air and quieten your ego’s critic
o Have a relaxation Massage
o Meditate (you can use guided meditations or your own)
- Compartmentalize so that your work stays at work at the end of the day (don’t take it home physically or mentally)
- When you’re home, be in the present moment of home life, and know that work will be there in the morning
- Keep your body strong and healthy with nutritious food
- Experience joy by practicing gratitude and positive thinking and stop the negative thoughts in their tracks
- Remember that ‘this too shall pass’
This is just a quick overview of some of the many ways to step away from an anxious or stressful moment. It is more complicated for chronic stress and anxiety, but start small by applying one or more of the above and you’ve just taken your first steps.
Seek advice and support, and confide in someone supportive. Sometimes just saying your fears out-loud enables you to release them out into the ethos and the physical and mental symptoms dissipate.
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